College suggestions for CS...

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I guess I'm just posting this because of typical college anxiety, and I should shut up until it passes, but...I'll try to keep it short? Sorry.</p>

<p>Up until now, I haven't thought much about college--my brother ended up at Caltech, so I figured I'd try following his footsteps and apply to similar schools. Except...reality's here now, and I can't kid myself into believing that I have a fighting chance at anything that high up. That said, I'm looking for a school with strong programs in Computer Science and Mathematics (I'm hoping to dual-major, if possible). I guess I should post some stuff about how my application is looking...</p>

<p>GPA: 4.0 unweighted (probably not too notable at my school, I think)
SAT Reasoning: 2190 (730 CR, 800 MA, 660 WR; 6 on essay)
SAT Subject: 800 on Math L2, 780 on Chem
AP: 5 on Biology, no other scores in yet (I'll get my Chem, CS AB, and Eng Lang scores in a couple weeks or so, I think)</p>

<p>I'm involved in a fair number of math/science/computer science-based extracurriculars, but I haven't done unusually well in any of them. I guess the most noteworthy would be my fluke of good luck on AMC12 and AIME this year (97.5 and 7, respectively). Other than that, I have almost nothing...member of National Honor Society, couple of minor awards on the National Latin Exam. No musical, artistic, or athletic talent whatsoever, bare-minimum graduation requirements in those.</p>

<p>My initial college list looked like this: Caltech, MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley. But not only do I now realize that those are "reaches", they're "reaches requiring nothing short of a miracle to achieve"...so, I need to start this college search job over.</p>

<p>First question: A friend of mine suggested University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), but I don't know anybody who actually goes there, so I can't get a fair perspective on it. Anybody know if it has a decent chance of being a fit for me?</p>

<p>Second question: Even if Michigan is a reasonable choice, I need some other choices to make a decent list...any suggestions in line with my goals that aren't completely out of my reach?</p>

<p>(Edit: I guess I left out some necessary information...I'm too scatter-brained, sorry. Err...I'll need some degree of financial support, so a college with good financial aid would help. No size or location preferences.)</p>

2

<p>Carnegie Mellon should definitely be on your list. One of the strongest for CS. On the safety/match side for you, RPI and WPI. Also consider Harvey Mudd.</p>

3

<p>If you're in-state in California, you can get into any UC you want. Also check out some of the other threads on here that list which schools care about stats more than EC's. Public universities are great for people with good stats but not many ECs. And some of the IT's you have on your list might not be as far fetched as you think.</p>

<p>I live about 2 hours from UM, and it would be a good fit for you if you're into school spirit and sports and the like. I'm almost positive you'd get in, but I'm not sure about fit. It has 25,000 or so undergraduates, so it's for people who like that big university atmosphere. It's probably good for computer science.</p>

<p>Could you tell us what state you live in? It might help.</p>

4

<p>@fireflyscout: Thank you so much. I'll start examining those.</p>

<p>@JBVirtuoso: Sorry, didn't think of my state as I haven't been looking much in-state. I'm in Texas (yeah, no UC's for me). Not sure about the fit for UM, either...I'll try learning more about it first. And I'll go find those threads for other schools--thank you for the suggestions.</p>

5

<p>Harvey Mudd, Carnegie Mellon.</p>

<p>Bucknell for safety.</p>

6

<p>If you are in Texas, then definitely UT (and I'm assuming you are top 10%). Very strong CS major. Look at the Turing Scholars program.</p>

7

<p>@ricegal: Hm, I'd never even heard of Bucknell. Thanks for the heads-up.</p>

<p>@fireflyscout: I've always been kind of uncertain about UT...I know a couple of students from my school who ended up going there last year because of its reputation as a "party school" of sorts--something I'd like to avoid, I think. Would it be possible for me to go through UT without too much pressure on that side of things? (Regardless, thank you very much for the new recommendation!)
(Edit: Also, do you think I could count UT as something of a safety?)</p>

<p>Hopefully, I'll be able to put some of this college anxiety to rest with a more solid list--thank you, everyone. Of course, if anybody has any more suggestions, I would appreciate them greatly.</p>

8

<p>Above choices are good. Also look at Cornell and UIUC, both great at CS</p>

9

<p>Due to state law, UT must admit Texas residents who are in the top 10% of their class. Last year, 70% of their applicants met this criteria. If you do not meet those two criteria, UT will be difficult to be admitted to. As for the atmosphere, UT is so big that you can have whatever experience there you want. You'll certainly find many students who are not "party crazy".</p>

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<p>UT's Comp. Sci. program is by all accounts in the top 10 (or higher). It's partly for this reason it was able to land the NSF grant that will soon give it the world's fastest academic supercomputer. In a university of 30K+ undergrads, you will find all types - certainly those who want to party, but also those who aren't that type.</p>

11

<p>The suggestions so far are pretty good. Your college list nailed most of the strong CS schools: Berkeley, Stanford, MIT, Caltech. CMU is one of the best. I think you'd have a good shot at Stanford/MIT/Caltech. I'd say Berkeley's a slight reach/high match (CS is competitive anyway), and CMU is a safe match. Cornell would be a match, probably, if your ECs are good enough. Harvey Mudd's another good one.</p>

<p>Gourman Report computer science undergrad rankings (from collegehelp)</p>

<p>MIT
Carnegie Mellon
UC Berkeley
Cornell
U Illinios UC
UCLA
Yale
Caltech
U Texas Austin
U Wisconsin Madison
U Maryland CP
Princeton
U Washington
USC
SUNY Stony Brook
Brown
Georgia Tech
U Penn
U Rochester
NYU
U Minnesota
U Utah
Columbia
Ohio State
Rice
Duke
Northwestern
SUNY Buffalo
U Pittsburgh
UC Irvine
UC San Diego
U Mass Amherst
Rutgers NB
Indiana U Bloomington
Penn State UP
UC Santa Barbara
Syracuse
Iowa St
RPI
UVA
U Michigan AA
U Iowa
U Conn
Southern Methodist
US Naval Acad
US Military Acad
U Houston
U Kansas
Washington U St Louis
Mich St
Stevens Inst
Case Western
Texas A&M
U Oklahoma
Kansas State
Vanderbilt
Washington State</p>

<p>Here's the old NRC grad ranking for compsci, if you wanted to look into it:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.stat.tamu.edu/%7Ejnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc41.html#area29%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc41.html#area29&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Just to give you some ideas. =)</p>

12

<p>@Valawe: Thanks for the suggestions...I'll definitely take a look.</p>

<p>@fireflyscout and JWT86: Oh, this is very comforting...it's very nice to be able to finally write something in the "Safety" column that actually seems to be a decent one to begin with.</p>

<p>@kyledavid80: Boy...what a list, haha. It'll take me quite some time to sort through all of this--thank you for the input. As for Cornell...well...I'm trying to kick up my ECs. I'm getting pretty worried about that...but at any rate, thank you.</p>

<p>I have one more general question about colleges...like I said before, my brother is a current student in Caltech. He's always told me that I should try to restrict my college search to the smallest schools possible (mostly Caltech and Harvey Mudd for my top choices), because generally, small = excellent teacher/student ratio = more attention to the individual from the instructor = an atmosphere more conducive to learning beyond the curriculum. But now I hear from a fair number of people that I should hit the big schools, because big = better variety/more facilities and such. I guess it could just be an issue of personal preference, maybe...? So what are the pros and cons of the small versus the large (say, Caltech and Harvey Mudd versus UT and UC Berkeley)?</p>

13

<p>It is definitely an issue of personal preference. Really, I'm going into computer science and I would never want to attend Harvey Mudd or Caltech. Why? They're too damned small. Not only are certain features lacking (at a school like Stanford or Berkeley, so much is constantly going on because there are so many students), but you have fewer peers, etc. And larger school doesn't always mean that the classes will be significantly larger. At Stanford, which has about 8x the students as Caltech, there are about 1700 faculty. At Berkeley, there are over 2,000 (not to mention grad student instructors and visiting lecturers that help to keep the class sizes from getting too big). On top of that, the larger classes tend to be in the lower-division classes, and in these classes, there is no discussion (it's not a discussion, but a lecture -- usually no questions are asked) and you usually don't need to spend time with a professor. As you progress to higher classes, though, you'll be needing to talk to professors more (internships, help on material, or even just random life-related things) -- and these higher classes tend to be much smaller, getting down to less than 10 students. One thing I've heard quite a bit from Berkeley: students are under the misconception that they won't have access to professors. Because of that, so many times professors won't have anyone visit them during their office hours. So really, whether you're at Stanford (15k+), MIT (10k+), or Berkeley (30k+), you'll have the opportunity to be in a small environment, especially since seminars and small lectures are always available. </p>

<p>At larger schools, you tend to have a much broader course range to select from, there's less homogeneity (in majors, etc.), there tend to be more opportunities (facilities, funds, and the like), though it's definitely not absolute. You'll still have plenty of variety and opportunity at a smaller school.</p>

<p>Basically, I'd say go with which environment suits you best.</p>

<p>Regarding the CS rankings, I would suggest not going very far down the list. Perhaps the top 20. The ones beyond that really aren't that good, and given your stats, you could get into many of the top 20.</p>

14

<p>Planning for college applications is stressful--thanks, everyone, for alleviating a nice bit of that. As it stands right now, I'm looking at Caltech, MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, CMU, Cornell, Harvey Mudd, and UT Austin (safety). I'm hoping I can narrow it down a little more by the time I start applying--with that list, I'm looking at around $500 in application fees alone. I'm already thinking I might want to drop UC Berkeley from the list...I hear that financial aid to out-of-state students generally isn't too wonderful (is this true?), and my financial status...eh, I'll need all the aid I can get.</p>

<p>One more question...kyledavid80, should I be worried about the fact that Harvey Mudd isn't on that top CS list in your post, or is it just because Harvey Mudd is classified differently (LAC) or something?</p>

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<p>mudd's cs is great. much better than most of the schools on that list. probably the top 5...</p>

16

<p>Yeah, Berkeley isn't too likely and they give little finaid to OOSers. So you might want to remove Berkeley. Also, don't mind that Harvey Mudd isn't on Gourman's list; Gourman sometimes leaves off really great schools for certain subjects. I suspect Harvey Mudd is pretty good in CS.</p>