Georgia Tech for $$$$ or Louisville for free?

College Search & Selection
21

<p>I believe that both GT and Purdue attract recruiters at the national level, so they are the same in my mind in that regard. They are both highly ranked, very close to each other. On the most recent NRC survey, Purdue was ranked 31 and GT was ranked 33, an insignificant difference. These rankings are for faculty quality mostly for graduate programs. However, these rankings have some influence where recruiters go. </p>

<p>I would say that the biggest factor in determining YOUR outcome is how well YOU do at either school. </p>

<p>If money didn’t matter, then it’s a tossup which you like better. However, since $92K is obviously very meaningful to you, I think you need to pick Purdue. </p>

<p>It certainly can’t hurt you to ask GT for more money in light of your Purdue package. You’d be crazy not to. However, depending what state you live in, $92K is like two years of take home pay on your first job!</p>

22

<p>Thanks again for the advice ClassicRockerDad. Do you have a link for NRC Survey for Computer Science? I am surprised both schools aren’t ranked a lot higher than the low 30’s.</p>

<p>Curious…you sound like you know a lot about recruiting in the Computer Science field. Do you do this for a living? Feel free to PM me if you’d rather.</p>

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<p>

</p>

<p>Both some career survey data:</p>

<p>[Georgia</a> Institute of Technology :: Salary Reports](<a href=“Georgia Tech | External Redirect Landing Page”>Georgia Tech | External Redirect Landing Page)
<a href=“Purdue CCO”>https://www.cco.purdue.edu/Student/PostGradData.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Louisville’s information is rather minimal:</p>

<p><a href=“http://louisville.edu/speed/academics/academic-affairs/career-development/salary-survey.html[/url]”>http://louisville.edu/speed/academics/academic-affairs/career-development/salary-survey.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Some other schools’ career surveys can be found here:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/internships-careers-employment/1121619-university-graduate-career-surveys.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>[PhDs.org:</a> Jobs for PhDs, graduate school rankings, and career resources for scientists and engineers](<a href=“http://www.phds.org%5DPhDs.org:”>http://www.phds.org) has the NRC survey. Click on faculty quality for the survey most people use. They give a range and then they rank the range. There are a lot of really great schools for computer science, and a lot of computer science majors, so I wouldn’t worry about the rankings too much, other than the fact that these two schools are insignificantly close to each other. </p>

<p>I’m an EE and manage a group so I do a fair amount of hiring. My company hires a lot of computer science majors, probably even more than EEs. I see a lot of resumes so I know which schools we recruit at and we recruit heavily at both schools, though I think my Boston area office tends to have more success at Purdue because fewer people there are afraid of snow. :-)</p>

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<p>Ucbalumnus: great links to survey data.</p>

<p>Classicrockerdad: thanks for the link to graduate program rankings. It was very interesting, but I agree with you, PU and GT are close enough to be considered the same from a ranking standpoint.</p>

<p>Maybe I am misinterpreting it wrong, but it seems according to the survey data (provided by ucbalumnus) Electrical/Computer Engineers do better than Computer Science majors. Any comments on whether this is true? Again, I don’t care much about the salary difference, it’s more of a question about the opportunity difference – i.e. would an ECE major have a more DIVERSE selection of opportunities than a CS major?</p>

26

<p>Computer engineering is usually more hardware oriented than computer science, which is usually more software and theory oriented. However, you need to check actual required and optional course work at each school, since the definitions are rather flexible and vary by school; in some schools there may be considerable overlap so that you can take the same selection of major courses in either major.</p>

27

<p>Boiling this discussion down to what, after much thought, might be the most important thing to me……</p>

<p>I’d like to be happy in whatever job I take after graduating from college (i.e. more important than salary). I THINK that having more job offers after graduating increases the chances of finding one I really like. So the bottom line question is: if I finish in the top 33% (hopefully conservatively) of my class in Computer Science at GT or PU will I have many more DIVERSE job opportunities after graduation vs. being in the top 5% of my class at UL combined with an aggressive job search process?</p>

<p>Related question: if I choose UL how hard will it be will it be for me to get considered for the same the positions offered to GT/PU graduates by companies who may not actively recruit at UL?</p>

<p>I think I might start a separate thread with these questions – addressed directly to recruiters.</p>

28

<p>Make believe am a hiring manager in CS. Suppose I have a job to offer a recent grad. I get a stack of resumes from HR with relevant keywords. Some came from recruiting career fairs, some came because someone applied to an ad or just sent in a resume. I quickly scan through them for stuff that catches my eye. I’m shopping like you would for anything. </p>

<p>Eventually, I’ll try to rank the resumes. The ranking happens rapidly. It’s not perfect, a certain way down the pile, it’s pretty irrelevant. </p>

<p>I then start phone screening the ones on top until I have enough candidates to bring in for interviews. I sometimes get past 5, occasionally get to 10 when people don’t return my calls. </p>

<p>I live in Boston. I come across someone with a 4.0 from some random school like Louisville. All I know about Louisville is that they went pretty deep into March Madness. I have no idea what this GPA means at this school and what their capabilities are. I’m just not calibrated. They took all of the right courses, but CS degrees are pretty standardized, so I don’t know how deep those go. </p>

<p>If I have 50 other resumes, and a whole bunch have good GPAs from well respected places I’ve heard of, I’m likely to put them higher in my stack. From my vantage point, my odds are better at getting someone I want. If I have just 2 other resumes, like would have been the case in 2000 during the internet boom, that candidate would be near the top of the pile and probably get a phone screen. In the current climate, there would have to be some pretty compelling experience on that Louisville resume for me to move it up. </p>

<p>Now if I lived in Cincinnati, and a good fraction of my department went to Louisville, I might be more calibrated to know what that GPA means, but far away, I don’t know and it’s not worth my time to find out. We just don’t get a lot of applicants from there. </p>

<p>GT grads and Purdue grads are ubiquitous in technology companies. Do reasonably well and have courses, internships and other stuff relevant to my area, and our recruiters would have gotten your resume at career fairs, and you would go toward the top my pile and everyone else’s, LOL! I would have to outbid them all to get you. </p>

<p>Supply and demand baby!</p>

<p>Think about it.</p>

29

<p>So, what do you REALLY think ClassicRocker???</p>

30

<p>classicrockerdad: Wow! Thanks for your well thought out response. What you say makes a lot of sense.</p>

<p>I know both GT and PU are known for their Engineers. At both schools the Computer Science Program is not part of their School of Engineering. Both have high rankings for “Computer Engineering.” Do you think these high rankings are still applicable to Computer Science majors from these schools (vs Computer Engineering)?</p>

31

<p>Yes, I think people who hire computer science graduates would be familiar with both schools. Again, I don’t think it’s the rankings so much as the fact that these schools produce a lot of graduates who get around and do well, so the schools get known. Recruiters attend the college fairs. They are often alums. These are big schools with lots of potential candidates, so the pickings are good. If you want, look at some info for their respective college fairs and see which companies recruit there.</p>

32

<p>Thanks to everyone for your help. After further investigation I have concluded Purdue and Georgia Tech offer about the same quality education and I can’t go wrong with either. So… I am pursuing additional merit based aid from GT. If they don’t come up with at least some additional $, it would be foolish for me to pass up the 50K+ savings at Purdue.</p>

<p>Any thoughts on the best way to approach GT about the additional merit based aid? At this point, even if they just came up with half of what Purdue offered, I’d probably go there.</p>