<p>I've been admitted to a bunch of schools for computer science, and have narrowed my selection to four:
[ul]
[<em>]University of Michigan
[</em>]University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
[<em>]University of Maryland, and
[</em>]Carnegie Mellon University
[/ul]</p>
<p>However, some special circumstances apply:
[ul]
[<em>]At Carnegie Mellon, I was not accepted to the school of computer science; I was accepted to the Information Sciences and Humanities schools. I have been told that transferring into the school of computer science is extremely competitive.
[</em>]At University of Michigan, I am not in the engineering department. I have been admitted to LSA (Literature, Science & Arts) for computer science (same curriculum as the engineering one). The only real difference is that I will have to take the liberal arts gen-ed requirements (foreign language, etc.) if I can't transfer to engineering. This past week, I was told by an undergraduate advisor that I should be able to transfer into engineering if I pass certain prerequisites with a 2.7 (they seem to be basic; Calc I & II, Physics I, one English course, Intro Programming, and Chem I). I have an email out to inquire as to how long I have to wait and if AP credit will count
[/ul]</p>
<p>I spent the past summer at CMU and enjoyed it, but not being in the proper school (plus the whole money thing; none of these schools are offering me any) makes it a really bad idea in my parents (and, admittedly, my own) mind.</p>
<p>I visited UMD last week and came off unimpressed compared to UMich and UIUC, where I visited over the past four days. As to UMich/UIUC, I loved both of them in terms of the campus, and from what I gather their programs are similar.</p>
<p>I'm having some real trouble picking one. Any suggestions or hints for the coming month to help me out?</p>
<p>I’m an engineer at Michigan who transferred from the LSA side. I can’t say much about Carnegie Mellon or UIUC (besides that they have awesome CS departments), but here it’s relatively simple to transfer between colleges as an undergrad. For engineering you basically need something like 3.2 GPA w/ calculus, physics, etc. to transfer, no questions asked. </p>
<p>If you’re interested in CS, the LSA department also has a computer science major that’s equivalent to EECS. You pay engineering tuition and have access to the engineering computing network, printing, etc. You probably don’t even need to transfer at all if you’re only interested in programming and not hardware/EE stuff.</p>
<p>While UIUC/UMich/Carneigie are great papers, you cannot discount UMD. Also, UMD has a great location advantage (near to DC) and I guess you will have more opportunities in terms of employment / internship. Discuss with them the placement rate / employers coming for campus interview etc. If these are the same, I guess you can go for UMD.</p>
<p>Other factor to consider is cost differential. UIUC/UMich may not give you anything, but are you getting in scholarship/grant from UMD? Probably, you will need to do cost benefit analysis. Hope this helps in your decision making process!!! </p>
<p>You should be proud of yourself in having such good options. Wish you all the best!!!</p>
<p>While UIUC/UMich/Carneigie are great papers, you cannot discount UMD. Also, UMD has a great location advantage (near to DC) and I guess you will have more opportunities in terms of employment / internship. Discuss with them the placement rate / employers coming for campus interview etc. If these are the same, I guess you can go for UMD.</p>
<p>Other factor to consider is cost differential. UIUC/UMich may not give you anything, but are you getting in scholarship/grant from UMD? Probably, you will need to do cost benefit analysis.</p>