@DrGoogle - Even if the email is from a legitimate recruiter there is something else to think about before replying to it.
Some recruiters genuinely have a great reputation. They carefully screen candidates and have an “in” at companies like Google. They can get the right managers to carefully consider a resume and can help candidates land a great job. These recruiters earn their fee.
Other unscrupulous recruiters blindly scan LinkedIn, etc. for candidates they think companies like Google will be interested in. If the candidate contacts them, then this gives the recruiter “dibs” on the candidate for 6 months or a year. They then do nothing more than simply email the resume to the Google HR email address. If by chance Google hires the candidate during the “dibs” period, the recruiter gets a fee - often around 20-25% of a year’s pay. These recruiters do nothing other than make sure that the candidate now has a “price” on their head - making them more expensive to hire.
Experienced people in the industry will be able to tell you who are good recruiters and who aren’t.
She has other opportunity this year to interview with Google at other events, she just doesn’t want to interview now. So I think it’s a good idea to ignore it. She is too busy to dig out her old contact at Google.
You might be surprised how similar some “other colleges” are, including much less selective ones. For example, a similar destination/salary list for Purdue CS grads is at Career placement in CS at Purdue - Department of Computer Science - Purdue University , which includes Google, Microsoft, and various other companies that tend to be desired by new grads . Google, Microsoft, and other such companies also appear on their “corporate partner” companies list, which apparently offers special benefits towards becoming an employee. The median starting salary for Purdue CS grads who work in the west or northeast (higher cost of living regions) was $90k+. However, the largest number of new grads’ companies were located in the midwest, which makes sense given the location of Purdue, so that pulls down the overall salary median below colleges in other regions. If a particular CS student wants to work at a popular company in the midwest after graduating, I wouldn’t assume that it will be harder to do so if he attends Purdue than CMU.
@Data10 “If a particular CS student wants to work at a popular company in the midwest after graduating, I wouldn’t assume that it will be harder to do so if he attends Purdue than CMU.”
A good student can go anywhere, and Purdue has an excellent reputation so I don’t think that the name difference will hurt at all. What may make a difference is that my understanding is that the level of rigor is higher at the CMU program, so the same student may know more after four years in that program. I assume that knowing more must be beneficial in some way, or everyone would take the relatively easier path.
I would add that only on cc: is Purdue considered in “other colleges,” especially in engineering fields.
It’s very thoughtful of you to want to provide sound guidance to your nephew.
My son is looking at computer science schools and we have found much of the admittance criteria is based on whether or not CS is in the engineering school. While every school has their own criteria, the CS within an engineering school seems to be even more difficult to gain admittance to initially. Many of the state flagship schools have an average ACTs of 32+ while the overall school may indicate a 28ACT etc.
Make sure your nephew understands the criteria for admittance to the actual school to which he is applying - that’s key. It’s also beneficial to check the transferability from one major to another. For instance, if he majors in CS and wants to take engineering courses as well that could be problematic at some schools. Specifically for UIUC - they require you maintain a 3.67 GPA (while taking extremely challenging math coursework) with no less than a A- in CS classes to be able to transfer into CS from another major.
There are definitely good reasons for students to choose CMU over Purdue, but there are also good reasons a student might favor the reverse. These reasons include more than just level of rigor issues.
CMU CS has a 5% acceptance rate with higher median test scores than all of HYPSM. Purdue has a ~60% acceptance rate with median test scores in the high 500s (not sure of CS specific). From an admissions selectivity perspective, the two colleges are quite different. Purdue does have a good reputation in CS and various other fields. With an enrollment of ~30,000 students, I expect they have a strong alumni network as well and are quite well known by employers, in the midwest likely more so than CMU.
Purdue was an arbitrary example. You could make similar statements about employment outcomes for many other colleges. For example, Brigham Young’s list of companies that recruited and employed recent CS grads at https://cs.byu.edu/our-students includes Google, Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, NASA, etc. However, the majority of grads choose to stay in Utah, so the average starting salary is lower than it would be for Silicon Valley. If a particular CS student wants to work at a popular company in the Utah area after graduating, I wouldn’t assume that it will be harder to do so if he attends BYU than CMU.
Are you really sure he wants to go into CS? I would check out colleges for Computer Engineering too. For example even though Georgia Tech has a good CS dept and number of students major in Computer or Electrical engineering instead and take CS classes or minor in CS. Engineers can get coding jobs later if they want as long as they have the correct skill set. Also if he wants a school with only 4000-8,000 then GT is too big for him.
If there is a clear front-runner on his eventual list which is a reach, he can consider applying ED which would significantly increase his chances of admission. This year there seemed to be a big increase in offering admissions to ED applicants which made the chances for RD pool to get in even smaller.
If he is not sure what he wants to study then studying CS through the LAS route vs Engineering would give him more flexibility in his schedule and also make the admission process a bit easier.
@Data10, using the overall admission rate as a proxy for CS admission rate (especially at those universities that admit by major or school) may be quite misleading. For example, the acceptance rate in to CS in engineering at UIUC is a small fraction of UIUC’s overall admit rate.
Also, my understanding is that at Purdue, folks who enter engineering need to get accepted in to a major as well, so there is a further winnowing process (guess kids who can’t get in to any major in the engineering school have to major in something else).
In any case, by using OS finals that are online as a proxy, I could see that the rigor of CS at UMD (which is a fine school for CS) is similar to that of CS at Yale, and both are only a bit behind MIT CS (which really only had a longer, not harder, final). However, all those were more rigorous than Rutgers and far more rigorous than CS at a school like Wichita St.
Furthermore, while it may be easier to enter CS at UMD/Purdue than CS at CMU, my guess is that a greater percentage of the CS students at UMD/PU take a big enough hit to their GPA that they drop out of CS. So the CS majors who graduate from there may be quite good, but it would be a different environment from one like Yale/CMU where far few kids who intend to major in CS drop the major.
In any case, it seems to me that there is indeed a difference in the CS education at elite schools/top CS schools and other schools.
CS is not an engineering school major at Purdue. I don’t claim to be an expert on Purdue admissions, but if you look at threads on this site, students are accepted to Purdue CS with much weaker academic qualifications than CMU type schools. Purdue’s transfer page mentions CS majors need a 2.5 GPA and 1 semester of calculus with a grade of B or higher. There may be additional qualifications, but the point is Purdue CS does not have anywhere near the degree of selectivity as CMU CS, UIUC CS, or similar.
@Data10, agree that Purdue CS isn’t nearly as difficult to get in to as CMU CS, but if you look here (https://www.cs.purdue.edu/undergraduate/curriculum/bachelor.html), not only is a C or better required in all CS and prereqs now, but a C or better is required in each course to progress through the CS core as well.
Requiring a C in CS core classes is not exactly a stringent requirement, especially when you can take courses more than once and replace the old D/F grade with the new C grade.
The methodology defines “successful” as working at LinkedIn’s “top companies” list. At schools like Purdue, BYU, or similar I have mentioned, many grads instead would prefer to stay closer to where they live, which leads to a different list of desired companies from the overall population. For example, I mentioned that the majority of BYU CS grads work in Utah. I expect a large portion of those grew up in the Utah area, went to college in Utah, and would like to stay in the Utah area after graduating. If they meet this goal with the help of BYU’s recruiting, does that mean they aren’t “successful” because they are not fawning over working at Google/Apple…? When a good portion of grads’ goals don’t align well with the “top companies” list, the school’s ranking suffers.
@Data10, indeed, so for working in the Midwest, both Purdue and UIUC may be fine. However, UIUC would have a stronger network in the Valley.
As for the requirement for C’s in CS classes (all of them, BTW), no, that may not be that difficult for someone who is competitive for CS at CMU to achieve, but for instance, the mean score for one Purdue OS midterm was 45/90 (median was 44). That suggests that, while Purdue CS grads may be good, a decent percentage of students who intend to major in CS at Purdue don’t actually manage to graduate as CS majors.
Purdue is probably also fine for working in SV. I mentioned they have special corporate partner relationships with Google/Microsoft/… and get a good number of hires at such companies. UIUC probably does have a stronger network and more students pursuing SV + more SV hires, but that does not mean Purdue is not also fine.
I’m sure many Purdue students do drop out of the major, but looking at specific exam scores has little meaning unless you know how A/B/C/… is defined. For example the median score on my Trost Chem 30 something midterm at Stanford was ~31/100 (don’t remember exact number). Does that mean that most Stanford students don’t actually manage to graduate as chem/bio/complete pre-med/or whatever? Or does it mean that a grade of 30/100 is probably at least a B on this midterm?
@Data10, I couldn’t find the grade distribution for that class, but for another CS class, a 55/100 was required for a C.
Purdue is also (as of a few years ago) famous/infamous for not having any grade inflation over the past 30 years. So the average GPA in engineering/science at Purdue is 2.something. Pulling a C is considered by Purdue students to be doing pretty well. Purdue does not have Stanford-style grade inflation, so take it all together, and I think it’s reasonable to infer that a decent percentage of the kids who intend to major in CS at Purdue do not graduate with that major.
Regarding C grades to declare the major or continue to the next course, I would think that a student getting worse grades in the subject that s/he wants to major in probably has other issues to worry about, meaning risk of academic probation or dismissal due to getting a GPA lower than 2.0.
Purdue’s average GPA was most recently reported to be 2.81.
Data, most national companies recruit at BYU specifically because their students (having taken two years out of their studies to do their mission) don’t want to stay in Utah. A graduating BYU senior is typically two years older than seniors elsewhere, is usually fluent in at least one other language than English, and knows that when you’re getting sent overseas for work it doesn’t mean having fun in Paris but often means working in an office park 20 miles outside of Dusseldorf (aka real life, not being a tourist).