CS Admissions Difficulty

Parents Forum
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Short Version: It seems that Computer Science enrollments are exploding at many colleges. For a male applying as a potential CS major to selective schools with a strong CS program, is it significantly harder to get admitted than for the average applicant? In particular, do schools that would ordinarily be “matches” possibly become “reaches”, and should an applicant take that into account when forming their college list? And is this also a factor for schools that don’t admit by major as well as ones that do?

Long Version: My nephew is applying to college this year. He’s got very good test scores and grades (e.g. 2350 SAT, 3 X 800 SAT II’s, 8 X 5 AP’s at the end of junior year) and good EC’s; he really doesn’t have any obvious weakness as a candidate. He’s interested in CS and pursued it a bit (took AP CS as a sophomore, then took the sophomore level sequence for CS majors at the local university plus something else last summer that I can’t recall) though I wouldn’t say he’s a programming prodigy or anything. Thinks he wants to major in CS, but he’ll explore when he gets to college and certainly could change his mind. His applications will highlight CS as his academic strength area. He’s out of state for all the schools he’s looking at. Money is zero problem for his family, and his ethnicity is white.

His mom has asked me for some advice on his college list. I, being no fool of course, know that I’m mostly supposed to praise his accomplishments. But I’d still like to give some honest feedback to my nephew.

He’s got some “high reaches” like Stanford and MIT on his list. He knows that they’re long shots, so there’s no expectation problem here. The problem is the schools in his “match” to “low reach” bucket.

Take a school like Berkeley. As an OOS candidate with his stats, his family has it as a “low reach”. But for a male applying as a CS major (EECS actually), I’d almost certainly call it a “high reach”.

Take another school like Univ. Illinois Urbana Champaign. He’s OOS; his family has it as a “low match / match”. But I’m worried that as a CS major (Engineering) it might be a “high match” or even a “low reach”. Ditto for schools like Georgia Tech, RPI, etc.

Basically, I’m tempted to say that they need to add several more schools in what would usually be the “match” bucket for a student like him, as well as one or two schools that are less selective.

Am I right about this “additional CS hurdle” effect when applying as a male CS major? And is it a factor for schools that generally don’t admit by major as well as the ones that do?

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Why it has to be some selective place with some “strong program”. The IT departments of companies, small, big, local, huge international companies, ANY companies, tend to hire locally. They are aware that no matter where applicant has graduated from, they will have to go thru training any way, which in most cases will last for several years as they learn some other aspects of their jobs that they may not be involved initially. And then, when applicant with experience find another job, even the ones with 30 years of experience, they have to be trained again, most of this training is self-learning also. I have been in IT for over 30 years, worked at many very well known places, some with huge IT departments, some as small as 2 people, my manager and me, local companies, huge international companies… Vast majority of people in these departments graduated from our hometown college. I have worked at places that have very complicated software (medical records, medical insurance) and somewhat less complicated. The most rewarding from my experience places with better pay are automotive and automotive suppliers. The job is very rewarding, my current place continually hire as people retire and everybody seems to be happy with their job. It is by far the best out of 9 places that I have worked in a past. We hire strictly from the local hometown college. I never heard from any of these new people that the CS major was more selective than any others. But again, nobody considers our hometown college particularly selective or being known for CS major. It is just a place to get somewhat trained and get the job based on this training.
So, why to go thru “additional CS hurdle”, why try to break thru the close doors, there are plenty of wide open with great opportunities offered at each.

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He’s not competing against other CS candidates at MIT. He’s competing against everyone else so his odds are the same, i.e. not great, but he can’t get in if he doesn’t apply.

I think your “CS hurdle” is a factor at public U’s which admit by school (i.e. Engineering vs. Arts and Sciences) where CS is an impacted major. I think it’s irrelevant everywhere else. For holistic admissions type schools (Stanford) it won’t work against him, but in the absence of anything compelling in the application, just high grades and scores and some noodling around in CS probably won’t make much of an impression given the hordes of CS-oriented applicants.

Where is he in-state, and why not toss in an application there? And why not forget about CS for a minute (since he doesn’t seem super committed to it) and just make a list where colleges would be drooling over him? He’s a fantastic candidate- and if his interests are likely to change, there are oodles of colleges which would be a solid, solid match for him without worrying about the CS hurdle. If money isn’t a problem, the world is his oyster…

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For Berkeley specifically, CS can be done as either EECS in the College of Engineering, or CS in the College of Letters and Science (L&S CS). EECS is harder for frosh admission than L&S, but L&S students all enter undeclared, and must complete the major prerequisites to declare their majors. Currently, due to increasing interest, the L&S CS major requires a 3.3 college GPA in the prerequisites to declare the major (recently raised from 3.0; a few years back it was 2.0).

Berkeley admissions tends to emphasize GPA (which you did not mention) over test scores, though for EECS, an applicant needs to be top end in both to be considered (and needs to write good essays, of course). L&S admissions may be a bit more lenient on test scores than GPA.

Of course, Berkeley does not offer financial aid against the additional OOS tuition (about $25,000 per year) unless he earns a Regents’ scholarship.

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UIUC admits by major and getting in to CS in Engineering there is considerably harder than getting in to pretty much any other major there. That said, it still isn’t as hard as getting in to CS at CMU or MIT or Stanford. And I would be shocked if he was rejected from a CS+X major there. So he could list CS in Engineering as a first choice and a CS+X major as a second choice for UIUC (assuming that he has some interest in math/stats/linguistics/anthropology/chemistry/astronomy) or vice versa.
I would also recommend an app or 2 to schools known to be strong in CS but still not extremely difficult to get in to like UW-Madison/UCSD/UMD.
Then he may go wild with reaches. If you have a safety or 2 that you are fine with, I don’t see the point of making the distinction between match and reach (assuming that your ego can handle rejections). You can attend only 1 school after all, so go with fit.

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Some CS firms hire locally, but if you are looking for a job at the hot places (Google etc.) they will be looking primarily at the top schools for prospects. (Though they claim this is changing I’ve seen no evidence of it.) I agree with Blossom that the places that accept by school - (Carnegie Mellon and most places where CS is in the Engineering school) it may be a bit of a disadvantage to be male. See: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/the-gender-factor-in-college-admissions/2014/03/26/4996e988-b4e6-11e3-8020-b2d790b3c9e1_story.html

My son’s approach (with similar stats) was to apply to selective schools without worrying too much about whether they were low or high reaches, but to concentrate instead on having two solid safeties. One of those safeties gave him an admit before Thanksgiving and both gave merit money which would certainly have sweetened the disappointment if he’d had to attend one of them. (His safeties were WPI and RPI FWIW.)

I don’t actually think there are a lot of match schools for high stats kids in engineering, but the good news is there are lots of excellent schools for engineering/CS that are relatively easy to get into if you are a top student.

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Great suggestions so far. I would second UMD and also add Rutgers, UMass Amherst, Stony Brook University- all highly ranked CS depts., and have great departments in many other fields; competitive but not ridiculously so. For a student with these stats, these should be match schools. (Hesitant to call anything a “safety” any more.)

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First of all, CS is not IT, and there is definitely merit to attending a school that is strong in computer science.

But I think a lot of people discount schools that aren’t really “known” for computer science, but actually are quite good. I’m thinking of schools like Yale, Brown, Tufts - these are all schools for which I’ve seen many graduates in top computer science PhD programs, and whose students are recruited by companies like Facebook or Google. And in particular, Brown and Tufts have a significantly lower admissions rate for males (though still very low nonetheless), and Yale is specifically trying to attract top math and science students. A lot of people who are interested in computer science won’t even think of applying to these schools because they’re “known” for being strong in humanities subjects, which somehow implies that they are weak in computer science. But these might be good choices to consider if you want to stand out as a male CS major, to the extent that this is possible.

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Brown and Yale don’t admit by major, so being interested in CS isn’t all that helpful, all things being equal. And for a kid looking for some safer options than Georgia Tech and RPI, not sure why Yale and Brown help him all that much (although they’d both be great places to study CS).

Agree with UMD, Rutgers, Stoneybrook- on the match/safe line for this kid. (very safe if not quite safety…)

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warbrain, makes a good point. My older son applied to Harvard because I thought he had a better than average chance there. They really wanted him and the head of the computer department called him up and tried to persuade him to come. Tufts, at least, is still a reach school for a top applicant and their admissions is quite unpredictable.

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News articles have noted that Google recruits widely among colleges. However, it also has a reputation of difficult and highly selective interviews, so it is likely that relatively fewer of the students at less selective colleges get past those interviews, resulting in the hiring being heavy with those from more selective colleges.

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Let me add to @warbrain’s post.

When DS applied to Yale, he was considering a major in Math or Physics (or both). He had done some programming in HS, but as is the case with many “natural” programmers, it was too easy for him and he dismissed it as a serious pursuit. Yale’s so-so reputation in CS further kept him from considering it. His mother and I were both in the field (I retired, she is predominantly management now), but the more we learned about Yale’s CS program, the more we thought it was a great major/place for him.

Yale gets bad marks because it’s small and theoretical. I don’t want to slag any other school’s CS department, and they are doing fine, but I think that they are “hands on,” to a fault. They’re busy developing web sites when they should be investigating data structures at a deep level. A tell-tale sign of someone who really doesn’t get it is someone who asks you “what languages do you know?” There are major paradigms of languages that require some time to understand, but asking a Computer Scientist what languages he knows is a bit like asking an author what word processor he uses.

Anyway, DS is now a CS major (sophomore) and is enjoying it. Combined with the enhanced budget (DS is shopping a graduate course with a new faculty member in a week), the high caliber of other subjects, and the collaborative atmosphere of Yale, I strongly recommend considering Yale.

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Thanks for the suggestions and all the advice you’ve given so far - please keep it coming !

@ucbalumnus - Thanks for your response. Didn’t think about applying to L&S. From your answer and your screen name you seem to know Berkeley well. Do you know how hard it is to get a 3.3 GPA in the prerequisites - are the classes notorious weeders, about what % of qualified L&S potential CS majors get admitted to the major, etc? I’m sure the CS classes at Berkeley are quite rigorous.

I’ve read that admit rates for EECS are around 5-6% out of a very strong applicant pool, while OOS admit rates for L&S seem to be 17-20% or so. So it looks like it’s much harder to get admitted into EECS vs. L&S, but in EECS there aren’t any more hurdles to clear (other than the rigor of the classes !). Another factor is that he’s more of a STEM kid and going from Engineering to L&S seems to be much easier than the reverse.

Additional info - My nephew is a straight A student, so unweighted GPA = 4.0. He attends a strong high school - every junior takes the PSAT and the high school average is 185. Course rigor is high - junior year he took 6 AP classes and got 5’s on all the tests; next year he’ll take all AP or post-AP classes like multivariable calculus except for an Art Class.

Financial aid is not a concern. If he won the Regents’ scholarship I’m sure he’d happily use the early class registration perk, but his parents would likely donate the money back to benefit a student with financial need.

All true, but probably not right for my nephew. No guarantees that he’ll have a CS/IT career, and he wants a place where he can get a good broad education in addition to getting a strong CS background. Plus, being too close to home is not a selling point for this 17 year-old boy :slight_smile:

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I was not suggesting being close to home. I was suggesting that for CS and most other majors (there are exceptions) the name of the college really does not matter. Unless it is a top priority of the applicant himself (and it is completely fine and understandable that some wants to have MIT name attached to their name for the rest of their lives), in specific case of CS it is absolutely does not matter where one attends. In fact, if IT department is not a goal, but rather more theoretical so to speak type of job, I know somebody, again from our local college who was accepted to some very selective Grad. program and is involved in developing computer languages (from what I understand). And for broad education approach, I am all for it. There are many (I know lots of examples, including my own kid) who graduate with combo of major(s) / minor(s). College (ANY college) provides an opportunity to pursue several unrelated interests and many are greatly enriching their lives doing just that and also participating in many aspects of college life, doing several ECs, going abroad,…etc., all of it in a name of “growing up” as a person, not only obtaining some professional skills at college. I call this a broad approach, while taking many of lower level classes in various subjects really do not mean much for a person’s future.

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Yale CS is rigorous. But really, CS at all the Ivies/equivalents (with the possible exception of Dartmouth) will be rigorous (as well as at the well-regarded CS schools).

Also, just as a CPA and Wall Street trader/banker are both in finance yet the roles offer different opportunities and are different experiences, I think its fair to say that working in IT and coding at a top software companies are different experiences offering different opportunities as well.

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When you say “CS” it’s not really cut and dried. Traditionally most people probably think of CS out of the engineering college, however some schools offer CS out of the humanities college. Those programs are probably much easier to get into. UC Berkely and UCLA both offer CS programs out of the humanities colleges as mentioned. For Carnegie Mellon look at Logic and Computation, which is a very cool interdisciplinary degree out of the philosophy department which focuses on CS (I may be a little biased on that one :slight_smile: ). I’m sure there are many other examples.

A mix of straight EECS and liberal-arts CS applications will probably help his odds. And I think the humanities approach is probably better for students that aren’t true die-hard techie types.

As far as companies hiring locally, I’m sure most do. However I remember when I was doing interviews as a senior every single company I interviewed with was from out of state. I’m sure the particular school you attend has a lot to do with it.

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The advantage to MIT and Caltech is that one takes CORE classes and doesn’t declare a major in freshman year. My son was worried that at CMU’s SCS he would be limited in his interests, but actually, he would have a minor in another discipline than CS. Also, he could easily transfer out from CS, but far more difficult to transfer in.

If nephew is Full pay, why not consider the above schools, along with RPI and WPI? I’d also add Cornell to the list, although I don’t have personal info about their program. Where would your nephew be happiest at, a large state school, or a smaller place?

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At pretty much all the private Ivy/equivalents I can think of, you don’t have to declare your major straight out of HS (though at Cornell, Northwestern, Penn, Duke, and maybe a few others, you apply to a school; though, while Cornell admits by school, at NU and most other privates, the engineering and A&S applicants at least are in one big pool.

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Your nephew is a very accomplished kid and certainly looks like he can get into some very good schools. Bear in mind though that at schools like CMS, Stanford, Cornell, Berkeley or MIT, the competition can be intense. A degree from one of these schools is nice but not at all necessary. Tech is an incredibly leveled playing field. Almost all flagship state colleges have a good CS department. Large firms like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook hire from all major campuses. All that matters is that you can get past the interview, which is a grueling 5 to 6 hour process where you are asked to solve all types of brain teasers, mind benders, coding logic etc. There are Harvard grads who couldn’t get past these interviews. Almost everyone I worked with in tech went to state schools, and not just from the big name state schools like UCB, UW, UMI, but all over, UOR, UAZ, AZU, WSU, UT, UCO, Rutgers, Penn State, Purdue…you name it. Computer geeks are only snobs when it comes to coding skills, we don’t care where you learned it. Many are even self-taught and never went to college. Dropping out is now in vogue in Silicon Valley.

On the other hand if he can get into a school like Stanford or one of the Ivies, it almost doesn’t matter what he majors in. Lots of people in tech majored in all different subjects, from Math to Music to Physics. As long as he has a minor in CS, he’ll be able to get a job in tech. Reed Hastings, founder of Netflix, majored in math at Bowdoin. Steve Ballmer, ex-CEO of Microsoft, majored in math at Harvard. Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, majored in philosophy at Stanford before getting his JD. In fact, I have heard that Google likes to hire philosophy majors, but I think only if you got that Philosophy degree from Stanford though, not so much Fresno State:).

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The sweet spot for him seems to be schools with total undergrad sizes of 4000-8000. He definitely doesn’t like too small; larger state schools are not ideal but OK especially since many of them have strong programs.

Cornell and MIT are great suggestions. I don’t think Caltech is for him. He didn’t really like CMU SCS that much (didn’t think the “fit” was there), plus it’s extremely hard to get into as well.

Suggestions of specific schools are very welcome, but to be honest I’m especially interested in making sure he has a good applications strategy - i.e. what adjustments should be made to a college list in view of his intended CS major? If I’m right that applying as a male CS major is more competitive (at least at strong CS schools that take major into account), then they need to re-adjust their expectations of what schools are matches/reaches/etc. and how many total schools in each selectively bucket to apply to.

And there’s the whole early vs regular thing too (super important if you ask me), but that’s a separate discussion.

For sure, and they generally aren’t admitting by major though some of them admit Engineering vs. A&S. I still have a nagging suspicion that the bar is somewhat higher for a CS major since it’s a hot area right now with lots of very accomplished applicants, but I admit this might be baseless.

(There’s another undercurrent of family dynamics here as well. Some of my kids have already applied to college and they got into many very selective schools This is my sister’s oldest child and I don’t want to suggest to her that he needs to expand his list without having supporting facts because she might take it the wrong way. Sibling rivalry, still going strong :slight_smile: )