Which one would be the best? I’ll be paying about 26k/yr for Cooper, free for City and 5k/yr at Queens, plus ??k/yr at Columbia after I transfer.
BTW Queens has a combined plan agreement with Columbia, where one majors in math/physics in Queens for three years and get a guaranteed transfer to Columbia SEAS (in my case in CS) as long as I maintain 3.3+ GPA (which should be trivially easy).
For Cooper, I would be majoring in EE with CompE track
You need an early read on what the financial aid might be like for the last two years at Columbia. Contact them and ask about that.
Most students who start 3/2 programs end up changing their minds and staying at their original college/university. How serious are you about engineering?
How easy will it be for you and your family to come up with 26k each year for Cooper?
The 3+2 combined Queens College/Columbia University program results in both a BA (Queens) and BS (Columbia) degrees in 5-years. Using this 5-year model, an alternative, which takes advantage of the free Macaulay Honors perks at CCNY (free tuition, $7.5K for study abroad, free laptop, etc.), would be to complete your 4-year degree at CCNY and immediately pursue a master’s degree at Columbia University. You can complete you MS at Columbia in 1-year. With this approach, you end up with a BS/MS, instead of 2 undergraduate degrees. The tuition and fees at Columbia for an MS degree runs about $43K/year versus $53K/year for a BS (2016). Of course, you can pursue either an Electrical or Computer Engineering degree at CCNY at minimal cost and completely forgo a degree at Columbia University altogether.
At the time of graduation from CCNY, a certain R&D company hired nine CCNY engineering graduates. The company paid for our master’s degree at one of a select group of engineering graduate program. Five of those individuals went to Columbia University and all of them completed their degree in 1 year, which was a requirement of the program. The others went to Michigan, Berkeley, Georgia Tech. The students that opt for Columbia University were able to save the room and board cost and live at home for that 1-year period. A stipend, equivalent to half our salary at the time of hire, was paid to all participants of this program to cover R&B/miscellaneous costs. The company paid for tuition, books, travel and all other non-room/board cost. Back then, we did not have Macaulay Honors, so we had to pay our “very low” tuition/fees out of pocket.
If your family qualifies for significant need-based aid at Columbia, the 3+2 plan could be viable option, even when the opportunity cost associated with foregoing an engineering salary for one year, is factored into the equation (when compared with the 4-year Cooper Union option). At any rate, you have 3, maybe 4, great options at your disposal.
How difficult would it be to get into Columbia’s CS Masters program?
Also, do you think I would face a significant challenge getting a job at top CS companies like Google/FB/MS/whatever if I graduate from CCNY? I won’t mind the lack of prestige but the lacking recruiting/career opportunity bothers me
https://undergrad.admissions.columbia.edu/apply/combined-plan is Columbia’s 3+2 plan admissions page.
Note that a 3.30 GPA with no lower than a B in every math and science course on the first attempt must be earned at the “3” school, and three favorable recommendations must be gotten. Also note that “We do not guarantee that we can meet 100% of demonstrated financial need for all admitted students”, so that students looking at Columbia as the “2” school take the risk that they will not be able to attend due to worse financial aid than Columbia offers frosh and other transfers.
Grad school admissions will depend on your undergrad GPA, your letters of recommendation, your GRE scores, and your statement of purpose. Some of the one-year programs are not particularly difficult to get into - especially since you will be expected to pay for it. A PhD program would be a different story.
If you want to know about internship and job placement from CCNY for your major, it is perfectly OK for you to contact the career center there and ask.