My son will be starting his HS senior year this fall & we are trying to narrow down the college options. He is interested in Computer Science (ultimately something in the Data Science universe, he thinks).
Illinois & Maryland are on the list but we are also wanting to consider options that have strong programs where he might be a little higher on the admitted student profile chart.
I am not finding many recent posts regarding the CS program at Clemson. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. FWIW, we are OOS for all of these schools & he just got a 34 on his ACT.
I don’t know about the CS program. What is his class rank, GPA and course rigor? Clemson wants to see that all 4 of those categories are very strong. He would be applying into the major and therefore competing against those other SC majors. You can call and ask about how competitive a major it is and see if all your son’s stats put him in a good position.
Not to hijack the thread away from Clemson, but any reason you’re looking at it over the many other options? There are of course plenty of reasons - I’m asking more to help identify more schools to fit, etc. If you are confident that CS is the likely major and it is a focus of the search, I would start with looking at good CS schools and then find those with lower student profiles / fit the other qualities you want.
A 34 ACT will mean that plenty of doors will be open. I assume financials are not a problem given that you are OOS for all of the schools mentioned?
We are OK paying full OOS tuition - just trying to avoid the ~50-55k tuition private school tabs. His UW GPA is 3.6/4.0 with strong rigor (school does not weight or rank) & attends a very highly ranked public school.
He originally was thinking of majoring in Mechanical Engineering. Clemson came on our radar at that point but he is now thinking Computer Science. After some more research, NC State seems like a strong option to consider (well-regarded program + proximity to the Research Triangle).
Kind of hard to explain, but in spite of his general intelligence, he would just be a bit intimidated if he was around a sizable number of classmates that are already adept at coding or whatever.
@bigdadreed Another great option is College of Charleston. My son is a CS/ Data Science double major there. Charleston has a growing tech community . The school has excellent resources in the community . Dr Van Deldan , Dean of CS, has grown the program considerably since he took over as Dean in July 2015. The faculty is knowledgable and invested in their students. There are multiple research opportunities as well. CofC’s Cybersecurity Team recently won a state wide Cybersecurity competition beating out Clemson and University of SC teams. With your son’s stats, he would probably also be very competitive for Honors College admission. My son chose CofC over Clemson including Calhoun Honors , and he loves the program . He has thrived and learned so much his Freshman year. My son did not have extensive coding experience , but has done very well in the program. Feel free to PM me, if you’d like more info. Good luck in your search.
@bigdadreed since you are OOS you should really look at Virginia Tech too! Great BIT, engineering and overall excellent school. In my opinion it is a carbon copy of Clemson…just in Virginia.
Good luck! This will be an exciting year.
Thanks @carolinamom2boys. I did run across College of Charleston as one of the few schools that have a Data Science major. I’ll check into it further & likely take you up on your PM offer at some point.
@lopeztlo7 - I know VT has an excellent reputation. I’ll add it to the research list. Thank you.