I was wondering if someone can give their feedback and suggestion
My daughter is has an ACT score of 34 and subject maths score of 680.
She like CS but she does not have any strong background in CS. Hence not a technical candidate. So a degree in CS or IS is to get a basic degree and take it from there.
Questions we have are
Is it better with her profile (basic understanding of CS apply for IS or CS
what are the main differences between CS and IS.
are there colleges that really does not need their student to be already advanced in CS but rather develop their CS knowledge throughout their college skills. We did reaearch on the usual top tier CS colleges but have doubts about getting admitted into them.
Truly appreciate any feedback and suggestions.
Thank you
Universities in the US generally do offer introductory CS courses for those without prior CS experience (e.g. CMU 15-110, MIT 6.00, UCB CS 10, Stanford CS 106A). Those with prior CS experience may be able to start in a more advanced course, but that is not required to major in CS.
IS often means information systems, which is commonly a business-based major that is less technical than CS and more about managing computers and software, rather than designing and developing them.
http://cs10.org gives the course materials for UCB CS 10 that she may want to self-study to determine her interest in CS.
Basically, every college is designed for this. Almost all CS major starts from step 1 and a good number of entrants start at that point. In my experience, there is actually little correlation to when you started CS to how good you’ll be with it by graduation. It’s easy to get intimidated with so many starting so early, but the reality is that many catch up fully in college.
It sounds like your daughter has an interest in CS and should absolutely go for it!
Some schools with particularly beginner friendliness, some reaches some matches, leaving off the big CS names you probably know already. Also hard to tell without GPA included what’s a match/reach/safety etc.
Reaches: Harvey Mudd, Brown, Rice
Matches: Northeastern, U of Rochester
Safeties (pending financials): WPI, University of Utah
As mentioned, don’t let not having CS experience stand in the way of top CS schools like Stanford, CMU, etc if her GPA is a match for the school.
Hope that helps!
Thank you for the link. CS is good for her. It is incredible looking at the opportunities and level of competition.
Thank you. I need to review her results esp her GPA. Esp appreciate the heads up being on par upon graduation.
Actually her school does not have a GPA haha. But she is at 92% average scores. Not 92% percentile as the school does not rank the students.
Do you mind if i ask you for your opinion.
Re Harvey Mudd, Northeastern, Northwestern, Uni of Michigan
which would you suggest would be your 2 top choices?
Thanks
It completely depends on the person, they are very different environments. Personally I’m actually attending Northeastern and have zero regrets. While probably the least ideal for CS of the four, Northwestern would be the best fit for other factors so that would be my #2. But again, that’s just for me personally. For example, Harvey Mudd is probably the best CS program listed there, but the school is tiny and there are very strict general elective requirements that wouldn’t make it a good fit for me personally. I also prefer cities, hence why Northeastern and Northwestern are preferred to UMichigan which I think has a better CS department than Northwestern for example.
What I would take away from all that is that these schools are all good options for CS, but other fit factors (not to mention price) are more important. I would look at CS strength in tiers, not direct ranking, and factor that into the many other factors that come up when selecting colleges.
Yep it is a good idea to look at tiers. The good thing is that CS is something that you dont have to go to the “best” colleges for.
It is the other post grad or specific programming course that would be very helpful.
Your daughter really should be the one asking questions since SHE will be the one attending the schools.
SHE needs to visit. YOU need to pay.
CS,IS,CIS,MIS,IT don’t forget CE and CSE. It can be a challenge to unravel the sometimes subtle (and sometimes not) differences between these majors. To answer your question, CS is going to have more exposure to math and science. IS will focus more on business and accounting. Math competency is the best predictor of success.
She has pretty decent math scores but did not do as well in her ACT. Well…it happens
At Michigan, the new School of Information with the new BSI major is Applied CS, a growing field. Because not many people have found the new BSI yet, it’s probably a bit easier to get into.
Likewise, Northwestern has CS+X.
Harvey Mudd, if you really like Humanities/Social Science and don’t mind super rigorous academics.
Northeastern, if you want the co-ops. I’d say Mudd and NEU are polar opposite in terms of the students they attract. 