CS Schools with Good Merit Scholarships

College Search & Selection
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<p>At this point, he doesn’t seem to have any interest in Wall Street. His interests are more technical in nature at this time. I have encouraged him to consider taking a few business classes or picking up a business minor to go along with his cs degree. The understanding of the business side of things will be valuable no matter what he does.</p>

<p>I will mention to him about the possibility of placing into a higher German class. I see at some schools when you do that and pass the class they roll up all of the language credits beneath it.</p>

<p>Most of the schools we have looked at charge the same amount for 12-20 credits (some limit it at 18 others at 22). In this scenario, AP credits don’t really save any money but they do clear the schedule up some to allow one to learn more and take more upper division courses. They do, of course, save money when they allow one to graduate in 4 years rather than the more typical 4.5-5 years.</p>

<p>He is mulling over the thought of Maryland. It would be a good opportunity with one of their larger scholarships.</p>

<p>He must have somehow hit Princeton’s screening profile as he is getting emails and regular mailings from them a couple of times a week but as they only give need based aid and no merit aid they have not really been under serious consideration for a while. Cornell, MIT, Stanford were talked about for a while but the $250k investment seems difficult to justify if one is fortunate enough to be accepted.</p>

<p>We have talked about a masters. In some fields a masters is quite valuable. In CS it seems like the masters may not be particularly valuable. Any thoughts on the value of a masters in CS?</p>

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<p>@WAPacker:</p>

<p>As someone with a bachelors in CS, I don’t think a Masters in CS is particularly valuable in and of itself for someone with a bachelors in CS. As I mentioned, I’d do it only to position myself for a particular target industry in mind where they are snobbish about brand name and a network matters (Wall Street targets and maybe Stanford for Silicon Valley).</p>

<p>However, a better approach may be to get a top-tier MBA a few years after graduation. I got mine from a top 10 b-school part-time and that, along with my coding/quantitative background has served me very well. </p>

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<p>@ucbalumnus‌:</p>

<p>You have a point. However, what happens is that the top CS schools build their own strong networks in startup hotspots like Silicon Valley, for instance. </p>

<p>I don’t know if you noticed, but while the Valley (obviously) has a ton of Cal CS grads, there’s also a swarm of Illinois CS grads there. </p>

<p>I recently looked at which school had the most CS grads who founded companies (counting grad and undergrad; I have to separate the undergrad CS people out still), it was Stanford ahead by a lot, then Cal, then another gap, then Harvard/MIT/Illinois, then Cornell and others. I’ll publish it soon enough, but based on that data, I’d move CalTech and Princeton down in to the pack.</p>

<p>Also, a strong local startup scene deters companies from outside the region from recruiting there. For instance, all the high frequency trading firms (based in NYC and Chicago), who love coding prowess, hit CMU and Illinois (most hit MIT & Princeton), but fewer hit Cal & Stanford (and very few hit UT-Austin). Probably because they don’t manage to pull enough coding talent away from those startup hotspots to make recruiting there worthwhile.</p>

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<p>UW is a top 15 CS school in the country, as well as a gorgeous campus. If I was in-state with a kid with those stats (I was OOS with a kid with those stats and majoring in CS and I considered UW), I wouldn’t even consider him looking elsewhere. As an aside, my prediction is he gets waitlisted at Case Western, because that is how they roll. They’ll take lower kids who can pay first. But if you take the waitlist, you may still get good merit aid. Still, their CS isn’t nearly as strong as UW. Look, there are probably 5-8 public schools really strong in CS – UCB, UCSD, UW, UIUC, U Maryland, UT Austin, UNC, Ohio State, and you have one of them in-state. Why bother looking elsewhere? Have him apply to honors if you want to change up his experience a bit. He will probably get it. Incidentally, my son got $20k in CS from RPI and $15k from U Rochester with the same stats, but without FA, those are still $45-$50k a year. Actually, Ohio State is one you really should look at. On their calculator, my won qualified for $15k merit as an OOS student, their CS is about as good as UW, and their OOS tuition is more reasonable. I think it might not cost much more than UW in-state after the scholarship. It is huge, so my son did not apply, but it might work for you.</p>

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<p>Yes, UIUC is one of the larger sources of out-of-state CS graduates around here.</p>

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<p>The reverse might also be true for most Ivy League schools, where the small number of CS majors are heavily recruited by Wall Street, resulting in a low yield for Silicon Valley computer companies trying to recruit there, so they may not bother.</p>

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<p>@Daddio3 I will not make the decision on where he goes so it is not about me considering him looking anywhere other than UW. I think he should apply to UW just to see if he gets direct admission but it is his decision to make within some financial and other guidelines I impose. Without direct admission it is a non-starter.</p>

<p>I am curious, you have Ohio State on the same tier as UW, What makes you think they are similar? Ohio State is on my son’s list and I think it will probably come out a little less expensive than UW. Travel costs may make it about even. I don’t think he will get 50 cents of merit aid from UW.</p>

<p>My son doesn’t seem concerned about the size of OSU, but I am a bit, but neither of us has actually been there yet. TAMU is a similar size and it doesn’t feel huge but I have a feeling OSU is going to feel huge.</p>

<p>Anyways, would like to hear additional thoughts on OSU.</p>

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<p>@ucbalumnus‌:</p>

<p>Also, if you get a CS degree from a good CS school (or just a good school in general), times are good in the Bay Area and you have a friend already working there, you can just call up a headhunter or several, fly out there, slum on your friend’s couch, and interview at a bunch of startups. That’s what I did in 2000. Granted, your school (or HS, in my case) does need people already working in the Valley.</p>

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<p>My son and I took an approach that many may see as flawed, but it is an approach. We used two ranking systems – Us News and National Research Council. Here is the NRC list, which you can sort with the rightmost column: <a href=“NRC Rankings Overview: Computer Sciences”>http://chronicle.com/article/NRC-Rankings-Overview-/124721/&lt;/a&gt; The obvious problem is that these are not undergrad ratings, but you will see in the NCR list that UW and Ohio State are not far apart as in US News.</p>

<p>We found our preferred in-state option on the list, and only considered schools above it (mostly 10 or more positions above). From there, we looked at financials, fit, and afterward dove into the CS programs on their web sites to narrow out list down to 10 or so. We also looked at CollegeNavigator.gov to see just how many CS majors they are graduating (we didn’t want him to be one of five kids or something). I ran net price calculators on each and we stacked them that way with a limit of about 1.5 times our in-state school. Anyway, he applied to 6 reaches, 3 matches, and 2 safeties including his state school. He got into 1 reach, 2 matches with merit, and both safeties with merit. Cost was about the same as our in-state option for the reach and match schools, except he gets around $25k of loans and some work study. We walked through the loans and he and we were OK with them (he is studying CS – he can pay off $25k of loans), so he chose his reach school. It turns out that once his sister attends college in a couple years, the cost of his school will be the same as in-state with loans included, so his choice is actually cheaper for me.</p>

<p>On the other hand, if YOU did the exact same thing we did with a higher income than ours and UW as your in-state option, you would have far fewer schools in your list (since UW is much higher ranked than our in-state). Furthermore, with a higher income, a number of those OOS publics would cost far more than UW – Ohio State is an exception. And you would not get nearly the FA of our private school options. So if I applied our methodology to your situation, your kid would basically be choosing between UW and Ohio State. When I spoke originally, I forgot about Ohio State, which is why I said UW would be pretty much his only choice.</p>

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<p>Thanks for taking the time to explain your methodology. Nothing wrong with your approach. The rankings systems certainly have their flaws and moreso with regards to CS but they at least help narrow the field a bit.</p>

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<p>UDub has a fine CS program but getting in to UDub for CS is no sure thing.</p>

<p>For one, UDub’s CS program is relatively small (for a large research university).</p>

<p>For another, the OP says only a small percentage of each class is directly admitted in to the CS program. The rest have to apply later after attending UDub, and only a third are allowed to continue to take upper-level classes (so the rest get a minor in CS?)</p>

<p>Is that “National Buckeye Scholarship” almost a sure thing? Then it would be as cheap as in-state.</p>

<p>Still, I dunno. I might just take either the full-tuition scholarship or aim for a top-5 program (with the cost knocked off some AP credits). </p>

<p>For instance, in my previous ranking system, I said I’d pay up to $180K for Illinois CS. Say I’m willing to pay $120K for OSU or Stevens (the baseline, which is a well-respected research university or technical institute). Putting 'Bama slightly below, say only $90K for Alabama CS. If I manage to get enough AP credits so that I can keep to 11 credits or less for 6 out of the 8 semesters (and 2 semester of 18 credits; maybe fill those with humanities classes), I’d pay $95K in tuition, or $135K total. At OSU, with the National Buckeye, total cost would be $90K. At Stevens with the full tuition scholarship, it’s $60K (room and board in NYC is expensive). 'Bama would be $40K.</p>

<p>$45K surplus value at Illinois (but only $15K if you drop them down to the $150K tier).
$30K surplus value at OSU.
$60K surplus value at Stevens.
$50K surplus value at 'Bama (but $80K surplus value if you raise the university up half a tier).</p>

<p>UDub in-state is $100K. If you put them in the $180K, surplus value is $80K ($50K if you drop them down to the $150K tier).</p>

<p>Tough call. My inclination is to either go big or go free. One consideration is that to maintain the Presidential scholarship at UAT, you need to maintain a 3.5 GPA (and they may curve, so that may be challenging).
The Neupauer at Stevens only needs a 3.0 GPA. The National Buckeye only requires a 2.5 GPA (and can be combined with other scholarships).</p>

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<p>Oh, I forgot:</p>

<p>Banneker at UMD needs a 3.2 GPA, and UMD is a good school for CS.</p>

<p>UK has several scholarships. Your son already qualifies for the $10K scholarship, which easily brings UK within range. The competitive full tuition scholarships probably aren’t hard to get either. a 3.3 GPA needs to be maintained.</p>

<p>Not sure if your son would consider MiamiU and UK to have enough CS courses. </p>

<p>With Alabama’s 3.5 GPA requirement, I’m actually leery of going there.</p>

<p>OSU seems to have 8 trillion different special scholarships, so it could end up being close to free tuition.</p>

<p>My pecking order right now would probably be</p>

<p>UDub if admission in to CS
UMD if free tuition
Stevens if free tuition
OSU/UK/MiamiU/Other if free or close
Illinois with AP credits</p>

<p>Maybe UBC in there somewhere as well.</p>

<p>Oh yeah, and all NJ publics are free tuition if you join the NJ National Guard.
IL publics (including UIUC) are also free tuition after one year in the IL National Guard (including the Air National Guard). However, there is the risk of deployments and all that (there might be rules about you not being deployed while in school; the details seem complicated), so I wouldn’t consider it unless your son was already considering serving our country; at least 1 deployment seems likely.</p>

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<p>OSU Buckeye Scholarship is almost a sure thing. I think he will get another 3K that sounds close to a sure thing and he should be in the running for another 3k. So likely he will get 15K-18k/yr of merit aid at OSU for a cost of $75k-80k.</p>

<p>Bama about $40k, maybe a bit less. He will get full tuition +$2500/yr. 3.0 gpa to maintain scholarship. He could also be in the running for a fellowship that would cover most of that $40k but can’t count on that.</p>

<p>UW would be about $100k</p>

<p>Purdue $150k to $90k depending on merit offers between 0 and 16k/yr</p>

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<p>What web site lists the college GPA to renew the Alabama scholarships as 3.5? Seems to be hard to find an Alabama web site that lists the college GPA for renewal (though a few secondary sources, including a few year old thread in these forums, give it as 3.0).</p>

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<p>2000 was at the height of the dot.com bubble, so it is no surprise that jobs were easy to get then. But that would not have been less likely to be successful a year or few later.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://scholarships.ua.edu/faq/”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/faq/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>@ucbalumnus:</p>

<p>Yep, times have to be good for that strategy, but when times are bad, there aren’t many startups sprouting up anyway.</p>

<p>I’m trying to find that UA-T 3.5 GPA renewal webpage again. I’m sure I saw it. Unless it was another Alabama (they all seem to offer merit scholarships).</p>

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<p>The obvious plus for picking Alabama would be the cost. What are the negatives of earning a CS degree at Alabama?</p>

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<p>OK, check with UA-T admissions about the GPA required for renewal of the Presidential Scholarship first.</p>

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<p>Oh yeah, UT-Dallas has full-rides: <a href=“The Eugene McDermott Scholars Program - The University of Texas at Dallas”>http://www.utdallas.edu/mcdermott/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>It’s seen by some (many?) in TX as the 3rd best public there. UT-Dallas is a pretty new school but STEM-heavy, so it seems to be TX’s attempt to create their version of a UCSD. Unlike UCSD, though, UT-Dallas may not carry a cachet outside TX compared to many public flagships simply because they’re young and many people have not heard of them.</p>

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<p>A student would likely need to be more aggressive at looking for jobs on his/her own, rather than just being able to watch a parade of recruiters come to its career center.</p>