<p>Hey everyone,
I really need help with this. I'm applying to a bunch of US and Canadian universities, and my preferred major for now is Computer Science (I'm also interested in Cognitive Science, and Econ/Psych to a lesser degree). Here is a breakdown of all the colleges I'm considering:</p>
<p>Most of them are desperately far reaches (HYPSM etc.). My top match right now is McGill because I receive the lowest tuition since I'm a French citizen (yey Quebec!). However, their Comp Sci department has little to no reputation. Can anyone offer some insight on how good those schools are in computer science? (Specially if Queen's/Waterloo/UBC are better than some of the american ones I mentioned)</p>
<p>I specially want to know if it's worth applying to Northwestern and Chicago, given I'm an international asking for a fair amount of aid (Maximum family contribution is about ~$20-25k/year) and Comp Sci is not really their strength.</p>
<p>Here are some quick stats about me:
French-Syrian Male.
SAT: (640 CR, 770 M, 690 W)
SAT II: 800 Math II, 760 Physics
GPA: 4.5 W (3.9UW)
bunch of ECs and APs, really good recs and essays.</p>
<p>PS: I cannot add any colleges to that list at this point, so please don't make suggestions about other universities.</p>
<p>Waterloo has a fantastic reputation in CS, and so does Toronto (to a slightly lesser extent). From what I hear (and the research that I did), Waterloo is hands down better at CS than Chicago, Northwestern, Duke, Amherst, Yale, Dartmouth, and Penn. It’s right up there with the rest of the Ivy league, and not significantly behind MIT and Stanford. The only thing I’m not sure about with that is whether or not it kicks in at the Undergrad level so much.</p>
<p>That said, the US universities will offer a different experience from the Canadian ones. Schools like Chicago still have fantastic CS programs, just not necessarily as much so as a place like Waterloo that’s one of the big CS powerhouses. In the end, an application is about 75 USD… if you can afford it, then throw them an application for the hell of it. You can see where you get in and how much aid you get, and then make decisions from there.</p>
<p>Thank you for the insight! Yeah, I’m most likely going to apply to most schools just for the hell of it (although deadlines are approaching, and there’s a lot of essays that need to be worked on!). It’s comforting to know that Waterloo (which I consider a match) has a great reputation in CS.</p>