You can look at collegedata.com for general applications data and number admitted for any college. That gives only overall numbers, not major specific.
Does your son’s school have Naviance or some similar database? That could give you a genral idea of where your child fits. Ask your school guidance counselor.
You also asked about essays. Visit each college’s admissions website and see what they expect. With covid, almost everyone has virtual sessions or videos. On CC there is an entire forum devoted to essays. Also, Google “college essays” for some helpful tips and ideas.
Their school does not have naviance. They just asked us to go thru college board. We will be meeting with the guidance counselor once school starts. Regarding essays we have some idea already. He is also taking some extra sessions with a coach for the essays. Based on the previous comments I understand some points to consider - cost, salary, location, scope to pursue other hobbies … How do we gather more information about the actual course itself ? What about it makes one better than the other ? Where can we find info like this that eyemgh had mentioned earlier … "but it has all small classes, nearly all taught by instructors with terminal degrees, including labs and discussions. " … Why isnt Purdue on any of your lists ? I went to Purdue’s research site and saw a lot of good things that UG students get to work on
Purdue is a wonderful school but out of state for you so look at the financial aspects there. You have not identified what you want to pay for college , if there are other children you need to pay for down the line, etc. If you are wealthy and prepared to pay for any school out there, that’s a different story. Just please set a budget ( if there is going to be a limit on what you can pay) and let your son know what you are willing to pay.
You can Google curricula for any CS program you are interested in. They will all be fairly similar though. What makes programs different are the intangibles, like class size. For example, there’s a single class at Berkeley that has more students than the Harvey-Mudd student body. Does it make it better or worse? It depends on your perspective. They both get good jobs, but the school experience will be completely different.
You can also go to LinkedIn, look up any school your son might be interested in, pull up alumni/people, computer science for what they studied, and get the top 15 employers under where they work.
As for information on class sizes, who teaches what, number of TAs used, etc. It takes a LONG time digging through websites, matching classe to lecture hall sizes, visiting, talking to professors and students. There is no easy “how do I do this?” primer. I would buy the book linked below ASAP and digest it quickly. It will answer a lot of general questions you’ll have.
I don’t want to come across as harsh, but you are behind, way behind. We started the process when our son was a Sophomore. We visited the in state schools we knew he’d get into regardless of test scores or a unforseen drop in GPA and built from there.
As a result, you’re just going to have to accept that you can’t build the knowledge base that many posters here have and narrow your focus.
First and foremost, you have two very good instate options. CS is competitive everywhere and we don’t have your son’s GPA. Grade Point Average and rigor are the two most important factors for almost every school. We also don’t know your budget. Until we know both, everyone, myself included is just spinning our wheels.
Thank you for your responses. Our son has 4.6 gpa / 1520 sat… yes we know that instate colleges are good… but since he has good aptitude we just want to see if it makes sense to look outside as well. Regarding the money aspect we have one more kid coming up for college in the next two years, however we also have invested in the 529 prepaid plan for both of them… so if it’s instate the tuition and fees part is covered.
I don’t believe Virginia 529 will cover the additional engineering fees . Both UVA and VT, for instance, charge additional fees. That is common at many schools.
My understanding is your 90% number is correct or UT. However, certain programs have more leeway to accept out of state students. If you continue with the UT application, I would definitely include the Turing Program in your application. It would differentiate UT from all other state schools in a positive way. The number of OOS students in the program is much higher than 10%.
Well your student’s GPA is better than “pretty good.”
With that background they’d be competitive nearly anywhere. That said, some schools, Stanford and Harvard as examples, and there are MANY others, get SO many highly qualified students that they have to reject nearly all of them. Remember, there are 26,000 high schools in the US. If each had only one Valedictorian and one Salutatorian (many have more), that’s 52,000 students ranked #1 and #2 in their class. The aforementioned schools have 4000 first time freshman slots between them.
I would do 2 things. First and foremost, you need to know a budget. Second, and just as importantly, you need to know what type of college experience your student wants to have. The day in and day out life at Texas or Illinois will be radically different than that at Harvey-Mudd or Carnegie Mellon. All 4 can deliver a world class CS education and job opportunities.
That budget is what I’m unsure of. These universities the top ones also give out scholarships right. Would I be looking at more than 60k a year including tuition and stay.
If you haven’t already, I would run a Net Price Calculator at one of the private schools (e.g. CMU) to get a rough estimate of what your cost would be relative to your very good in state options.
The most selective schools do not give much if any merit based scholarship money. They don’t have to in order to fill a class with high stats students. State schools that do give money, typically reserve it for their in state students.
Until you know your EFC (expected family contribution), you’re really flying blind. Assuming full pay, expect $60k/year at a selective out of state public and $75k/yr at a very selective private.
That’s difficult to answer, because it’s opinion based. That’s why I try to inject something objective into the equation, salaries that are not self reported. It essentially tells you what companies are willing to pay for those graduates. As was noted previously though, salaries are highly dependant on company and location. A software engineer in California will make much more than a software engineer in Mississippi.
Given that metric, if you want to follow it, it makes no sense to even look at Texas for example, because it will cost MUCH more than UVa and the earnings median at 2 years is lower.
Roughly speaking, without knowing your financial situation, CMU will be more than UMich, which will be more than Purdue. All are very good for CS, but I don’t know that I would choose any of those over your instate options once you factor in tuition.
I am going through a similar thing with my HS senior. He was originally going to go into CS, but then changed to CompE, which narrows and simplifies things even more. For us, it’s hard to justify paying for a Purdue, or CMU over a U of MN. He is, however, a homebody who likes cold weather and the campus in the Twin Cities. Also likes the idea of being able to snag summer internships close to home.
IMO, you really have to look beyond the rankings when choosing a school. We visited UIUC and WI, and S2 couldn't see himself going there. We will be visiting Purdue soon... a friend is starting his 1st year there, and will report on his experiences. Bottom line is that these are all big schools with big classes.
Cornell might offer something smaller, and different. A reach, of course, for just about anybody. Northeastern is an urban option that excels in CS in a Co-op setting. Waterloo is in a small city outside Toronto. It is superb for CS, and is known for it's connections to Google, and it's Co-op program.
You really need to figure out your EFC and budget, how much you’re willing to pay. Especially since you have a younger child involved . The younger child may expect to have the same options as the older sibling was given.
Using the methodology suggested above, CMU’s 2 year salary of $160K vs. U of MN $72K should be easy to justify.
But I agree that the other factors mentioned should play into the decision. Not to mention the fact that you don’t just choose CMU - there’s the small matter of actually getting accepted.
I agree. For CS, there are a few significant standouts, CMU being the pinnacle with this methodology.
For all other disciplines that could be found in a college of engineering the story is much different. The salary difference at 2 years between UMN and CMU for ME as an example is only $6000.
@57special . Minnesota sounds like a great fit for your son . The top employers for CS in 2020 were Amazon, Epic, Microsoft, Target, and United Health. For computer engineering , it was Cray, IBM, Open Systems, Unisys, and Wells Fargo. 73 percent of kids find jobs in Minnesota. So, if your son is a homebody, he will be fine. They probably even have a few kids that end up at places like Facebook and Google on occasion( if that is something they strive for), but obviously not at anywhere near the same level as CMU. CMU CS top employers were Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Jane. Computer engineering-Apple, Facebook, Microsoft.
At CMU , the average computer engineering grad made $70,000 in Pittsburgh, $113, 600 in New York. At Minnesota, the average computer engineering grad made $85, 100 ( could not find it broken down by location ).CMU would be a very different social fit than a school like Minnesota or Purdue. My husband is a CMU engineering grad but knew it was a poor fit for our kids, who wanted a bigger sports scene, bigger campus, etc. Poor financial fit as well when we had better options on price.
Kids in computer science and engineering have many opportunities and good salaries. They will do well coming out of many schools, if they work hard and take advantage of the opportunities offered them. Good luck!
Salaries are determined by the companies that hire, but more importantly, by the types of positions the graduates are qualified for. Within CS, there’re quite a few different tracks, preparing students for different kinds of careers in CS. A school’s relative strengths (or weaknesses) in some higher compensated areas have the biggest impact on post-graduation compensations. I’ve seen some graduates offered north of $200k, significantly distorting the averages. Another distortion is the higher percentages of students at a few colleges in certain (often more highly compensated) areas who choose to go to graduate schools (perhaps hoping for even higher compensation later) instead of industries upon graduation.
