@PurpleTitan, I agree with you about UW. It does not provide that extra opportunities in consulting/finance area but our DS is more interested in tech related jobs after graduation. Even I read somewhere that UW’s courses/academics is tailor made for tech companies in Seattle (may be they get too much donations from these companies?). We are also discussing about course offerings/ max AP credits, job/ internship / research / opportunities at all the 5 colleges, possibilities of completing graduation in 3 or 3.5years without compromising his interests… So many things to consider…
Make a spreadsheet. Assign points to each area that he cares about.
If he’s deadset on tech jobs, it’s hard to justify the extra costs and freezing winters of Cornell.
20, Given those considerations, Washington, which rolls out the red carpet to CS direct admits (offered to about 250 out of 5,000 applicants, perhaps a dozen or so OOS), would be an excellent choice.
@PurpleTitan , @ucbalumnus, @theloniusmonk, DS is committed to CS major and don’t think he will change his major, He has done a lot of coding (for his age), tutoring/job and internships in CS etc. He may choose another minor in college. He did not even bother to apply for comp. engg.
23, regarding adding a major or minor to CS, Prof. Ed Lazowska (Bill & Melinda Gates Chair at UW CSE) mentioned in a Quora article:
“At the University of Washington we have two degree programs: a B.S. in Computer Science offered through the College of Arts & Sciences, and a B.S. in Computer Engineering offered through the College of Engineering. … It tends to be easier to dual-major from Computer Science because there is heavy overlap in the distribution requirements with other A&S programs — we have lots of dual majors with music, art, math, biology, linguistics, [etc.].”
20, regarding undergraduate research opportunities at the UW, the following links may be of interest:
https://www.cs.washington.edu/academics/ugrad/enrichment/research
https://www.washington.edu/undergradresearch/
https://www.washington.edu/undergradresearch/students/
https://www.washington.edu/undergradresearch/about/
https://www.washington.edu/undergradresearch/symposium/
Congratulations and good luck to your son!
@UWfromCA, Thanks for the links and will review it over the weekend. from your CC name, it looks like you are from CA and studied or studying at UW.
@WCbound , we are going to UW’s admitted student day tomorrow and the CS DA day next Friday. I’ll post our experience and any new/interesting facts we learn from the visits.
You have probably researched this but my experience, Rice takes all AP credit. It was the only school my son or daughter looked at that did. Also Rice has no core curriculum or required classes. I think there is some slight distribution requirement but if there was that was fulfilled by the AP credits she brought in. She could have graduated in three years but is planning to go back her senior year as she decided to dual major.
Our experiences at Rice: Daughter got paid job doing research in her field freshman year, was invited summer before sophomore year by her professor to do excavation in Tanzania. Did study abroad junior year with full financial aid carryover. Was informally allowed to keep her things at her college(dorm) during the semester abroad set up by her house mother (not proper title). Has been invited to dinner at a professor’s house multiple times. This summer has a job at Rice doing research related to her other major That what I meant by more personal attention.
Downside of rice is that housing is very tight and not guaranteed all four years. If you are into sports little interest by student body in D1 sports teams, and no fraternities if you wanted that.
All good choices. I did read an article extolling state colleges saying UW was a pipeline to Microsoft. Ithaca is a really cute town and the finger lakes region is gorgeous.
@robotrainbow, Excellent points and thats the advantage of small colleges. Students get a lots of attention/help whenever needed. Congratulations to your daughter and proud parents.
We did take a look at the AP credits given by Rice and other colleges. Rice is far better than other colleges. DS will have 12 AP/Honors in HS and has scored 5/5 in 7 subjects so far (5 more is due in this year). He would get a lot of credits based on the course selection. Rice will definitely will remain on his priority list and waiting for Owl days to explore more.
Thanks…
Just an update: Finally zeroed on UCLA. After all visits, discussion with friends/family members, current students, faculty members, etc, DS decided on UCLA. The UCLA campus, reputation, food on campus :), job/research/internship opportunities, in-state tuition, close to family, LA city/weather/social life played major role. We are all happy with his decision and quite sure that he will have fantastic times there.
Thanks CC community for all your valuable feedback…
Go Bruins!
Son graduating cornell. Not the best undergrad teaching but amazing student body.
Ithaca is really nice, prettiest campus ever. Yes hard to get to, but worth the trip.
Academically must be very independent, and a very hard worker. Has barely snowed last few years,
they had a drought in fact 2 years back. But yes it will be cold.
I can’t compare to your other schools, but both my kids study cs and I was more impressed with the teaching at my other son’s less famous school. That said, lots of learning is from working with peers, and you would have really bright peers at Cornell. My son’s friends there are brilliant and they help each other.
@blevine, In our case with Cornell, it was few minus points like, distance, weather and affordability… It just did not work out for us and DS… Best wishes to your sons.
UCLA
@WCbound , that is a very wise choice. I’ve seen the statistics a long time ago that more than 85% students go to college within a 2-hour drive. I didn’t believe it and we really looked wide and far for son’s colleges. In the end, he chooses the one that’s 30 minutes from home. Oh well … at least for son#2 we won’t bother visiting the east coast and deep south.
good decision, the others weren’t worth the debt and between ucsd and ucla, i’d pick ucla in a heartbeat. ucsd is known for having a lackluster campus life
Well you can’t beat SOCAL for weather, I will give you that. Everytime I have been to LA/SD area, I wonder why anyone would ever go back to the east coast 
But I do enjoy the northeast this time of the year, once it thaws.
As a parent, we see Cornell campus at it’s best, August move in and May move out. I don’t visit in Feb !
Best of luck.
27, @bogeyorpar , How was your UoW campus visit? Did your son decided on that? I believe you had mentioned that Udub is in-state. Good luck
@ddeebaa, Thanks… Thats what we also thought about Cornell/Rice. He did not like UCSD even with Regents offer over UCLA. His fit / liking was important for us.
@WCbound , son visited UW on admitted student day and on CS DA day with his friends. He loved it. We already put down deposit. In the end, kids will choose the one close to home unless the other schools have a significant advantage over it.