<p>I'll be making my final decision soon and I was just wondering if I could get any last minute feedbacks. Up until today I was pretty set on going to Claremont McKenna to double major in economy and computer science from Harvey mudd (was accepted to both but found better fit at McKenna) I'm from east coast and I loved the academics, the students i met there, the weather, the opportunities found in silicon valley, and the close relationships between Prof and students found in the Claremont consortium. So i was pretty set on going to mckenna but then I made a visit to Cornell today and was sort of mins blown by the resources available there (Gates building was nice). But I don't really like the idea of huge classes and the CS advisor had told me that especially due to the recent spike in the number of students interested in cs, both the intro/core classes are going to be huge (~200 people). Unfortunately I wasn't able to sit in on any but I'm sure I wouldn't like it. Still I now feel like by picking the liberal arts consortium I'll be giving up on all the resources that an ivy has to offer. Also they seemed to be really proud of their internship/coop opportunities for cs students although in not sure even if the ivy status would give them an edge over Claremont in silicon valley. Price is about the same so that's not a factor. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Cornell’s not going to give you any edge over CMC/Harvey Mudd, especially if you end up going with Harvey Mudd. What particularly are you speaking about when you talk about ‘resources’? At the claremont consortium, you’re definitely going to have more than enough research opportunities. </p>
<p>It’s quite likely that the consortium will be better for you than Cornell. You fell in love with it; you were going to go there. Cornell was an afterthought generated to drive yourself loony. Other than “resources of an ivy,” whatever that is, you never did say what attracts you to Cornell, only what detracts from Cornell. Forget the ivy nonsense. Let go of the anxiety and obsession of the college search (can you remember what it feels like not to be thinking about college admissions? hint: it feels great–you don’t need it any more) and go with the consortium. It’s a great situation with more resources than you can possibly use in 4 years, including 3 summers if you want. Trust yourself. I have no horse in this race.</p>
<p>Well I just used the terms resources to generalize everything that a big research university like Cornell had to offer over a small Lac. That’s good to hear about research opportunities though. What about alumni networking? I’m assuming in that case the larger research universities would have the edge but does that apply to somewhere like silicon valley as well where McKenna is much closer? I’m pretty set on attending mckenna as my home college if I go to Claremont. Already talked to the CS professor and current students who were doing econ/cs double major and it seemed like the two colleges work pretty well together for the benefit of students like me.</p>
<p>Edit: just saw your reply jkeli. Really thanks for that. I probably will choose the Claremont consortium in the end. Hopefully tomorrow :)</p>
<p>The intro classes at Mudd are actually also quite large (partly because so many students from the other 5Cs are in them). My D has commented on that as a Mudd freshman. Just don’t think you are going to get small classes sizes in intro CS at either place…</p>
<p>Oh I understand that but I’m sure a large class size in Claremont would constitute a small one at Cornell. </p>
<p>There are 204 students registered in her CS class this semester, the second one of the intro sequence. So don’t be so sure. I think this has actually become a problem at Mudd, and parents and students have complained to the administration that class sizes in CS are too big because they have become so popular across the 5Cs. </p>
<p>New CS faculty have apparently been hired to address this issue, and Pomona is also looking for new faculty. A good time to be finishing up a CS doctorate with the high demand.</p>
<p>CS? Mudd owns Cornell, hands down.</p>
<p><a href=“CS106A enrollment reaches record high”>http://www.stanforddaily.com/2012/10/04/cs106a-enrollment-reaches-record-high/</a> has a nice bar chart on how introductory CS course enrollment has increased at Stanford. The rapidly increasing CS enrollment in recent years is not unique to Harvey Mudd, Stanford, or other schools like Berkeley, Harvard, etc… Remember that faculty size and teaching capacity changes slowly in comparison, so the primary option that schools have is to increase class size if they do not want to limit access to the course.</p>
<p>Now I think I remember the Cs professor at McKenna saying something like that but he says that doesn’t become a serious issue once I start enrolling in higher level CS courses which mudd limits enrollments to from non mudders (as an off campus full cs major, I would still be considered a priority student for those classes). Thank you for the responses so far though! Really helping me make up my mind.</p>
<p>However, if more students at HMC and the other Claremonts choose CS as their majors, then the advanced CS courses at HMC and the other Claremonts will also have capacity issues. It is not like they can expand faculty as quickly as student enrollments can increase, so they may face the choice of increasing class size, shutting some students out of desired CS courses, cutting back on the number of courses offered to offer more small sections of “core” advanced CS courses, or hiring adjuncts to teach added sections of CS courses.</p>
<p>Other schools face similar choices, though research universities are likely to choose increasing class sizes, supplemented by additional TAs.</p>
<p>Well I’m not too worried because the professor said that most non mudders in the 5Cs decide to go with the cs program at Pomona due to the workload at hmc.(both hmc and Pomona offer Cs)</p>
<p>That’s probably right, OP. WUSTL has been having the same problems with over-enrolled courses and demoralized majors. </p>
<p>Just an article today in the Washington Post about the absence of computer science courses at metro high schools: </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/high-school-students-are-all-about-computers-but-get-little-instruction-in-computer-science/2014/04/23/13979eda-c185-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/high-school-students-are-all-about-computers-but-get-little-instruction-in-computer-science/2014/04/23/13979eda-c185-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html</a></p>
<p>@Miles Perrara, the word in the Mudd parent discussion groups is that while there has been some hiring at Mudd of additional CS professors, parents of junior and senior CS majors are complaining that the classes sizes are still quite large in the upper level courses as well. That is a complaint I have seen in the past six months…</p>