<p>Which college is better for Computer Science? Caltech is "Sometime" put above Stanford and Harvard.</p>
<p>Stanford’s CS program would be far stronger than Caltech. Stanford is usually ranked among top 3 or top 5 programs in CS, especially they are also known for their entrepreneurship culture recently.</p>
<p>Caltech on the other hand, is better known for physics, chemistry, earth/marine science, … Computer science would not be their strength or focus. </p>
<p>Actually, in California, I would think Berkeley would be a better school for EE/CS than Caltech besides Stanford.</p>
<p>Thank you so much! :)</p>
<p>But the advantage of majoring CS at Caltech is that there are much more opportunities to get an internship/job in Silicon Valley due to the small student body. Some big companies actively recruit at Caltech, and there are only about ~60 CS majors in one class.</p>
<p>I agree with emmakxg, as a senior here I’ve seen many CS majors at Caltech get top internship position really easily. People get hired by FB, Google, Quora, etc. really often and get paid 100k+.</p>
<p>In some ways it is much easier to get a job because Caltech is so small. Also the CS program is also small and the requirements is little. Thus you get to keep a higher GPA and get 100k job with less stress :D</p>
<p>You can get a position at Facebook, Google, etc. pretty easily from either Caltech or Stanford.</p>
<p>Both are amazing, and anyone would be lucky to get into either.</p>
<p>Our guide at Cal Tech told us that the companies proactively come on-campus recruiting the students before spring semester ends, and to expect that the kids would begin interning in sophomore year at google, facebook and the other silicon companies, along with doing research alongside any of the professors. It was one of their selling points.
DH is alumni at Stanford and even he was impressed.</p>
<p>My kid is a freshman at Caltech and based on the data I have seen, it looks like 100+ companies already visited the campus (before first quarter ended) recruiting students for jobs and internships and another 100+ companies are expected to come to the campus soon.</p>
<p>Honestly the top few schools in rankings always fluctuate. The average starting salary after graduating from caltech is 83K (from their website) if that makes a difference for you</p>
<p>The OP said he is in CS, thus the average salary doesn’t really apply since this is across all majors. If you want to see how salaries actually go, just check the companies at glassdoor.com.</p>
<p>'You can get a position at Facebook, Google, etc. pretty easily from either Caltech or Stanford."
The same goes for UC Berkeley. It’s probably also worth mentioning that Stanford and UCB are ranked 3rd and 4th respectively in CompSci (after MIT and Carnegie Melon) whereas Cal Tech is ranked 10th (usnews.com).</p>
<p>^^I don’t know where you get your data…or whether you even know how to read a simple list from US News…but basically Carnegie Mellon=Stanford=MIT=UCBerkeley when it comes to Computer Science…</p>
<p>[Best</a> Computer Science Programs | Top Computer Science Schools | US News Best Graduate Schools](<a href=“http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings]Best”>http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings)</p>
<p>…and if someone wants to work in Silicon Valley in any of the elite technology firms it wouldn’t hurt to have a degree from Stanford or UCBerkeley over others since they dominate as feeders to the valley…</p>
<p>Caltech and Harvey Mudd are outstanding/respected as well…but just don’t have the sheer NUMBER of graduates (since they are such small schools)…</p>
<p>Moreover…I must say Caltech has a gorgeous campus (a miniature compact version of Stanford’s)…and many of the top STEM/engineering students apply to both Stanford and Caltech to hedge their bets…</p>
<p>…the student bodies at both schools have great mutual respect for each other…</p>
<p>I went to both Caltech and Stanford and Stanford is by far the better choice.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>There is much more recruiting at Stanford. Sure, Google comes to the Caltech career fairs and spends a day interviewing students on campus. But at Stanford they will stay for several days.</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford really prepares students for the job seeking process. They have classes (CS 9) on how to do well in technical interviews. You can also sign up for mock interviews and resume critiques. You can do that at Caltech too, but it won’t be done by actual CS people, just career center staff.</p></li>
<li><p>Caltech has a lot fewer CS classes than Stanford. When I went it was missing classes in compilers, operating systems, and programming languages, which are pretty important areas of CS.</p></li>
<li><p>Caltech has a significant theoretical bent and it’s easy to graduate without knowing how to code very well. In practice this usually doesn’t happen, because Caltech students who choose CS tend to be excellent programmers coming in and have a real passion for hacking.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Stanford CS classes tend to require programming projects, whereas at Caltech you only have to take one class that requires a programming project, and most of your other classes will involve “fill-in-the-blank” type coding where the TA gives you most of the code and you write four or five lines here and there.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>CS is considered the “easy” major at Caltech because it has few requirements and is not as conceptually difficult as some other majors. Take that as you will.</p></li>
<li><p>If you want to do a startup there is no better place than Stanford.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I agree with Snugglypoo, I am currently a senior in EE at Caltech, and from what I can tell the CS curricula is sparse and chill especially compared to other majors. However because of Caltech’s small size, and mysteriously high reputation in engineering overall, employers do really take a double look at your resume when you apply. </p>
<p>Even though I am not the strongest EE in my class, it has been much easier than I thought grabbing job/internship interviews and offers. </p>
<p>Especially compared to the plethora of Cal and Stanford grads in silicon valley, a company might be more open or attentive to an Caltech applicant. It’s not to say that we are smarter per say, but rarer to find.</p>