Santa Clara is certainly worth a look.
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Oops sorry @momoftheyear to hijack your thread. I was admittedly asking about the tinkering-ness of these programs because my D is interested in many of the schools recommended to you and she’s interested in comp sci, but also engineering et al. Was hoping the discussion would still be helpful to your son but see we’ve veered into engineering only convos.
Sorry about that and thanks for letting me learn on your thread! Your son is impressive and sounds like an interesting kid. Good luck!
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I have loved the discussion and he is also interested in engineering, astrophysics and all the things so very helpful for me too! Thanks!
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This is actually quite common for students to know they want a furthering of their math and physics, but to be uncertain how they would like to accomplish it. He’ll figure it out eventually.
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yes. I have heard this too! I wonder how it works at schools like Cal Poly and UW where you declare your major when you apply- how difficult is it to switch/explore other areas? Are there some schools that make that easier than others? Rumor is that at Cal P at least, it is tough to change.
Would you prefer that further suggestions involve colleges with direct engineering programs?
Cal Poly has a weird way of doing admissions where students only compete against others who apply to that same major. As a result the competitiveness for admissions is all over the map. In order to prevent backdooring into a major an applicant wouldn’t get into, they have a detailed structure for major change. Part of the process is determining eligibility to get into the destination major in the first place as a first time freshman. Swimming down stream is much easier than up. Your son has such strong stats that changing shouldn’t be a problem, unless he wants into something that’s restricted and doesn’t start there. Something like 25-30% of students change majors. My son has several friends who did it within the CENG.
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It depends on how popular relative to department capacity the destination major is. A major like CS is often completely full at popular state flagships like University of Washington, so changing into CS there will be very difficult. But changing into an unpopular major like classics or anthropology is easy there (see http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/degree-overview/majors/list-of-undergraduate-majors/ ).
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Tufts, Santa Clara, WPI, RPI, Colorado School of Mines, Dartmouth, Harvey Mudd. My son also wanted a small school. He is CS at Colgate University and they have a new computer science building about to be built. He almost went to Santa Clara, which I highly recommend. At Colgate he will have room to double major or minor and explore before declaring. They definitely have exchange and internship programs.
He did not get into Cal Poly with a 4.5 GPA and good rigor. (Test score ignored.) We are in state.
It doesn’t sound like you need merit but my S got an awesome offer from Seattle University but it wasn’t a fit. Their graduates have really good job placement and they have a new head of school and a new tech facility donated by the Costco guy.
My S originally wanted to be in the Pacific Northwest at a small school like Tufts great for CS, but we didn’t find one up there. U Mass Amherst has an honors college and a great CS program. It’s a big school but smaller than our publics in California.
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This is always a double edged sword. Any classes taken for a double, a minor, or just to round one’s education, always come at the expense of technical depth and/or breath.
Yes. Colgate currently lacks a couple of advanced courses he wanted to take and he will take less math with more theory. However, in my S’ case, he has a very strong second interest that might end up becoming his major. He needed some breathing room to figure that out. Some of his admitted schools did not allow room in the schedule or were impacted in both of his areas of interest so you can’t get classes.
Personally I wouldn’t count on back dooring into CS at an overcrowded West Coast public.
WPI is a really cool school. Different in a good way.
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As you know, that’s a SUPER important thing to be aware of. It’s one thing for the students that are all in, but those that aren’t, need latitude. They aren’t always best served by schools like CP and UW where the curricula are packed and switching majors is a little arduous, if not impossible.
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Quite honestly I don’t know how they expect 17 year olds to be that self aware and dialed in. Before last year I had no idea how restrictive some schools are due to overpopulation.
A neighbor goes to Cal Poly and has had terrible issues getting classes even without switching majors. Too. Many. People.
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That seems to be a persistent problem. This is from a CC thread in 2013…
“Looking for advice. I have a freshman at Cal Poly who was given a late registration date for Winter Quarter. Just spent several hours with my student trying to get any classes, which I thought should not be hard but it turns out just about everything was totally filled with many many students on waitlists for EVERYTHING…yikes even 7am classes”
And this…
“Sounds very similar to my freshman daughter’s. She had 12th rotation and had to wait until this morning to register. Many of the classes she wanted were also full, so she is on waiting lists for 4 classes, hoping to get into at least one of them”
And lastly this…
“It was hard to get classes during freshman year when I was there almost 40 years ago”
So almost 50 years😀
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It’s nice that you have time to dig back 8 years in CC posts. 
Cal Poly no longer registers in rotations.
We had friends with kids at two, selective LACs. They said their students had trouble getting classes. Our son at CP didn’t. It varies from student to student and school to school.
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Not enough attention has been paid by aspiring CS students to this issue. The problem is widespread, not limited to a few schools, or even a few public schools. IMO, it’s the most important issue after the quality of the school/program and availability of upper-level specialty CS courses in the area of student’s interest.
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Yes I’d advise an applicant to look hard at the requirements and course catalog. With all the craziness last year, I would say my S did not focus on that enough. . I think at Colgate he can take a couple online towards the end and get credit.
I’d also listen as a parent if your S wants a smaller school. There are only so many good for CS but not great to spend a lot of time on apps at big publics if they wouldn’t enjoy it there. Honors programs can be an exception.
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Of course, this can be hard to determine reliably, as opposed to using a small number of anecdotes.
One would think that a college could have a class selection system that offers classes first to students who need them for their major and class level before allowing others to register for them. But maybe some colleges do not and allow elective-seeking seniors to crowd out frosh who need the entry level course to stay on track for their major.
But some students are not good at class selection both in the immediate term (e.g. not wanting the 8am course) or in the overall scheduling sense (e.g. choosing electives now instead of fulfilling prerequisites and requirements). They may have scheduling difficulties of the self-inflicted kind, although they will blame the college for them.
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Looking at graduation rates may be one measure. I would suspect that the inability to access certain courses can delay graduation. For example I wonder if that is a factor in Cal Poly having a 4 year graduation rate just under 60%.
Not sure how typical it is for a school to have 1 of 5 of kids not graduate 6 years out.
By comparison schools like UCLA and UCB graduate 80%+ in 4 years and 92% 6 years out.