<p>Have you looked at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology?</p>
<p>Fireflyscout--son just got some info from them (had heard it mentioned here). I know some people out that way so hoping we can fit it in during the spring/summer. It's a 14 hr drive though, so not sure.</p>
<p>When the RHIT flier arrived -- son gave it the only response he's made after receiving piles of college-brochures: "That looks cool..interesting.".</p>
<p>That alone is a pretty significant! </p>
<p>Thanks for the suggestion!</p>
<p>LACscience, just go to the college web site and the department homepage will always list all faculty. The thing you have to be careful about is that some LAC's have a combined math/cs department and you need to then look at the CV's to determine those who are actually cs faculty.</p>
<p>If you really dig, you can often find a schedule of classes which lists student enrollment. What you may then find is that larger colleges with significant faculty resources actually have a lot of course offerings with enrollments similar to a LAC with a handfull of faculty. Compare St Mary's College of Md vs Ohio State, which on the surface would be like nite and day. But if you look at the individual program details here is what you will find. SMC offers 8 compsci classes while OSU offers it undergrads 82 classes(some have multiple sections so the number is probably closer to 60. For SMC 4 sections have 1-10 students and 4 have 11-20 students, very good for its students. However OSU will offer 29 sections with 1-10 students, 12 with 11-20, 18 with 21-30, 23 with 31-40 students and no sections with greater than 40 students. And no, an OSU student will not be able graduate with a degree without taking a number of the larger classes. But he will also be able to take a number with enrollments similar to a LAC and get individual attention as a result.</p>
<p>I am not making this particular comparison to criticize SMC which is a very good college for many students. But i do want to use detailed information to demonstrate that there are also advantages of attending a large university and that it is a myth that all its students are consigned to anonymity. Now if a student is a biology, history or literature a similar class size comparison may overwhelmingly favor SMC or any other LAC.</p>
<p>MdParent--</p>
<p>Though not an LAC, UMBC (with 12K students) might be a smaller alternative to College park. They have an MS and PhD program in compsci and also offer computer. (Using originaloog's metric for comparison, they have about 30 undergraduate courses this semester in computer science, more than enough for critical mass.) </p>
<p>o-oog also mentioned Rochester and Case as medium-size universities. Both schools offer both a BS and a BA degree in compsci. The BS is going to have many more cs courses required. At Case (where my son goes), compsci is in the engineering school, and has the engineering core requirements for a BS. At Rochester, I believe that CS is affiliated with the college of arts & sciences.</p>
<p>Have you checked out Ellizabethtown College in PA? My son started there as computer engineering, then decided he liked programming more. He got his B.S. in computer science, and had an internship senior year at a local company that turned into a full time job after graduation. It's a small school with a good reputation.</p>
<p>LACScience, look up Oberlin College. My D's friend who majored there in CS was also able to double-major in one of the Humanities, just because he wanted to. He met people with many majors but got close counsel from his CS professors, published a paper, read it at a conference...In summertime, he did internships at larger universities to accumulate research experience. He won a Goldwater Scholarship as an undergrad, then went on to a PhD in CS at Brown University. While I don't understand the ins and outs of the CS profession, it seemed like a successful academic trajectory for someone who preferred a selective, intellectual LAC envrionment as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>I've enjoyed reading all these posts - getting lots of ideas. Other schools I have thought of are Lafayette, Union and University of De. I do not know the specifics on their cs/ce departments but worth checking out.</p>
<p>Paying3tuitions,
I love your name ... I've got 3 as well. Thanks for the heads up on Oberlin. I'll look at it. Hubby and I were English majors so this math/sci stuff is all new to us! My son is craving a critical mass of CS students. He has been looking forward to having a big group of friends in college as opposed to HS where there aren't many math/sci students who share his interests.</p>
<p>Originaloog,
Thanks for the reply. I thought math/sci combination was a good thing to see. Can you tell me why a school might combine these and when this is not advantageous for the student? I have looked at the faculties of the departments and it's hard for me to know what to look for.</p>
<p>Hi Fireflyscout,
We have looked at Rose Hulman. Haven't visited due to: seems isolated, male/female ratio (problem at a lot of our schools but RH seems especially poor), appears to be tech school with no LAC benefits, concerned not very selective=could find a better peer group elsewhere. I'd love to know more because there are other aspects of the school that are very appealing. Can anyone speak to RH?</p>
<p>LACscience, the only reason I suggested that you need to look for more information in a combined math/compsci department was to evaluate the available faculty resources in the compsci major. For instanace if such a department had 14 faculty members but only 4 devoted to instruction in compsci, that would suggest that the depth and breadth of compsci learning could be adversely impacted vs a compsci only department with 10 faculty.</p>
<p>A compsci/math double major would be a good combination for a particular student however if that is what you post was implying.</p>
<p>Sometimes faculty members drift in their interests, so a pure math guy may end up doing more applied math or find themselves interested in issues that impact on programming. I was looking at a lgraduate program in logic at CMU and the courses were offered by professors in math, philosophy and computer science. There may be historical reasons for math in the comp. sci. department - Harvard's for years was housed in the applied math department, it spun off in the early 1980s. Meanwhile at CMU the comp. sci. guys decided they wanted to be bigger and have more autonomy and made themselves their own school instead of just part of the science school.</p>
<p>Didn't Sergey Brin graduate from UMCP? I think his father still teaches there in the math dept.</p>
<p>
[quote]
We have looked at Rose Hulman. Haven't visited due to: seems isolated, male/female ratio (problem at a lot of our schools but RH seems especially poor), appears to be tech school with no LAC benefits, concerned not very selective=could find a better peer group elsewhere. I'd love to know more because there are other aspects of the school that are very appealing. Can anyone speak to RH?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>From what I've heard about RH, the people there are very dedicated to their work, and while may not be the 4.0/perfect SAT students, they all love what they do, and enjoy working as hard as possible on their projects.</p>
<p>Both UW's are very good (Top 10) and personally endorsed by Bill Gates.</p>
<p>Bill</a> Gates surprises students as "stand in" professor (Oct. 12, 2005)</p>
<p>LACscience:</p>
<p>You mentioned your S loves Mudd, are you just looking for additional schools? Harvey Mudd has a great engineering reputation and it's in the midst of the Claremont colleges including an all female one that might help offset somewhat male-heavy Mudd (only somewhat - not bad). Mudd is pretty selective so of course it's always good to have additional colleges on the list.</p>
<p>Note that even at some large state universites, like UCSD and UCLA (both with highly respected CS programs) and some of the ones mentioned by other posters, the class sizes in the CS classes, especially after the first year, are not huge. Of course there are lots of students overall but a limited number in the CS courses. CalPoly SLO is another state school in California with a good rep in engineering.</p>
<p>ucsd/ucla dad
Thanks for the feedback. Exactly, we are looking for additional schools. If he loves Mudd, applies ED and is denied then what are 2nd choice schools. Mudd is ideal in many ways for him. Now how to convince an admissions office...</p>
<p>RacinReaver,
Thanks for the reply. Good to hear positive feedback on RH. We'll look more...</p>
<p>I know Brandeis has a guy who is one of the world learders in artificial intelligence. I heard this from an AI prof. at MIT. So it probably is a good place for CS if you want to go to a small LAC.</p>
<p>@anxiousmom - Thef financial aid at Rice isn't too good for Intl. students, is it?</p>