Yes I hear the same that EE to CE major change is easy as long as you meet minimum grad requirement since its same department. Changing to CS is very competitive.
We did pro/con and tandon is ok and its CS is similarly ranked as Rutgers. Also, my son wanted a regular campus rather than being in the city (though tandon is in Brooklyn but not a typical campus setting by any means). I was excited about the possibility of studying in NYC but not him very much. 
@wwps2025 UIUC is top 10 in Engineering and CS, definitely better than NYU Tandon.
There are some tech companies, who think they are âbiggiesâ , will only recruit new graduates from top 10 colleges! I asked âHow about UCLAâ? She said NO!
@kolhelp UMD has very good CS program. I have checked out its web site. My D applied too. It is right next to DC and should get lots of Gov internship. Its AI and CSR ranking are much higher than UCSB and UCI.
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There is a certain disadvantage with the midwest schools, which is a lack of good neighboring software companies and getting meaningful internship experience. (my older son had a lot of CS friends at UIUC and this is a very first hand experience). This one reason can make the CAâs, not so highly rated schools, look better. That is one reason why we left UW Madison for UMDCP.
Thanks for answering the question⊠While we wait on waitlist , I guess we can ask questions comparing the committed with the waitlisted to remain informed.
So in this situation with
UIUC ( ECE Honors, 33% Merit Scholarship, ability to finish as early as 3 years Avg starting Salary abt $100,000 K , or do masters complete in 4 years, due to AP Credit, Avg starting Salary abt $120,000 K , or then do MBA either after 3 / 4 years from Wharton/Harvard/Columbia (since about $150000 will be saved) , or continue a PHD there or in UCLA/ other California Schools)
compared to
GaTech (Industrial / Aerospace with just ability to use AP Credits, I believe they require to spend full 4 years for undergrad, no money saving infact Gatech has higher tuition, Avg Aerospace salary $78000)
compared to
UMich (Operational Research, with just ability to use AP Credits, I believe they also require to spend full 4 years for undergrad, no money saving infact Umich has highest tuition among three again avg Salary $78000)
Would it even make sense to plan transferring from UIUC to Gatech / UMich after 1st year given the above. At present my son is not interested in doing CS ( he didnt even apply that in any school, his intention might change later I believe)
I am assuming that Top 10% students in ECE department of each of these schools will have similar opportunities available to them.
Right, top 10% will get similar opportunities.
IMO, if someone is extremely passionate about some STEM field, he/she should pursue that, without thinking too much about the salary. I am saying this, because with too much lop-sided demand for CS folks in the industry, the other STEM folks are suffering - less demand, less money. Situation may change with new aerospace initiatives started my SpaceX and NASA, and more demand of genetic researchers after the current pandemic.
PhD should only be pursued if someone is really, really passionate, and doesnât mind spending 5 years much below poverty line.
Agree. My son is going to Michigan for CS in Engineering and I think if he had gotten into CS at UIUC instead of them sticking him into Prep even though he was a James Honors Scholar there, he wouldâve chosen Illinois over Michigan. But heâs super excited for Michigan and while Illinois wouldâve cost half as much as Michigan, to me, I think Michigan is a better fit for him.
You son will have a very difficult if not impossible time transferring into CS at UIUC. If he had applied to CS to begin with, itâs highly likely he would not have even gotten in. Furthermore, UIUC Engineering is not a safety for anyone, so he should consider himself fortunate he even got into Electrical Engineering.
CS and CE are impacted majors. While possible, itâs very difficult to change majors. Itâs likely none of those waitlists are going to materialize. Cornell hasnât let anyone into COE, Michigan just closed their Ross waitlist, Kinesiology is over-enrolled, and itâs likely so is every other program. UIUC is a great EE program and he should be thrilled to be at a top Engineering school like that.
I have spoken in detail about the overall job opportunities post college with some of my friends who are in leadership positions at recruitment for companies like Google, Amazon, Apple, etc. All have suggested not to worry about the avg salary on the internet. According to them, the salary is totally dependent on the student themselves and which city they are getting the job at (because every company has the salary range based on the city of employment - for Eg same position in NYC will have a higher salary than the one in Dallas). All of the big companies get kids from all colleges (none of them actually only take ppl from MIT for instance) and then its up to the student to make it professionally and in his/her career.
I am in IT and mostly in computer science field and I can vouch for the above though I donât recuit people. When a young kid joins my team, his/her college name only lasts for the first impression (& its mostly deceiving) which is soon overtaken by his work ethics, resourcefulness and professionalism which no college can teach.
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Your son should follow his passion and not go into a field based on what he thinks will pay more. Additionally there is no guarantee he will even be able to get into schools like Harvard/Wharton/Columbia for graduate school as that is certainly putting the cart before the horse. A lot of kids may want to transfer next year after what happened this year so that too is no guarantee. He should just be given the chance to enjoy school and love where heâs at.
As for Michigan, they do not require you stay there for 4 years. If you finish early, because you have AP credits or dual credit or whatever, you can graduate. More importantly though, is whatâs the rush? No kids should be in a hurry to get out of school. They have their entire lives to be working. The pressure on some of these kids to get into the rat race is ridiculous. Let them have fun and be kids.
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100% true. My son didnât even go to college and had offers + bonuses from Google and other companies that were the exact same as anyone else that did graduate from top colleges.
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Totally agree. I also work hands-on in the CS field. CS career growth totally depends upon the individual, and how much one is passionate, and spends his/her spare time in self-learning new technologies - which are just changing everyday. Continuos self-training/relearning/unlearning is the key for most CS jobs. CS research (in ML, Cryptography, 3D vision, etc), will need much stronger math foundation (in linear algebra, combinatorics, etc).
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Good advice !! Thanks
I donât think any college requires student to stay 4 years before he can graduate. I compared the AP Credits for UIUC, GT, and UCSD, they are pretty much the same. Skip English 101 if you have AP Lang, Skip CS 101 if you have AP CSP or AP CSA, Skip 1 or 2 Math classes if you have AP Calculus AB and/or BC. For me, I would take the full 4 years and enjoy College before full time work and taking on responsibility.
It would be difficult to compare âdifferent college matches with different majorâ and figure out how much he will make. Your son should go with whatever he is interested in.
Whether doing MBA or Ph D all depends what your son wants to do. That is too far in the future.
I saw in YouTube that some guy, few years ago, tried successfully switching from Un-declared to CS at UIUC. Switching college always make you take couple more classes. The Gen Ed and Core Requirement never match 100%.
Thanks all !! Really good advices. What triggered this was comparison among my friends between majors at different schools while kid has an interest in a physics and math⊠so which major and school may yield more opportunities and ROI for them to pursue their passion in core subjects ( Physics & Math). So I guess we are saying that given Top 10% students in these schools will have similar opportunities , if a Kid has a potential to be in Top 10% and gets his / her choice to pursue his/her Passion in the three schools, then the school with significant ROI will make more sense, since the outcome from either of these schools will be same.
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One small add. For non-CS STEM fields, definitely look at the faculty qualifications and their parent schools. The profâs contacts can help if pursing grad school. Youâll find a marked difference between the 1st tier and 2nd/3rd tier schools. In addition, generally the public schools have more research dollars than private.
For CS, none of that matters because the market is anyway very hot.
Technically true that most schools donât require you stay for 4 years, but some programs do. My child that is in a Business Honors program they donât allow them to graduate early. She wouldnât be interested in it anyway and is actually staying a 5th year to get her MPA (the school is #1) but with all of her AP credits (which she didnât even claim all) she couldâve graduated a year early if she wasnât in that program. Instead it allows her to take classes for fun, double major, minor, and start her masters this fall as a junior. The best part about starting the masters as a junior is that I donât have to pay the graduate tuition rate as long as she is still taking undergraduate classes!! Who can argue about that one? lol
Also, if youâre going into CS I would think twice about using AP CSA to get out of the first CS course. Furthermore, AP CSP doesnât usually get credit out of the first CS class but some other dinky class instead since CSP is not a programming class. My point though with CSA is that every schoolâs first CS programming class is different. My daughter who is a CS major didnât claim her credit and her first year course was either Python or Matlab (she had a choice) while CSA was Java. My sonâs first course at a different school will have C++ not the Java. So just be warned of that and know that itâs probably better in a case like that to be on the same page as everyone else if in CS. If not in CS then hell yeah, that the credit.
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Agree about the AP CSA credit. Only a very handful schools have the first CS course as Java language - some of them are UT Austin, UIUC, UMDCP. Still I have told my son to fill in the gaps during the summer if taking exemption, which I was against.
None of the UCs, UW Madison, etc, qualify (these are all I have researched so far).
@srparent15 @kolhelp Thanks. Yes, few colleges require you to stay for 4 years. Some also require Senior to be on campus instead of study abroad/exchange. A daughter of our friend graduated from UCLA in 3 years. Another from CMU in 3.5 years. With the sky-high CMU tuition, her Dad wants her to finish fast!
For AP CS credits, UIUC and GT give you credits while not able to skip any CS core requirements. I believe same for UCSD and UCSB.
My D has both AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC. She is considering not using both credits and repeat Calculus II (MATH 231 at UIUC). What do you think??
On a side note, I asked my D to take the Personal Finance class in HS. She refused but promised to take it later. She will have to take similar class in Community College or ACE 240 at UIUC. It should be an easy A.
My son that ultimately skipped CS at UIUC altogether was given credit for AP CS there and Data Structures and Algorithms from a dual credit course he took in high school, so they definitely do give credit for those courses if you have the knowledge and background. But we are a public school in IL so they were also probably familiar with the school he received dual credit from and how the CS courses were taught at/through our high school.
As for skipping the Caclulus courses, if she did well in Calc 1 and 2 and received a 5 on the BC test then I wouldnât waste time retaking Calc 2. The track in our high school for kids that have taken BC is is usually an honors track - Honors Alg Trig 2, PreCalc Honors 2, Calc BC and MVC (Calc 3). If kids didnât get that far by senior year then they might have taken only BC as a Senior. Many schools donât take credit for MVC so thatâs the course kids will take over in college, but I donât know of many that retake Calc 2 unless itâs because they donât do well in the course or on the AP exam. So, just something to consider. If your kid was a star in the course, no reason to retake. She will probably just be bored.
ACES is an easier degree program at UIUC. Instead of taking an ACE course, she may want to try taking something in Gies so she can get more out of it.