I want to major in Comp Sci (or at the very least some sort of computer/tech field) I already got accepted into Loyola, DePaul, Bradley, and Illinois Institute of Technology for Computer Science. My first choice is UIC because of the campus but IDK if they have the best program. Can someone help me out? Which has the best program?
Just to provide my background, my parents both went to UIC and were computer scientists, my father worked at UIC for most of his career as a computer programmer/business analyst, I attended DePaul for law school, and I now work at a firm that regularly hires college grads in CS, Information Systems and Engineering in Chicago.
Generally speaking, IIT has the best academic reputation in CS and then UIC. Both of those schools have the strongest and most developed STEM faculty overall because they’re more research-oriented universities. On the other hand, my anecdotal observation is that DePaul and Loyola have a bit more of an edge in recruiting networks in Chicago since they have deeper alumni ties to a lot of companies in the region. I don’t know enough about Bradley’s CS program to have an opinion - most of the Bradley hires that I’ve seen are from their business program.
Regardless, I’d say these are all schools on a similar overall tier, so it would come down to cost and fit if I were in your position. If cost matters, then I would use in-state tuition at UIC as a baseline and wouldn’t pay much more (if anything) than that elsewhere. The academic and recruiting differences between the schools are negligible, so one school definitely isn’t worth a large tuition premium over another.
If you’re choosing between two or more schools that are going to be similar in price, then there are some fit differences between the schools. Bradley is definitely the most “traditional” residential college setting, which makes sense since it’s in the smaller town of Peoria and most students are from out-of-town. (I went to UIUC for undergrad, so when I compare it to my law school experience, there are certainly pluses and minuses to going to school in a place outside of a large urban environment like Chicago that are purely about personal preferences.) Loyola is probably the most residential of the Chicago-based schools - it has a fairly well-defined campus with a large amount of residence halls and fewer commuter students even though it’s still in the city. DePaul and UIC have a large mix of residential and commuter students, although DePaul has a bit more of a visible residential population at this point (probably because both Lincoln Park and South Loop, where DePaul’s campuses are located, are both simply very popular neighborhoods for young people in general). IIT is probably a school that you’ll either love or hate - it’s small undergrad school (less than 3000 undergrads) where almost everyone is a STEM major. Some people would love that environment while others wouldn’t like it all, so that would come down to visiting the campus and figuring out your personal preferences.
@frank the tank
Nice! My dad is a lawyer as well. He went to John Marshall.
I’m really only considering UIC, DePaul, and Loyola. IIT I know has an excellent program and I even got a scholarship from them. I KNOW I got into DePaul and IIT and Loyola but I haven’t heard back from UIC. I have a $15,500 per year scholarship at IIT. While it’s a great school, the campus and campus life is very very small and I don’t like the location.
Main choices are UIC, DePaul and Loyola. I applied for Purdue which is my reach school.