Good--Not Great--CS schools?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Posted this in the "Other Majors" forum but didn't get much response.</p>

<p>I want to major in CS, but unfortunately the only schools I'm finding are the obvious--MIT, Stanford, CMU, Caltech, etc.--huge state schools, and small liberal arts colleges that I'm unsure of the CS program's quality. The first group is reach, for obvious reasons, the second I wish to avoid like the plague, and the third is nice, but vague in terms of quality.</p>

<p>Are there any technical schools (or at least liberal arts schools well-known for their CS programs) that would fall more into the midrange-safety area? I'm not finding any.</p>

2

<p>University of Rochester, Syracuse, and RPI might be worth consideration.</p>

3

<p>Depends on how selective you're looking for...</p>

4

<p>stats would be helpful, as well as location preferences</p>

5

<p>Even though it's a public, Georgia Tech (since it's not that huge).
RPI was already mentioned, how about top 50 schools like Case Western? R</p>

6

<p>University of Michigan (<a href="http://www.eecs.umich.edu/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.eecs.umich.edu/&lt;/a&gt;)
Valparaiso University (<a href="http://www.valpo.edu/mathcs/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.valpo.edu/mathcs/&lt;/a&gt;)
Michigan Tech (<a href="http://www.cs.mtu.edu/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cs.mtu.edu/&lt;/a&gt;)
Cal Poly -- SLO (<a href="http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/&lt;/a&gt;)
Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (<a href="http://www.rose-hulman.edu/csse/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.rose-hulman.edu/csse/&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p>

<p>all have good CS programs, I have friends enrolled at MTUs, U of M, and Valpo's Comp Sci programs and they all love it.</p>

7

<p>Stats are kinda vague, I don't have much info laying around... Most of this is estimated, but anyway:</p>

<p>Basic: White male, Virginian. School somewhere in the 400's of Newsweek's ratings, with an index of 1.7 something.</p>

<p>GPA:
4.3 Weighted, 3.7 Unweighted</p>

<p>Rank:
Roughly top 12%</p>

<p>Tests:
AP European History: 5
PSAT: 210: 74 CR, 63 Math, 73 WS
No SAT, SAT II, or ACT yet.</p>

<p>Courseload:
AP EuroHist, USHist, EngLang&Comp; Intended Calc, Gov, Phys or Bio or Stat. (Please note that my school doesn't list AB/BC, Comparative/US etc.)
All other core courses are Honors or College level. (College = local Community College.)
Spanish through level 3.
Four years of Band in HS, have taken Band since grade 5, same instrument.
Two years independent study of computer programming.</p>

<p>ECs:
Crap, in my eyes. That or everyone else is just padding a lot.
Boy Scouts: Since 1rst grade. In a leadership position for last 2 years or so.
Band: aside from having been in music since 4th grade (flute since fifth), two years of marching band.
Robotics: 2 years. Leadership? Maybe, but it's really only due to lack of members. I'm one of the only two kids on the programming team; the other is graduating.
Intend to join some departmental honors club next year--math or history.
NHS, but it's nothing special at my school.
Est. 120 total hours of community service.</p>

<p>Preferences:
Location: none of the states on the Confederate side during the Civil War, possibly excepting Virginia. Nothing to do with the war itself. Especially would like to go to school in the Pacific Northwest.</p>

<p>Size: below 10,000, preferrably on the smaller end.</p>

8

<p>Michigan Tech would be a good safety for you.</p>

9

<p>Great.</p>

<p>Cornell
Brown
Tufts
WUSTL
Union (NY)
Lehigh
Miami (OH)
Bucknell
Northeastern
Ithaca</p>

10

<p>In the Pacific NW, consider Reed. It has a combined computer science program with the University of Washington. It's competitive (only 5 admitted per year) but an excellent program.</p>

11

<p>Rochester Institute of Technology</p>

12

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<p>Is this different from Rochester University?</p>

13

<p>It's University of Rochester, and yes, it's different.</p>

14

<p>Rochester Institute of Technology is different from the University of Rochester. RIT is not as selective but it has a great new comp sci building and facilities. RIT fits your "good, not great" criterion. RIT is not a research university. It is primarily an undergraduate teaching institution with a smattering of graduate programs, including a new PhD offering in comp sci.
Other good, not great, comp sci schools might include WPI, Northeastern, Stevens, Clarkson. Illinois Tech, Syracuse, Drexel.</p>

15

<p>My son has similar stats except he plays JV soccer instead of doing band. He is SPL of his troop and a summer camp counselor, plus Eagle Scout. Looking for the same kind of school. He would like to get into Rice (2500 undergrad), but not sure his stats will cut the mustard. Some of the other threads say that Univ. of Washington is a good choice because of proximity to high-tech companies in Seattle, but seems like a "large state school" to me. I have found nothing else in the Pacific Northwest. Didn't find anything in Colorado, either, except Colorado School of Mines (don't know anything about it). Have been looking at Lehigh (4500 undergrad) and Bucknell (3500 undergrad) in Pennsylvania. So many of the tech schools are not fun places to go to school. Drexel sounds horrible on the princeton review website. Someone recently said Univ of the Pacific has a great mech eng dept, but don't know about their CS. It's in Stockton, CA, not the most exciting town in the state. Please post if you find one you like.</p>