Hey guys! I just got my letter of acceptance to my dream school ,UMass Amherst (computer science)! The problem is that I live in Peabody and that’s roughly 3h driving… I understand that they have married student dorms but both our jobs and house is in Peabody… I also applied to UMass Lowell ,UMB and Salem state University (double in CS/Math at SSU). The only problem is the commute… SSU is the closest but their CS program doesn’t seem to have any recognition. UMB is a 30 min drive but I hear parking is absolutely awful, and UML is 1 hour away and parking is also pretty bad from what I hear… we are both immigrants but I’m the only one living in the US without family so I really don’t have anyone to get help from… should I just pick SSU and make the most out of it? Even though Amherst has one of the best cs programs it’s absolutely out of question… also financial aid isnt much since we both make a fair amount of money already… sorry about the English mistakes , just wrote this really fast on my phone !
I don’t think name recognition matters enough that you should get out of your way to pay a lot of money for it. The benefit of a better CS program is, obviously, better education, but also more networking opportunities. Nobody will hire someone just from the school name itself, but it helps to get the recruiter’s attention. You still need to have projects and skills to get an interview.
Okay so my answer to this is generally no - name recognition doesn’t mean much in CS. But there is a lot more going on between those schools than name recognition. I get that UMass Amherst is out of the question but dismissing UMB because parking is awful seems like a stretch. Surely you can handle figuring out where to park each day in order to get a better education? Boston has public transit! Forget the name issue - Go visit the schools and weigh the quality of your cohort and your professors and the alumni / career counseling services vs. the inconvenience and expense. You’re going to put a lot of energy into that degree - you want to put it in at the right school for you.
Why don’t you go to Amherst and come home on the weekends. Name does matter and you said your spouse makes lots of money. Or how about living half way between Amherst and Peabody and you both commute.