<p>Hi! I am an International Student and have been accepted into UWaterloo and UIUC (and also into GaTech) for Computer Science. I am trying to decide between UWaterloo and UIUC. I would really appreciate your help on which one I should choose.</p>
<p>Factors which are important to me:
1) Reputation (in and out of US)
2) Strength of Computer Science Department
3) Internship opportunities</p>
<p>I heard that UWaterloo has a good math department, does UIUC have a as good math department as UWaterloo?</p>
<p>I’d go with UIUC, better reputation, and far more internship opportunities(is this even a question?). Microsoft hires more UIUC kids than any university on earth.</p>
<p>Go UIUC. The math program is like in top 20 I believe but more importantly, the CS department has a great reputation and the big companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon and others get kids here for internships and jobs. One of my friends here has had an internship with Amazon and is working for them again this spring instead of going to school and then has a Facebook internship in the summer. Can’t get much better than that.</p>
<p>Is there a significant difference cost-wise?</p>
<p>UWaterloo has a fantastic reputation in CS (definitely best in Canada and on par with top CS schools in the US) and I’m confident you’ll have about the same level of opportunities there as you would have at UIUC. All of the top companies recruit heavily from both universities. Waterloo, in particular, has a strong co-op program and is very focused on job placement.</p>
<p>Edit: Waterloo might have a slightly lower general reputation outside of Canada, but not to the ones who matter (top companies and universities).</p>
<p>You don’t need to attend an ivy-league to get an internship at Google or Microsoft. Having a 3.7 at any top 50 school should land you an intervew.</p>
<p>so Microsoft/Google is more willing to hire UIUC compsci students for internships?
What about Berkeley? I heard Berkeley is way harder than UIUC. Is it so?</p>
<p>I don’t know if they are more willing. I just know they specifically come often to our school to look for students to hire. The fact is, they will hire kids who have the best stats and skills and if they find kids are better at Berkeley or some small state school or wherever, they will hire them since they are better for the job. </p>
<p>UIUC grants many opportunities, has a good reputation, especially for CS, but it is rigorous so you will need to work hard to earn any great opportunities personally.</p>
<p>I am sure Berkeley and others offer great opportunities too but I can’t say anything for them.</p>
<p>Let’s be clear. Your school only helps to a certain extent. Once you get to the interview stage, it’s all up to you. So all of this effort that you are putting into finding out which school is better is misplaced. All of the schools you’ve brought up have great CS programs that are in the same general tier. Performing decently at any of them will land you an interview (it’s not very hard to do this). Your performance at the interview is most of what determines whether you get the internship/job.</p>
<p>Edit: All of these companies maintain strong presences at all of the good CS schools. UIUC isn’t special in this regard.</p>
<p>I agree with sumzup. And you know the pros of UIUC by now, and the only real cons I can think of is maybe there isn’t a wide enough variety of things to do outside of campus for fun. Otherwise, things are great in my opinion and the CS faculty are awesome.</p>
<p>Going to the career fairs on campus and getting a Simplicity account and standing out enough to get a interview and then doing well on the interview, partly by acing the technical questions you will get.</p>
<p>The big, well known companies recruit widely. The smaller companies tend to have less recruiting resources, so they may prefer local universities and travel to a smaller number of non-local universities (what they see as “good” universities for what they are recruiting for).</p>