<p>Good point, al6200. That’s part of my idea of looking at general prestige when selecting in addition to CS prestige. Although UMD’s CS department may be “better” than Duke’s, a Duke degree in CS is still more impressive, IMO.</p>
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<p>However, a Silicon Valley employer may not think that about 20 CS graduates per year at Dartmouth or Yale is really worth the travel to recruit compared to local recruiting at several universities, including Berkeley, Stanford, Santa Clara, San Jose State, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Davis. Or travel to places like UIUC, Texas, UCLA, USC, Georgia Tech, etc. that have many times more CS graduates than Dartmouth or Yale (whose CS graduates may be intending to go into finance or consulting anyway).</p>
<p>CS at Duke, as well as UNC and NCSU, actually does get the benefit from being in the Research Triangle. If you want to work there, then attending one of these three schools would be a good idea.</p>
<p>I have no particular location in which I want to work. It’s not about that. Actually, I will be applying for NSA’s Stokes Internship Program, which guarantees an NSA job after graduation. If I don’t get that, well we’ll see how it goes. But @ucbalumnus, Stanford is on the list. The others are not due to size, mostly.</p>
<p>Santa Clara’s number of students is in between that of Princeton and Stanford. UMBC is not that much larger than Stanford in number of students.</p>
<p>UMBC is too close and generally does not attract top-of-the-class students (I want to be around people whom I fit in with motivationally). Santa Clara is very far (the only school I would be willing to travel across the country for is Stanford). I know I’m picky, but that’s just who I am.</p>
<p>So I guess you’re saying UMBC students are unmotivated and “below you.” Well, alright.</p>
<p>Ugh I was afraid it would come across this way. There is nothing wrong with UMBC, if that’s a school that fits you. However, I live in Maryland. I know who goes where at least within my school. I would prefer to spend my college experience less with those who go to UMBC (once again, some do it for financial reasons, some it attracts them for other reasons) and more with the students who attend higher-ranked universities. I guess I apologize. IDK.</p>
<p>I see the point you are making latinisfun! and I totally agree with you! I am looking at a cs major and I am a NC resident, so NC State is the place that would be cheap for me to go to and have a strong engineering/cs program. However I too know the type of people that attend NCSU from my school and I would MUCH prefer to be around more motivated people like myself. I just feel like I can do better and plus, NCSU is a GIANT school, which I don’t like either. Having applied to Stanford, CMU, and GA Tech, I am hoping to be able to surround myself with more motivated and inspirational people, but NCSU will probably end up more affordable than other places while still having a many options in cs or engineering. BTW, I did not consider Duke too much because it doesn’t have much options as far as engineering as a whole and it would obviously be quite a bit more expensive!</p>
<p>You may be seeing too much “grass is greener”. Remember, at big state schools with a wide range of student ability and motivation (flagships and near-flagships), you need not associate with “the type of people that attend” the big state school from your high school, but are likely to find high ability and motivation students to associate with.</p>
<p>To the OP: why aren’t MIT and CMU on your list? They will satisfy your apparent search for prestige, avoidance of state schools, and size over all other considerations, but also have what are generally considered top-notch CS degree programs (many of the other generally-prestigious schools are significantly less well thought of for CS in particular).</p>
<p>But also remember that you need a safety school (unless you want to default to having community college as your safety), because the high prestige schools you seek are not safeties for anyone. State schools are usually best for providing safety candidates.</p>
<p>Did I leave CM off? That’s my mistake. I don’t want somewhere as “techy” as MIT though. I want a more balanced education.</p>
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<p>[MIT’s</a> General Institute Requirements](<a href=“Welcome! < MIT”>Welcome! < MIT) ensure that MIT graduates will have had a broad liberal arts education. That stands in contrast to Brown (a school on your list), which has [no</a> breadth requirements at all](<a href=“Complete Your Degree | The College | Brown University”>Complete Your Degree | The College | Brown University), except for ABET-accredited engineering degree programs.</p>
<p>I am aware of Browns lack of requirements. That means I can choose (I don’t particularly like pure lit and stuff). However, MIT is also mostly techy people, and I want a more balanced experience in that regard as well. Also, I have no particularly strong SCIENCE accomplishments, and my math scores aren’t perfect. I wouldn’t get in at MIT.</p>
<p>My daughter is a freshman at UMBC majoring in comp sci. She was accepted at every college she applied to, including CMU and UMD. She is very happy with her choice so far. Her SAT scores and GPA were comparable to yours. She received an excellent academic scholarship that pays for just about all of her expenses. UMBC is not a large college like UMD. This semester her class size ranges from 10-40 students. You can walk across campus in about 5 minutes or less. She is a very serious student. She has been quite impressed with the caliber of students in her classes. She was not all wrapped up in the “prestige factor” of the school she wanted to attend.</p>