BS - CS Major - UC Riverside vs Univ Utah

Hello,
My S is deciding between UCR and Uni Utah. His UCR admit is to CS, and Uni Utah admit is as Pre-CS. Your general comments and answers to the following would be much appreciated.

How do the two CS Departments compare ? In particular for AI/ML or Systems specialization ?

How would you trade-off Pre-CS requirement to be admitted to CS vs a CS admit ?

How do the respective campus / city compare ?

Due to in-state CA, and WEU tuition is comparable, living costs in Utah is lower.

Thanks and Regards.

A few thoughts on the campuses/cities that may be worth considering:
Salt Lake City is a relatively big city, Riverside is more suburban. AFAIK students often bring cars to either location but I suspect it’s easier to get by relying on public transit in SLC.
SLC is cold and snowy in the winter (with amazing skiing), R is mild to warm SoCal desert.
Utah has a lot of school spirit around football in particular, Riverside doesn’t have PAC-12 sports.
Utah is a lot less ethnically diverse than CA, though SLC is not as conservative as many Californians assume. You notice the LDS influence (e.g. many places are closed on Sunday morning) but it’s not overwhelming.

At Utah, pre-CS students:

  • Need a minimum of 3.0 college GPA in pre-major courses and overall to apply for competitive admission to the CS major.
  • Get guaranteed admission to the CS major with a 3.5 college GPA in pre-major courses and overall, with no repeated courses.

https://www.cs.utah.edu/how-to-apply/
https://www.cs.utah.edu/factors/

A student who enters Utah in pre-CS should consider what to do if not admitted to the CS major. Note that 3.5 GPA is typically more difficult to do in college than in high school.

Though also note that Utah has fairly generous grading policies and you shouldn’t assume that 3.5 is excessively difficult to achieve. Over 40% of students graduate with GPAs above 3.5. The breakdown of GPA percentiles by major is available online:
https://www.obia.utah.edu/data/student-data/gpa-percentile/

I’m not sure how they compare but have you looked side by side at what courses are required for degrees at each school? That could help in the decision making process.

https://student.engr.ucr.edu/majors/2018%20ENCS%202.pdf
http://www.cs.utah.edu/docs/Undergraduate/CSMajor_2018-19.pdf

The pre CS requirements at Utah do not look forbidding at all and would not put me off of considering the program, assuming your son has been a strong math student all along.