Gladwell’s advice worked for me.
For money reasons, I didn’t go to Georgetown and instead attended a cheaper, lower ranked local Catholic college. 3.9999 GPA and Phi Beta Kappa there got me into a top law school where I outperformed several law school classmates who did undergrad at…Gtown. Maybe I would have done great at Gtown too; or maybe not. I’ll never know for sure.
YMMV.
On Villanova being 35 minutes from home – I went to college 10 minutes from home, lived on campus, and the first time I saw my family/went home freshman year was T’giving break. The advantage was, I could hop on the commuter rail and be home without fighting crowds in airline terminals etc. Physical proximity does not mean a student will come home more frequently than being a few hours away so, to the extent that is a consideration to the OP about Villanova, I would put that one aside. And its not like South Bend is some great shakes as compared to Main Line Philadelphia (no slight to SB, but it’s 90 minutes from Chicago vs. Villanova being 30 minutes by rail to Center City Philly).
Really great feedback from everyone. Lots to think about. We just finished Day 1 of Case’s accepted students day and he’s in the dorms overnight. A little more background on his personality…not a huge sports fan (I know that’s a big draw of Notre Dame) but does like to run and is considering club running or crew at a school ( or maybe trying to walk-on X-Country at a D3 like Case or URoch.
He’s a very interdisciplinary thinker and really wants to do research (which would be a requirement in Nova’s Honor’s Program). For example, in high school he wrote code for a stats class that pulls twitter feeds and performed a statistical demographic analysis based on a government happiness index, and also is developing an algorithm for a history class that takes historical maps and transforms them based on modern satellite data. Also is a bit entrepreneurial with 3 games in the apple and google stores, and a 4th coming.
He really liked the think[box] at Case today, and one CS major was talking about her research in other labs and how CS skills are needed by a lot of the research labs. Also…seems to be thinking less about doubling up with bio and just taking the required premed classes. My guess is that after this weekend he has it down to Case or Nova.
@LurkerDad, as a Case parent, I’m glad your son is having a good time on accepted students day. Really, with his wonderful choices, it is all about fit-- if the finances work! Accepted students weekend two years ago is when my son announced he had found “his people.”
I did want to draw your attention to this older thread in which Case gets some love. Of course your son’s real-life impressions outweigh any opinions from people on the internet!
Best wishes to you and DS on the decision.
I hope he’ll have a chance to visit Brown, sit in on some classes and meet some professors and students. From what I hear from my daughter and her friends, the lectures and classroom experience is fantastic. They take their “shopping period” and course selection very seriously. I took one Brown online class and was blown away by the professor, who was both brilliant and humble. My daugher has had a truly transformative education, and I have no regrets about the large price tag.
Here is some post graduate-data on computational Biology at Brown https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/careerlab/post_grad_data/concentration/CSBI
And a good Ted Talk on Brown’s unique approach to undergraduate education. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aNp6bJCAhU
Congratulations to your son!
So much of how you do in college is related to your major. I was one A away from graduating summa. I didn’t feel like finding another social science course, so I didn’t, but I easily could have. If I’d majored in almost anything else, I don’t think I’d have done as well. I loved every course I took in my major and did very well in them.
The obvious, rational, objective choice is Villanova, based only on cost.
The price premium for any other choice is quite large.
I see a point of diminishing returns after CWRU and Rochester, and probably would take ND off the table*.
Villanova certainly isn’t a CC, but it’s closer than the others to what USNWR characterizes as a “regional” university (in fact, that’s how it used to be classified). Compared to “national” universities, “regional” schools generally have fewer/weaker doctoral programs, more emphasis on pre-professional programs at the undergraduate level, and less geographic diversity in the student body. Nevertheless they usually don’t offer the high percentage of very small classes you’d find at a LAC.
Villanova does not have a doctoral program in CS. Less than 43% of classes have fewer than 20-students (compared to more than 70% at Brown or Rochester). Business is by far the most popular major at Villanova (accounting for nearly a third of graduating seniors, compared to < 1% in computer & information sciences). More than 2/3 of Villanova students come from PA, NJ, or NY (compared to about 1/3 of Brown students from MA, RI, CT, NY, and NJ). As mentioned above, ~75% of Villanova students are Roman Catholic.
I wonder whether Villanova can provide a very stimulating intellectual environment for a smart, creative, entrepreneurial kid like this. I don’t know the answer. I think Rochester or CWRU could (and Brown surely could). If it were my kid, I’d be willing to pay a fairly large price premium if we decided Villanova wasn’t a good fit … assuming we could afford an alternative. Is CWRU or Rochester worth an extra ~$140K? If he’s leaning very strongly toward med school, I’d say no. Otherwise, I think the campus visits become pretty important.
As I expected, he told me this morning that U Roch, ND, and Brown were off the table in his mind. Felt that Case offered more opportunity than Rochester, and didn’t see the point in paying full price for ND and Brown knowing he wants something after this. Looks like it’s down to Case and Villanova. Strengths and weaknesses to both places for a variety of reasons, not just economic ones. I think we’re heading to Villanova’s Accepted Students day on Saturday to make one last comparison. Thanks all for your comments and thoughts. It helps to get differing opinions and perspectives.
I think this will be an easy decision once he sees both places-- the vibe is very different.
I would insist he visit Brown before making a decision. He applied there for a reason, and everyone here is saying they have a great CS program.
@citymama9 - yes…he applied there not knowing what merit aid he’d get from other places. However, he took a look at the numbers (full price for Brown) and said to me, "Brown has a good program, but not $280,000 better than Villanova).
I would make sure he evaluates this in the context of lifetime earnings and access to industries and graduate schools.
Brown has an 80+ % acceptance rate to medical schools and great placements in most other graduate programs. Source: https://www.brown.edu/academics/college/advising/health-careers/medical-admission-data-snapshot
Also, great recruiting for computer science.
Here are placements for class 2015:
https://www.brown.edu/campus-life/support/careerlab/post_grad_data/concentration/COMP
• Associate Product Manager, Google
• Associate Product Manager, Google
• Data Scientist, Censio, Inc.
• DevOps Engineer, Kyruus
• Developer, Microsoft Corp.
• Growth Marketing Intern, DataFox Intelligence, Inc.
• Product Manager, Microsoft Corp.
• Product Quality Engineer, Palantir Technologies
• Production Intern, Imprint Projects
• Program Manager, Microsoft Corp.
• Program Manager, Microsoft Corp.
• Program Manager, Microsoft Corp.
• Program Manager, Microsoft Corp.
• Project Manager, Microsoft Corp.
• Research Developer, Vision Systems, Inc.
• Security Researcher, Salesforce
• Software Developer - Big Data Discovery Team, Oracle Corporation
• Software Developer, Casper
• Software Developer, Jane Street Capital
• Software Developer, Surround.io
• Software Development Engineer, Amazon.com
• Software Engineer, AppDynamics
• Software Engineer, Appnexus
• Software Engineer, Blend Labs
• Software Engineer, Computer Science Corporation
• Software Engineer, Delphix
• Software Engineer, Delphix
• Software Engineer, Delphix
• Software Engineer, Dropbox Inc.
• Software Engineer, Facebook
• Software Engineer, Facebook
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Google
• Software Engineer, Joyent, Inc.
• Software Engineer, MathWorks
• Software Engineer, Microsoft Corp.
• Software Engineer, Microsoft Corp.
• Software Engineer, Mitre Corp.
• Software Engineer, Pinterest
• Software Engineer, Pure Storage
• Software Engineer, Quora Inc.
• Software Engineer, Redfin
• Software Engineer, Redfin
• Software Engineer, Twitter Inc.
• Software Engineer, Vistaprint
• Software Engineer, Vistaprint
• Software Engineer, Vistaprint
• Software Engineer, Zillow.com
• Software Engineering Intern, Yelp
• Summer Imersion Program Teacher, Girls Who Code
• Technical Director Intern, Pixar
• iOS Engineer, Getaround
Best of luck with his decision!
@arwarw: Hard to evaluate when you don’t have the same student attending both Brown and Villanova.
BTW, if you’re going to go by earnings, 5 years out, the average Villanova grad is doing substantially better than the average Brown grad according to College Scorecard.
But again, nobody graduates from both these schools for undergrad, so it’s hard to compare.
Brown claims 80% med school acceptance rate. Nova claims 70%.
A lot of that data relates to how strong the students are who go to a particular school. Given the lower selectivity (i.e. the raw material input going into the school) of Nova, I’d say their output number is more impressive than Brown’s. But you have to take all those numbers with a boulder of salt.
Since they only include the kids that actually wind up applying to med school at the end of a multi-year process. So don’t include all the kids (like this one) who expressed interest in med school as an incoming freshman. There’s a lot of dropping out and de facto weeding out that happens at any school over the next 3-4 years.
Come over to the CWRU subforum and check it out.
THis is a great thread to read: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/case-western-reserve-university/1729119-a-definitive-objective-description-of-case-western-by-a-current-student.html
BTW Case has like 3 hospitals literally across the street so volunteering is easy peasy
^ And at some schools, if you don’t get a committee recommendation, there’s no point applying to med school, so there’s weeding out even at the end.
re: Med school acceptance rates (and I am making up numbers)
2000 kids think they are going to go to med school as a freshman.
1000 kids think they are going to go to med school as a sophomore because they made it through chem and bio
500 kids think they are going to go to med school as a junior because they made it through organic chem
200 kids think they are going to go to med school as a senior because they got decent scores on the MCAT and have a good GPA
100 kids actually apply and get through the whole process
50 kids get a recommendation letter from the pre-health committee so the others are effectively shut out
40 of those kids are accepted to various levels of DO or MD schools
So when they say 80% are admitted, they don’t mean from the 2000 freshman, they mean from the 50 cream of the crop that made it to the end with high GPAs and high MCAT scores who got the blessing of the pre-health committtee…and some of those are going to Harvard Med and some of those are going to East Podunk DO school
I personally think the CS + med school idea is great. It opens so many options on what medicine might be in 15-20 years, nobody posting could possibly know the value.
I am commenting after reading the comparative med school numbers above (80% vs 70%). If going to an Ivy is the $280k question here…going to a top 10 med school is the million dollar (* X ?) question. Medical school differentiation is significant.
I would really struggle with turning down free…but the assumption that the same person could go into to Brown or Villanova and have the same chance at a top tier med school doesn’t feel right to me. If there is money in a 529, it might be well spent considering the potential upside could be millions down the road.
Tough call. I’d also venture to guess that brown CS majors going direct to employment make more than Nova grads. Statistics on schools vary a lot by grad school and major, and Nova is a bit of a pre-professional factory (with regionally respected engineering and business programs) In the Stanford run world of CS…Ivy means something. Good luck.
@EyeVeee: “Medical school differentiation is significant.”
Not if you plan to practice. Yes if you want to go in research, but researchers would tend to make less.
If you are going to pay the $280k, then maybe you should go to ND (which this kid likes and has visited). 80+% med school acceptance rate at ND too. USNWR #15 as compared to Brown at #14.
But Nova or Case make more sense.