This is consistent with what I hear over and over about in-state direct admit to UW Seattle CS. CS is not in my experience wheelhouse so I typically don’t jump in. But living in Seattle and having ties with UW, I do hear your version of the experience quite a lot. Plus, in addition to yield protection, UW CS is pretty high caliber. Consider its location for starters.
Let me emphasis this point a bit more. Very early on my son described to me life in college in the following manner: There is no relationship (within reason) between the courses you take and the name on your degree (like CS, Math, ORFE, maybe even Philosophy etc). And there is no relationship between the name on the degree and the job you can/do get – Consulting/IB/SWE/Quant/Policy analyst/Product Management etc . Therefore one should not be too worried about these things - e.g. whether you pickup a masters along the way or not is irrelevant. That is just an administrative thing. In the real world it makes very little difference. The only real life constraints are what courses you are allowed to take. For example he signed up for a minor in Values and Public Life. He told me not to get attached to the idea :-). He said that it is good to be in this minor because it gave you access to interesting visiting scholars over small group lunches. He said when he is forced to take even one extra class he doesn’t want to take, he is going to drop that minor. Different people go to college for different reasons. One reason to go to college is to have an unfettered learning environment for any course or program. You want colleges that offer such an environment.
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UW has an overall yield of just over a quarter. I realize CS is likely not reflective. A UNC, for example, is 45%. Perhaps due to theyr in state focus the keep more.
Bottom line and I may be wrong - I don’t think any public yield protects. They don’t need to.
I think you hit the nail on the head here. It is among the most ballyhooed of UW’s highly regarded areas of excellence, and with almost its own campus within the larger campus. It is extremely competitive, and a number of kids in-state with the goods to make it in will usually have the choice to attend really big-name schools elsewhere. I know prestige is not your thing, but it is for a lot of kids, especially in the competitive Seattle area, and amongst that population are kids who aren’t thinking value in the same way an adult does. They’re thinking getting away from home and going to a school they can name drop. Many an in-state applicant competitive for UW CS will choose a Duke or a UCLA CS over it. The other schools are also good at CS and they have big national names and they’re away from home.
As I said, unlike the law school discussions, I have no inside baseball on this other than what is discussed amongst the college-bound and their supporters in my larger social circle. Do with that what you will. I tend to believe it.
It’s true that coursework is very important, but to say MS is simply an administrative distinction is just false. No matter the coursework of an undergrad, their experience can rarely rival that of a thesis. If a MS is course based only, they have that many more hours to amass coursework. In the real world, it can certainly make a difference.
Not really in CS. At many schools you could also do an undergrad thesis. And you can do an undergrad in 3 years and call the 4th year masters. Doesn’t make much/any difference depending on the quality of your undergrad – quality of your program, coursework, gpa, skills, internships etc.
You’re equating a senior project to a Masters thesis.
Take the same student, and his or her outstanding senior project. Then add a Masters thesis ON TOP of that. Take the most stellar undergrad coursework, then add courses ON TOP of that.
Now that’s in no way to say that CS students need advanced degrees. Most don’t to get entry level jobs. To say that an undergraduate degree is the same as an advanced degree though is simply wrong.
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But I do think you can say the same of any kids at any school - choosing a UCLA or Duke or whatever school over their flagship.
Again, I could be wrong - I just don’t believe a public school is playing with yield management. I’m no doubt the majority of their kids are in-state so deferring for the sake of deferring makes no sense (to me).
Again, I’m not an AO so I don’t know - but it just seems to me…not happening.
Undergrad can have a project option or a thesis option. The thesis can run over a full year in undergrad. People do original work. It doesn’t need to be shabby. You can be in school two more years. Many employers don’t compensate you appropriately. At a good tech firm if you are comp is going to be up 20% at the end of 1.5 years, you don’t get to join them with a 20% higher salary just because you have an MS. You join very close to, or just at, your salary after undergrad. You don’t get an auto promotion with an MS.
If people want to study more, they just do a PhD. Or if they are coming from a different country, and want to enter the work force in the US, they get an MS. Kids in strong undergrad program often don’t do a 4+1.5. I have not seen it. Maybe they do a 3+1. Even this is unnecessary – you could do a 4 year undergrad, and take as many grad courses as you want for the employer that looks at this stuff. At some level employers don’t even look at transcripts. There are a small number that do. DESCO is one, for example.
I never said it need be shabby. My son did a year long senior project that industry visitors assumed was a continuation of another project, AND he did a MS thesis. When it came time to find a job, he was the very first new grad hired by a startup of industry vets. Why? The totality of his experience. Now he works for a FAANG. Why did they recruit him? The totality of his experience. A Masters adds more opportunity for classes and research/project work. I’ll leave it at that.
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I’ll grant you that startups are more picky about particular skillsets. So an MS can help if you want. Large companies don’t care. As an example, my son interviewed for an Israeli startup for freshman summer. They talked to him for 45 minutes on computer vision, because that is the space they are in. He had background from high school. A big tech like Google / Amazon won’t. They are hiring you into the pool. If you have specialized background, you can also go into niche areas with an undergrad – a kid I know went into Google brain from undergrad. But the special skillset doesn’t need to be from an MS. It could be from particular focus throughout undergrad. In any subspeciality there are perhaps no more than 4-5 courses to get near the cutting edge. You have enough room in an undergrad to get there. A one and a half year masters is so expensive in terms of opportunity cost – say 300k+.
That depends on the situation. My son was ahead, so he finished his BS/MS in ME in a leisurely 5 years. His MS was funded. It cost him a year of wage, but no tuition. He does a very niche thing at a major company, and is very well compensated for it. There’s no way he’d be where he’s at without an advanced degree. I don’t believe there’s anyone on his team without one.
Again, I’m not saying that an advanced degree, either MS or PhD is necessary in CS. I am pushing back on the notion that the MS has no value or can be replicated in its entirety during a BS.
Now, I respectfully bow out, as we’re veering into debate.
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I’m not sure I’m tracking all of that, but I think I have the gist. What is missing in the discussion is what some have written about here and is frequently discussed in applicant circles locally as it concerns the success of the cohort who follow up on a wait list decision with a letter demonstrating or communicating sincere interest. This comes up a lot and it tends to suggest some possibility of yield management. When I heard it the first time I just assumed it was sour grapes, which you get from a lot of people when they don’t get in someplace. I’m not a minority, yield protection, etc. But this particular fact pattern comes up a lot as it relates to UW CS.
Like you, I have no official or independent knowledge.
At at least some of the Boston consulting firms, your starting pay is higher with a Masters and you are closer to promotion with it as well. And in many cases, it’s your way in. Of course, these are places crawling with PhDs as well as other advanced degrees.
I’ve noticed on CC a generally dismissive attitude towards the masters. I don’t get it. The PhD is a whole other animal. Yes, it’s funded, but holy cow what a commitment. Talk about lost earnings.
I’ve lost count of the number of PhDs in industry who have told me without me asking that obtaining the PhD after getting the Masters is something they would not do again if they could go back in time given the incremental cost and effort to get relative to the benefit. I have come across a lot of people who feel this way, which is saying something, because people tend to default to justifying previous efforts to attain something. Once people finish something that is hard to do, they commonly struggle to admit it was a waste of time because they can’t go back and do anything about it. It’s a human tendency to rationalize the past.
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Maybe I am misunderstanding something. A major requires a certain number of courses within that field, so there is usually a good correlation between courses and name of major. Having the CS major label absolutely helps in obtaining a related job. A large portion of CS new grad type job listings state a CS or related major is required in the job listing. This a common screening technique for having learned the CS skillset that is required to be successful on the job. It’s possible that a philosophy major who took several CS courses might also be capable, but many companies to not want to take the time and expense to inspect every applicant’s coursework and bring every applicant in for a tech skills interview. There are certain fields like consulting that can be different because they do not require major-specific skills to be successful on the job, but we are not talking about consulting. If you are looking for a software engineering type job, having the CS major on your diploma usually helps.
It’s a similar idea for master’s. A master’s degree requires taking a substantially larger number of CS courses than a bachelor’s, so master’s applicants typically start the job with with a greater skillset on average than a bachelor’s applicant. All things being equal, most companies will prefer a MS degree applicant to a BS degree applicant. There are also positions that require or strongly prefer a master’s, particularly if the MS coursework is especially relevant to the position. For example, job listings for positions in the subfield of engineering in which I work usually say something to the effect of master’s is required, PhD is preferred. Post[graduate salary surveys consistently shower higher average median for master’s than bachelor’s, although there are issues with adequate controls and confounding factors, which makes it difficult to draw clear conclusions. A master’s degree also can be in a different field from bachelor’s, which can substantially change job opportunities. For example, one of the most common co-terms at Stanford is mathematics bachelor’s + CS master’s.
Whether a master’s degree offers a good financial return is a different calculation and depends on what you intend to do with your degree. At some positions in some companies, there is little to no starting earnings premium for a master’s CS applicant over a bachelor’s CS applicant. Both usually start at the same job level with same software engineer title. At other positions in other companies, there are often more significant differences, which can relate to positions where a master’s degree is preferred or expected.
Cost can also be highly variable. There can be a large financial cost or large lost opportunity cost. There can also be no financial cost via funded degree, or no financial cost + no opportunity cost, if employer pays. Every tech company where I have ever worked has paid 100% of the costs for relevant tech courses, including towards a master’s degree. This relates to the earlier comments about industry professionals in Stanford CS classes. I expect industry professionals taking Stanford classes aren’t paying anything. Their employer is.
There are also other considerations besides a purely financial calculation. Some kids truly like to learn and enjoy learning about advanced CS topics. This knowledge can influence career paths and success in future jobs, including things like chances of starting company or chance of entering a more research focused path. I started a successful Internet company at a young age. I think that my co-term program helped with this path, which was designed to foster tech entrepreneurship. Sometimes the courses can help a kid discover or expand on a specific subfield that he/she finds especially interesting, which can change career direction. Sometimes a master’s can increase access to different types of jobs that an applicant may find more enjoyable or rewarding, even if pay is not higher. A large portion of CS employees in the US are international. Among this group, a master’s vs bachelor’s can influence immigration status.
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That’s fair.
There are a very small number of core CS classes that enable you to navigate most/all of the interview process at most good companies — like 4 or less. Then you are on the cusp of many different majors if you take a couple of courses from here vs a couple from there. Some courses from CS could be counted into a math or a philosophy degree or vice versa. Final degree depends on what you call your thesis. Things are not set in stone early on. You have a lot of flexibility.
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deleted - Off topic.
To your point - then yield management is involved in everything - i.e. some schools take everyone or near everyone and others take few - so that’s fair for all.
Let’s please get back to addressing the original question. Thank you.
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