Computer Science at GTech vs Duke

Hey guys, I have recently been admitted to Duke and Georgia Tech for computer science. I am also a recipient of a full ride to go to UNC Charlotte for computer engineering. I know that Georgia Tech is ranked higher in CS than Duke, and have heard that Duke is also more well known for other majors (biomed-eng, etc.). What’s your opinion on the CS program at Duke vs at GTech. Also, is it better to just go for the full ride to UNCC, in your opinion? Money is not the biggest factor in my decision, however, the program at UNCC does offer an additional research/study abroad and internship stipend, along with a lot of elite opportunities such as leadership retreats. My biggest concern with maybe going to UNCC, however, is that I am not sure whether I want to go hardware (w/ CE) or software (with CS) and the scholarship binds me to CE. Anyways, just wanted a few opinions on what everyone thought on Duke vs GTech CS programs, so I can narrow my options a bit and make the decision easier.

First, let’s bust one myth. College rankings are opinions, not facts. Second, going out of state is a BIG factor because the tuition is nearly triple the cost. At that point, rankings won’t matter because it’s likely either out of your price range, or will require debt that will sabotage your career. I think UNCC is a solid choice for a technical degree and debt free is a real advantage.

As far as your degree, there’s a lot of blurred lines and overlap in computers. In fact, most CS or CE majors end up getting jobs in IT and spend their entire career never looking at a math problem. I wouldn’t worry too much about the degree. If you’re worried about it not providing enough programming, you can take 2 semesters of a programming language as an elective like C#, JAVA, SQL, etc.

I would pick GTech just because I hear much more GTech students than Duke getting top jobs at Google, Amazon, Apple, etc. (p.s. Duke is known for biology, math, physics, chem. GTech is more known in engineering-- GTech biomedical engineering and industrial engineering is #1 in the nation). But honestly, both schools are amazing, and you can make either choice and still be successful. Take college visits and pick the college that you like the most.

If money is not your biggest factor, I would not pick UNCC over GTech or Duke.

Agree with @coolguy40 regarding CS vs CE majors.

Have you done tours of the schools yet, and are you equally comfortable with all three with respect to :

[list]
[] The setting of the college. GaTech is urban, while Duke and UNCC are far more suburban. I have family in Charlotte, and we’ve been to UNCC to walk through their arboretum. I feels really remote, and it’s really far from downtown Charlotte.
[
] The campus vibe. UNCC felt more like a commuter campus to me when we visited. GaTech and Duke both seem to emphasize life on campus.
[] Study abroad opportunities. I’m surprised that you found UNCC to offer more for study abroad. GaTech seemed to offer a lot of options for engineering through it’s GE3 participation and it’s Lorrain, France campus. I’m not familiar with what Duke offers in this respect.
[
] Internship and Co-op opportunities. GaTech has a fantastic co-op program for engineers. All three schools are in or near cities that will be able to provide you with many opportunities.
[li] The CE program. It sounds like UNCC offers many things that you value, so don’t get too hung up on ratings.[/li]
If you’re full pay, you’re looking at ~$280K for 8 semesters at Duke, $100K (in-state) or $180K (OOS) for 8 semesters at GaTech, and nothing 8 semesters at UNCC. Unless the factors that I’ve listed above strongly favor one school, I would say that neither GaTech nor Duke are worth the incremental cost compared to UNCC.

@Hokuhoku2018 Thanks for the insight! I’ve also heard that Duke has a shortage of CS classes (only about 10, plus a few electives) compared to GTech’s thread program, so another factor that I have been thinking about is that perhaps hiring companies may see Duke CS students as more unprepared than, say, Tech.

@shortnuke Thanks for the great info! I’ve toured Duke & UNCC, but not Tech. I forgot to mention that I have a pretty significant fin aid package from Duke (over the four years, I’d have to pay 172k) and got 8k in scholarships for my freshman year for GTech, lowering GTech COA to around 192k for the 4 years bc I’m OOS. This makes Duke seem like a slightly more appealing option, however, I do know that its CS program isn’t really comparable to the program at Tech. Also, I feel like the co-op options that I could take advantage of for 2 semesters at Tech (making my undergrad 5 years instead of 4) may be a good alternative, bc I’d be getting paid, as well as the study abroad which would lower my OOS tuition to in state. What are your thoughts on all of this, and would you still agree that UNCC would be the best choice, all around?

The first thing I would ask is where is the $172K or $192K going to come from? I’m not opposed to taking a reasonable level of debt, but I would limit it to the maximum allowed for the Unsubsidized Direct Student Loans (currently $31K). At the maximum loan value, and at current rates, you would be looking at ~$350-400 per month in payments for 10 years. If you work 10hrs per week during the school year, plus work summer jobs and co-op for 3 semesters (the typical co-op is 3 semesters, two although I’ve heard that 2-semester co-ops are not uncommon), you may be able to put away another $30-40K. Study abroad with GaTech would save you at most $15K, since you probably wouldn’t be able to do more than 2 semesters while keeping on track. In reality, you may only be able to do one semester due to course sequences (see some other threads in the forum…I believe @Coloradomama has some experience with this).

This leaves you with a shortfall of at least $100K. Is your family willing and able to make up the difference without taking out additional loans? Keep in mind that if you decide you want CS, you could look at grad schools. It’s competitive, but if you do well at UNCC you will probably be able to find a program that will cover your tuition and pay you a stipend through grants and fellowships.

The second part of your question is really more of a personal one. Do you think what GaTech or Duke have to offer is worth the additional cost? It’s not just a question of the strength of the program. It’s a holistic view of the colleges and what they can offer you as a whole person. As a starting point, I’d say look back at my first paragraph. Are you willing to work 10hrs/week during the semester and spend the money you earn through summer jobs and co-ops to pay for tuition that you wouldn’t have to pay if you went to UNCC? Are you willing to forgo purchasing a nice new car until 10 years after you graduate in order to be able to pay off your student loan debts? If so, then I’d say go for it. Starvation can be a strong motivator, and I fully believe that students that have skin in the game do much better than students that are attending college risk free.

We’re actually facing a similar situation, except that we’re full pay. D was accepted to 6 schools, 4 of which made the cut after touring their engineering departments (UF, UofSC, Pitt, and GaTech). UF is the in-state option and she would have tuition covered through the state’s Bright Futures scholarship; total cost for 8 semesters would be around $50K. UofSC offered her the equivalent of an OOS tuition waiver, dropping the cost for 8 semesters down to ~$100k. Pitt and GaTech didn’t offer any merit, so we’re looking at ~$180K for 8 semesters at either school. I gave her the same advice I’m giving you. Pitt appears to be her top choice due to location and the fact that GaTech admitted her on the condition that she starts in the Summer rather than fall of 2018. There are several nuances in Pitt’s program that I really like, so if she’s willing to put skin in the game, her mother and I are willing to make up the difference.

Good luck, and congratulations on having some amazing options!

I don’t know anything about U of N Carolina CS department. I would compare the curriculum at UNC course by course to GaTech and see what you are getting there and what you are missing. Getting into CS funded grad schools is competitive. What are your goals, do you want a job, or a masters or a PhD? Do you want to pay for your masters degree? If you can pay for your masters degree, then UNC may work out. If you cannot, then I might try to go to the more expensive schools, to give you the best options for grad school.

Grad school is much more competitive today than before, if you have any thoughts of doing a PhD, then Duke or GaTech will be better. You will land in a funded masters or PhD program if you get a solid undergrad CS degree,
which I feel confident Duke or GaTech will provide.

If money is no object (wishful thinking?)
This is a hard decision, between Duke at a great price and almost full costs at GaTech, which are reasonable, and a lot less than private colleges, they GaTech comes in at $45,000 a year full costs for us. Where you live and if you cook will bring costs down at GaTech. Many students live off campus and save money by sophomore year. If you prefer GaTech and want to be a Resident assistant, you can earn free room and board at GaTech.

With that price at Duke and given that you like Duke, I might pick Duke. Duke is just a fabulous private school with top math, physics and CS.

With that, GaTech has the start ups, the hackathons, and the top curriculum options in theoretical CS, cybersecurity, intelligence, robotics, media related CS, and more. GaTech is an exciting environment, if you want a techy school.

I you want to go to grad school, and do not want to pay full costs, then Duke or GaTech will work better than UNC.
If you want to pay for a masters degree UNC will be OK, in my opinion.

The best way to lower college costs, is co op plans and GaTech has one of the better five year degrees. You can earn up to $60,000 , so about $15K -$20K per semester. You pay no tuition in those semesters. You may still live on campus or you can take a job assignment in California, or wherever you land a job.
Another way to lower costs is to become a resident advisor at GaTech, which includes free room and board or free room and a stipend to cook, if you do this job in a suite style on campus housing at GaTech.

https://housing.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/documents/student-staff/2018-2019_resident_advisor_job_description.pdf

Study abroad at GaTech needs to be carefully planned, and not the best way to lower costs at GaTech, because its harder to make progress toward the degree, but if you have AP credits at GaTech, it will be easier to study abroad, than if you do not. Co op is the better way to make money though.

What do you plan to do after graduation? I you want to go on to graduate studies in CS, I think either Georgia Tech or Duke are great options, although there is likely a wider variety of undergraduate CS research options at Tech given the size and breadth of the program. If you want to go into finance or business, I would lean towards Duke, but Tech also has strong connections on Wall Street and has a well known computational finance program if you’re interested in trading/financial modeling. If you want to go to work for a top technology firm like Google, Microsoft, Amazon, etc…, I think either school will serve you very well. If it were me, I would visit Tech and then choose between Duke and Tech based on which school you think is a better fit for you.

Taking the full-ride to UNC-Charlotte could also make sense if you just want to get a good job in the region, but it would likely be much harder to get a job at a top technology company without some sort of connection and top finance/trading jobs would be mostly be off the table without first pursuing a top MBA or masters in computational finance. Given the research stipend and likely connections the scholarship program has with professors seeking undergraduate researchers, you’d likely still be in decent shape for graduate schools, but there would obviously be much more limited options for what type of undergraduate research you can perform and it sounds like you’d be limited to studying engineering. Is there a professor’s research at UNCC that intrigues you? You could always save the money and then go on the graduate school at a more prestigious university, which would make getting into top technology firms a much easier option. It is hard to completely ignore ~$180k in cost unless you a means to pay without taking on substantial debt?

As for the cost between Tech and Duke, one semester of study abroad at Tech would help equalize the cost, since you would save about ~$10-15k by paying in-state tuition for that semester. Most CS students choose to study abroad in Barcelona over the summer, which is a program that offers a number of CS courses taught by GT professors through the Universitat Politécnica de Cataluña. Obviously fall and spring student abroad options save you a bit more than summer programs, but if you have a decent amount of AP credits, the summer program may help you shorten your time at Tech by a semester.
https://www.cc.gatech.edu/academics/international-study/undergraduate/summer-in-barcelona

As others have mentioned, you can also seek out internships, co-ops, or apply to be a resident assistant to save on costs, but internships and RA opportunities are available at both Tech and Duke, so that’s not really a differentiator.

I think it may be worth naming some Duke alums who have done extraordinary well at some of the world’s largest tech companies.

Apple: Tim Cook (CEO), Jeff Williams (COO), Eddie Cue (Senior VP for Internet Software and Services).

3 of Apple’s 11 most senior executives have Duke degrees

Microsoft: Amy Hood (CFO), Terry Myerson (EVP), Scott Guthrie (EVP)

Best schools for software developers (according to LinkedIn):

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-colleges-for-software-developers-2014-10

Duke is 8th. GTech is unranked.

NOTE: I’m posting this for the benefit of other prospective students. It seems like the OP has already made a decision.

It would be great if the people arguing that Georgia Tech’s undergraduate CS program is superior could actually post some concrete data instead of relying on anecdotes.

wow, “The University of Texas at Dallas” is on the list and GA Tech is not??

@JenniferClint Duke is a fantastic university generally regarded among the top 10 in the US and probably the top 25 globally. But when it comes to computer science, you’re simply not going to make a strong case that Duke has the better program.Tech has a much larger CS department that produces substantially more research across a wider range of specialty areas within the field and gives its students access to wider variety of classes and undergraduate research opportunities in CS. That is why Tech has a top 10 CS department and Duke does not. Both schools have excellent students with SAT averages above 1400 out of 1600 and who have taken substantial numbers of college level classes while in high school. No one here claimed that Duke does not give its students a great CS education and open doors. It does. In fact, several posters have mentioned the merits of a Duke degree.

The ranking you cite is from nearly four years ago an is no longer on LinkedIn, nor does LinkedIn continue to produce or support those rankings. The average Georgia Tech CS grad is earning a starting salary of over $90k with only a bachelor’s degree, plus bonuses and the stock grants that often come with top CS jobs. Only the top technology companies pay new developers at that level, so the average salary data is a pretty strong indicator of where Georgia Tech is places its graduates in industry. Many also go on to top graduate programs. https://webapps.gatech.edu/cfcampus/adors/commencement/salary_report.cfm

Only two of the people you mentioned are graduates of Duke’s CS program and Tech grads are no slouches in the CS field: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Georgia_Institute_of_Technology_alumni#Computer_and_information_science

@JennfierClint
GaTech is not better or worse than Duke, its just DIFFERENT. GaTech has a very techy atmosphere, and a lot of special hackathons. So Washington DC FINRA, a securities company will travel to GaTech, and stay the weekend, pose a problem and let GaTech students have at it. Microsoft does that too, to test GaTech undergrads, its like a 48 hour type of marathon hard problem and students solve it in teams. Gatech has threads, as do many high end computer science programs, that let students specialize. GaTech has a very large College of Computing, with a very wide variety of experts in specific areas like combinatorics, discrete math, robotics, graph theory, and undergrads can work one on one with those types of experts for credit. Duke is a well rounded university attracting premeds, prelaw, history and English majors as well as very top CS students.

@wally1688 OP needs some safeties that work for a student who can pay about $5000 a year. UT Dallas fits that perfectly and is quite good for the price. GaTech costs $50,000 a year for the OP. There are virtually NO merit based awards at GaTech for OOS, (20-40 OOS kids get in state tuition, out of 3000 freshman, the OOS kids get almost nothing to help pay ) UT Dallas might be FREE for OP who has high states. . Its a fantastic program at a fantastic price. UT Dallas is amazing. Look up the school and see for yourself. Texas is wealthy and they invest in their public programs.

I don’t think I ever stated that Duke’s CS program is better (or worse). I’m just trying to show the OP that Duke’s CS program is well regarded and will only get better as funds pour in.

Duke CS is fine however hidden off in a corner of campus and understaffed. They don’t even have a building. GaTech CS is simply in a different league for anyone that has visited both facilities, faculty and compared programs.

I’ve seen that 2014 linkedin report a few times. It’s just silly. I can read that as GaTech grads are already gainfully employed, not desperate for jobs, or aren’t dense enough to put their personal info online. There are tons of cs rankings on which Duke has no presence… and you have to dredge up an offbeat 2014 website datamining report to find one that GaTech isn’t on.

Even if I type in “cs ranking duke” on google the first 4 schools it shows is CMU, MIT, Stanford, GaTech.

Am I saying Duke is bad? No. I know a couple Duke CS grads and they are perfectly capable. One even got his MS at GaTech.

It is interesting how a business insider ranking was posted here. I thought US News ranking was highly regarded in the US national ranking and Times world ranking when we are talking about the world rankings.
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate-computer

Both are amazing schools. I would pick the one that you want.

Tim Cook actually got his undergrad degree from Auburn. He has an MBA from Duke, and I think only one on that list has their undergrad CS degree from Duke. Seems they went there to learn the business aspect of it. We have also found these websites to be helpful for ranking information. http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2014/toyear/2018/index?all https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2018/computer-science-information-systems