<p>My son has been accepted to CWRU with a very nice scholarship. (Yay!) He wants to study computer science. I am concerned because I have read several times on cc, and also been informed by one individual, that Case does not have a good reputation in CS. I don't know how to evaluate the program. The major does seem to require the standard fare of courses (as far as I can tell). I have seen the USNWR rankings for grad school programs. While I know that may not be a perfect predictor of the quality of an undergrad program, it is the best I have to go by. Case is ranked 63 on that list-the lowest of any of the schools to which my son has applied (the others are primarily large state unis). Case, however, would offer a much smaller environment with kids who are more likely to share his attitude toward studying and not partying. That said, the school has a reputation for the large workload the students are given. I am not sure my son would want to study ALL the time. </p>
<p>Does anyone have a specific understanding of what might be lacking in the CWRU CS program? Any personal experiences with Case?</p>
<p>My son also applied to Case for C.S. and liked the school a lot, though he ultimately chose WPI. I don’t think there is anything “lacking” in Case’s program. It is ranked pretty close to other really good programs. Obviously it is not MIT, Stanford or Carnegie Mellon…
Also the ranking of the grad programs in US News is based solely on opinions, not on any real data. So I think you need to dig deeper to see if there is a real difference between number 63 and 57. I think Case in general is undervalued and under recognized especially outside the midwest.
Note that “The B.S. degree program in Computer Science is accredited by the Computing Accreditation Commission of ABET, <a href=“http://www.abet.org.”>www.abet.org.</a>” - from their website.
Take a look at their course catalog and see how the offerings stack up to other schools.
What other schools are you comparing it to?</p>
<p>Thanks for your response, beantowngirl. I chose not to post on the school’s cc forum because I am looking for some objective views and CS expertise. We are not looking at MIT, CMU type of schools. But we are not comparing #63 to 57. It’s more like comparing 63 to 6-20. Other schools he is considering (but not yet heard) are some UCs, U Wisconsin, U Rochester, U Texas, U Maryland. (U Rochester is 47, I believe; the others are in top 15). All have very different feels, but my son seems most driven by the caliber of the CS program. Hopefully, his priorities won’t change once he gets wherever he’s going…</p>
<p>Yeah, but the Case students and alumni are more often lurking on the Case forum so you may get the most in-depth info there. Just saying…
We looked at U.Rochester too but I think Case is a little better for engineering and CS, despite the rankings. But we did like it a lot too. If you are looking for merit aid, Case is often more generous for students they are trying to attract than many others. Not sure about need-based aid.
CS is a rigorous major at any of the schools you are looking at!</p>
<p>Go on [PhDs.org:</a> Jobs for PhDs, graduate school rankings, and career resources](<a href=“http://www.phds.org%5DPhDs.org:”>http://www.phds.org) where you can get the results of the most recent NRC survey of departments. </p>
<ol>
<li>Click Physical Sciences and Mathematics under Rank PhD programs</li>
<li>Click Computer Sciences</li>
<li>Click NRC Quality Measure as 5 (and if you expand it a little, click do not rank for schools not in the survey). </li>
<li>Then at the bottom click rank programs</li>
</ol>
<p>This is a measure of what CS faculty think of other CS faculty. They give a range for each school of where they fell in the survey in ranking</p>
<p>You will see on the first page:
1-2 UC Berkeley
3-16 UC Santa Barbara
7-38 UC San Diego
6-40 UC Riverside
8-30 UC Los Angeles
7-44 Maryland
9-48 Rochester
10-51 Wisconsin
20-65 Texas
66-107 Case</p>
<p>For some reason, Case’s CS is not as strong as their other departments. Rochester seems like a great school for CS. It’s private, personal and there is a lot of opportunity for undergraduates. </p>
<p>Since you’re looking around the Great Lakes, and if your S is taking AP Calculus which is required for admission, I don’t know if you know about University of Waterloo in Ontario. It’s one of the most extensive and widely respected computer science departments in North America. It’s huge and maybe impersonal, but CS makes the place tick. They’ve spawned a little tech bubble with some pretty impressive firms in the area, including Research in Motion (who makes the Blackberry). Microsoft is heavily invested there too. It should be on your radar screen. Compare this undergraduate course list with any of your other choices
<a href=“https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/current/courses/course_descriptions/[/url]”>https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/current/courses/course_descriptions/</a></p>
<p>Waterloo is an awesome school, truly. But rankings aside I would look at the program and see the obvious, i.e. research areas, class sizes, minor options, and the like. Back in my days (80’s) CWRU had an excellent reputation. </p>
<p>Keep in mind PhD rankings won’t do you a lot of good as an undergraduate. If you want to outright write code for a living, and the school is strong on theory you could be spending more time with Microsoft Word than with Eclipse or Visual Studio. I’m looking at CS schools for DD2 and there’s a whole area of things I would check first as a 30 year coder than rankings alone. Again, look at areas of focus in research and see how they line up with the OP’s thinking. </p>
<p>Rankings help to get a job, but once you establish that the XYZ U. is not CMU or MIT, then the playing field levels out quite a bit.</p>
<p>I don’t know about Case, but I think that the nature of computer science leads to a tight group that doesn’t party and works hard. It’s pretty much in the nature of the program for kids to have to work very very hard.</p>
<p>We had the same issue with Case last year when S made his decision. He also got a very nice scholarship but ultimately decided to go elsewhere. I was really surprised that their CS dept. wasn’t ranked higher since they’re known for being a good tech school.</p>
<p>Thank you all for your responses.
RockerDad, that link was very helpful to me. While I had seen NRC rankings in the past, the site you linked enables one to get deeper into the methodology, with box plots etc. It is hard to ignore the fact that Case’s best ranking falls below the lowest for many of the other schools we are considering. Thank you for that.</p>
<p>turbo, I had heard about Waterloo. I think, for my son, it will be a big enough challenge to move away from home. Another country may be pushing it. (I know… it’s just Canada. But still ) But your point about research interests of the faculty is a good one. I don’t know that my son has refined his ultimate career goals (I certainly hope not- at this tender age), but we probably have a general idea of where he is leaning.</p>
<p>mathmom, we do expect that DS will be working very hard. But, in some schools you get the feeling that they are enjoying that. Others, it’s a camaraderie of students who seem oppressed by the workload, and, maybe a bit depressed, too. Just trying to get a feel for that. I think I read somewhere that Case made the list for most depressed students. Again, i take all these rankings with a grain of salt. But, after enough reading, I am coming away with a gestalt impression. Or, at least, I am trying to! But your point is well taken: my son will probably be associating with similar kids-even if he is in a large, more party-oriented university.</p>
<p>megan12, I am having the same reaction as you did. I know Case is highly ranked in general, and that the school has a real STEM orientation, so I am trying to reconcile that with the bits I have read regarding the CS dept shortcomings. </p>
<p>For now, we will have to wait for the other decisions to start rolling in.</p>
The larger schools, state U’s typically, have a variety of ‘student types’ including a some who’ll party a lot, some who won’t party at all, and many in between. One finds the niche they feel comfortable with. </p>
<p>At the larger universities you’ll likely find CS students less on the party end of the spectrum than others if for no other reason than they simply have too much work to do (at a college with a rigorous program). They likely are little different than CS students would be at smaller schools.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t write off the larger state schools due to just this perceived partying attribute. Many of the state universities are highly ranked for CS and engineering in general.</p>
<p>Sorry - I don’t know any particulars about the CS program at Case Western.</p>
<p>We just finished looking at colleges with D2, and I will say that after my second visit there (D1 and D2 both visited 3 years apart), I thought that Rochester was very supportive and I got the sense that because of it’s small size and LAC feel that it was a more personal environment than the larger schools for students who might otherwise get lost in the crowd. </p>
<p>We also visited Wisconsin with both kids and thought that it’s a great college town and at least in the summer, among the nicest campuses we’ve seen anywhere. It definitely didn’t feel as warm and personal as Rochester though.</p>
<p>I can only speak for CMU - I wouldn’t say they were oppressed or depressed. I was very impressed with the way the alumni look out for each other and I was astounded that my fairly antisocial son has come back to CMU for Carnival for the last two years (their equivalent of homecoming.)</p>
<p>My son was accepted to Case last year but chose to go elsewhere. Once your son decides where he really wants to go, especially if it’s a private school, you may want to see if you can get that school to offer similar merit aid. Even though many say they don’t match, we were able to get more merit money by faxing the offer from Case.</p>
<p>GladGradDad, we have definitely not written off the large publics- they constituted the majority of the schools to which my son applied. They can’t be beat in terms of strength of faculty research and variety of courses available. But we did want a couple of smaller options as possibilities. And, with merit aid, the privates look to be on par or less expensive than some of these oos publics.</p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad, you have pegged the two frontrunners (in my mind), depending on final cost (and whether or not he’s admitted ). We visited UR, and I loved it. The campus and the kids seemed great. It was at the end of all our tours, and I think DS was starting to tire of the process. My son seems to show no preference at this point for large vs small, city or not, cold or hot. (which is getting irritating. It would be nice if he would engage a little more.) If he gets accepted at Wisconsin, we will visit there, as well.</p>
<p>mathmom, CMU is certainly in a class by itself. While they have lots of work, I think the kids that get in there are up to the task and thrive on it. We visited, thought it was a cool place, but beyond my son’s capabilities. I’m glad your son has found his social group there.</p>
<p>We recruit from the University of Wisconsin (Madison) as they have a specialty area and we like their graduates in that specialty area. If your son has particular research areas of interest, he may want to check up on what their professors work on to see if there’s a match there.</p>
<p>He should be looking at the whole school, not just one department even though Comp Sci is his current chosen major. The fit of the U is as important as the rankings of any one department. Definitely consider UW (Wisconsin) for the entire college experience. Son finished there a couple of years ago- added comp sci to his Honors math major. Feel free to PM me with any questions. There has been a Computer Science building and department there since the 1960’s.</p>
<p>D goes to Case. She and her friends all love it there. There’s a significant workload and they do work hard - but they do find time to party and hang out. Since this is the only school we have experience with, I can’t tell if the workload is better or worse when compared to other schools.</p>
<p>D’s favorite during the application process and the few months after was U Rochester. She loved the place and was incredibly serious about going there, especially after she was given a research grant in addition to merit aid. She re-visited Case and then changed her mind - she thought Case and Cleveland had a lot more to offer for her than U Rochester did. Shocked everyone who was sure she was going to Rochester. She loved the fact that Case is right in the University district, surrounded by Cleveland Clinic and the hospitals/museums. She has volunteered at the Rainbow Babies hospital and hopes to continue this semester. She is also planning on some research with one of Cleveland Clinic’s labs. Cleveland also has been way easier to get to and from for us (we
are in Boston). So far, her experience with Case has been very very positive!!</p>
<p>An aside - Case is the only school that I know of that has very lax payment policies She starts her semester in August, but the bill is not due until sometime in October!! I was too shocked the first time I saw this and the very friendly mid-western folks at the office just laughed. Told me I had plenty of time to get the bill paid :)</p>
<p>Thank you wis75 and arisamp for your personal takes. It does help to formulate the big picture. </p>
<p>wis75, you have hit on what our major dilemma is. I think my son might benefit from a smaller school. He has, at times, mentioned he might prefer it (like after interviewing with a small private admission rep). I don’t know how well he will navigate a larger, more impersonal school. My husband and I have both seen U Wisconsin from our own grad school searches back many years ago, but I would have to try to get a sense of my son’s reactions from a visit, if accepted. We are used to being associated with large research universities, so it is hard for us to look at some of the smaller schools objectively. Whereas we have an entire building dedicated to computer science, the smaller schools have one floor in a building. The CS labs are often empty. I know that, at the undergraduate level, that may be less important, but it just seems like the smaller schools are weaker in that way. Of course, the social aspect and individual attention at a small college is a real advantage. I guess we are having trouble assigning weights to these various factors-especially since my son keeps expressing how important it is to him to have a really good CS dept. I like the fact that wisconsin has many oos students- unlike some of the other oos publics we are considering. Also, we have friends who have two very different kids who both went to wisconsin and loved it. </p>
<p>arisamp, it is very heartening to hear that your daughter has had such a positive experience at Case. My son did enjoy his visit. And a faculty member took the time (without prior notice) to show him around. It is definitely a contender. One possibility could be that DS does ug at Case and then goes for a masters elsewhere. Both Cleveland and Rochester are indirect flights for us. It’ll take a whole day to get to either place, so that is not much of a deciding factor. We live in a city, and my son doesn’t really ever go downtown, so I don’t think that is important to him. Now, when my daughter went to school, it was important. She headed for Boston :)</p>
<p>So funny about tuition billing. They’ve already won me over in the financial dept. with the merit award!</p>
<p>My son has also been happy at Case. I don’t know much about the CS department but my son has been happy with the size of the school. He wanted a smaller school than our state flagship (FL). He has already been noticed by some of the professors in his major who asked for him to start planning to be a student instructor. I think that is hard to manage that your freshman year at a large school.</p>
) But your point about research interests of the faculty is a good one. I don’t know that my son has refined his ultimate career goals (I certainly hope not- at this tender age), but we probably have a general idea of where he is leaning.</p>