My daughter was accepted to CMU SCS, Caltech, and Columbia SEAS. She is set on majoring in computer science. Any decision help is appreciated!
Net prices?
What does she think of the curriculum differences between the schools?
@ucbalumnus
We don’t have any financial aid, so all three are at around 70k a year.
She’s done some research into the curriculum at all three, but still doesn’t know whether to choose the rigorous stem (Caltech), more CS focus (CMU SCS), or more humanities interaction (Columbia SEAS).
To give some more background, she might want to get a masters, but hopes to work at a big tech company after.
These schools are so different in terms of size, location. Has she visited them all, have a location, size preference, etc?
If it’s big tech company, CMU is the way to go, Cal Tech second, Columbia third, a distant third actually. I’m in silicon valley familiar with hiring decisions and colleges that companies recruit from and CMU is really even significantly ahead of Cal Tech. If money is the same, go with CMU. In terms of CS prestige, it’s them, Stanford and MIT as top-3 in any order, followed by Berkeley and Michigan.
@theloniusmonk
She also got into Berkeley EECS (in-state). Would Berkeley have the same reputation as CMU when it comes to recruitment? It would be half the price of CMU, but because she doesn’t have regents, it also may be hard to get classes and access to professors.
Wow, excellent choices, go with CMU, more resources for undergrads, smaller class sizes. Here’s the thing though, both are known for being competitive to the point of possibly being cut-throat. However I think both EECS and SCS are auto admit meaning that you don’t have to compete to get in. The one advantage of CMU is that if you want to go outside of silicon valley, CMU CS would be a little more prestigious.
UCB EECS may be easier to be recruited by smaller Silicon Valley computer companies, due to relatively convenient location (while big companies recruit widely, smaller companies with smaller needs and recruiting budgets may not want go further than UCB, Stanford, SJSU, and UCSC if they do not have to fly anywhere to get all of the new grads that they need).
The size of the EECS and L&S CS majors at UCB is regulated to stay (barely) within the department’s capacity. However, class sizes can be quite large.
Columbia may be the most favorable if Wall Street is the target job.
Choose Berkeley EECS. CMU is as good as Berkeley, but not worth the double price. Plus, staying near silicon valley is much better than staying in Pittsburg.
Berkeley is the obvious answer if she wants to work in Silicon Valley afterwards.
When in doubt, always choose Ivy (if somewhat affordable), then cost (UCB). Columbia opens the same doors as the others plus doors you don’t even know exist.
I love CMU and CalTech, but not at full pay.
It depends on how much that cost means to your family. If you can’t afford $70/year, Berkeley is a great university. Don’t borrow $280K for any school.
DS had similar choices last year: CMU SCS, Caltech, Berkeley L&S (but with Regents). He chose Caltech over CMU, but a big issue was that he is leaning toward a physics major, and CS would be his 2nd choice. He didn’t feel like the physics program at CMU was particularly good if he decided on that major.
If he had been sure about wanting a CS major, he probably would have gone with CMU.
Though a comment: In most cases, you can really only hold one job at a time. CS majors are unlikely to be unemployed, so having the absolute largest number of job options is not really all that important in real life.
Things to weigh for the CMU vs Caltech decision include the culture and fit issues. Some comments below:
– Caltech is very rigorous and proof-based, especially in physics and math. The CS program at CMU includes very little as far as outside requirements other than math. Outside CS, Caltech requires 3 quarters of physics, 3 quarters of math, 2 quarters of chemistry, 1 quarter of biology, 12 quarters of humanities/social science, 3 quarters of PE, and a few other requirements.
– Caltech gives absolutely no AP credit and rarely gives credit for courses at other colleges. (Though you can take a class without having the prerequisites if you think you can handle it.) CMU is quite generous with AP credit if you have a number of 5s. My son would have had almost no requirements outside CS.
– Caltech is really small as far as the number of undergraduates. Like the size of just the SCS at CMU.
– Caltech has fun, quirky events and the House system. My son loves his house. We asked about fun, quirky stuff at CMU and the things they mentioned seemed pale by comparison. People seemed more focused on working toward getting a job. Many/most people at Caltech are thinking that they’ll get a PhD.
– Caltech is collaborative. CMU seems competitive and cutthroat in some ways. (That does not mean CMU is harder, because it isn’t.)
– Caltech has a strong Honor Code. Exams are all take home and many are open book. (This does not make them any easier.) The Honor Code is really important to Caltech students in both academics and social life in ways other schools would not even consider being relevant to the Honor Code.
– Caltech is an excellent fit for really nerdy people. Like the kind who make jokes about functional programming and being NP complete. I don’t know about CMU.
– Weather.
Take home and open book exams typically mean that the problems are much more difficult than what can be put on a time limited closed book exam in class.
As has been stated above, CalTech is a great fit is ones goal is a PhD program.
CMU has bit of a trade school style. It makes you very hard towards the profession. CMU CS grads all get hired by Facebook/Google/ and are very ready for these jobs. They might not have the breadth of education and experience if they may want to branch out, and say, get into management positions. Many in software industry feel a burnout after a few years.
Columbia might give you that breadth of education. It is still a top school, which means top software companies will be recruiting.
“When in doubt, always choose Ivy (if somewhat affordable), then cost (UCB). Columbia opens the same doors as the others plus doors you don’t even know exist.”
This makes little sense and is bad advice. According to you, Columbia is preferred to UCB and Stanford or MIT if they offered more FA. Nobody, even Columbia students, would select Columbia over Stanford or MIT for engineering or CS even if all of the were the same cost. The Columbia SEAS students want to attend Stanford or MIT for grad school and rightly so since those are the gold standards. ucbalumnus brings up a good point about Wall Street, but CMU grads do really well there as again, their CS program is considered elite, Columbia’s is not.
Ynotgo brought up some real good points on Cal Tech, but here’s the thing - Cal Tech, CMU and Berkeley are very different wrt campus feel, school size and what they emphasize that a visit if to all three would probably decide it, if you haven’t already.
Does she want to go directly to grad school?
Cal Tech
Does she only want to work in big 5 tech in SF? Carnegie
Does she also have potential interest in NYC, finance, or liberal arts? Columbia.