<p>How does Harvey Mudd compare to other top schools for computer science? I'm looking at University of Washington, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and MIT because of their good computer science programs, but would Harvey Mudd be a better choice? I know it really emphasizes undergrad research, so that's great. And I know I'm mostly talking about reach schools here (except UW) but I'm just thinking best case scenario. I know I might not even get into any of these.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/12/17/the-top-10-colleges-that-fuel-the.html?page=all”>http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/12/17/the-top-10-colleges-that-fuel-the.html?page=all</a></p>
<p>This certainly isn’t the only measure of a CS school, but you might find it helpful.</p>
<p>You’ll get a chance to do undergrad research at any place on that list. Harvey Mudd does have a focus on the undergrads, so the profs will be more accessible. This may help you develop in terms of research, too. At MIT or Stanford, you would be working under a very high level grad student or postdoc. However, at a research university there will be more subfields to participate in research. I think this may be more important in comp. science rather than, say, physics or chemistry, because the subfields are so different. For instance, artificial intelligence is very different from robotics. It depends on what you think your interests are.</p>
<p>Also, you should add U. of Illinois Champaign to your list if you are interested in software development. Other than Stanford, U. of Illinois seems like it has the best track record at producing software entrepeneurs. </p>
<p>If you want to get plugged into research right away as an undergraduate in CS, look at the Turing Scholars program at UT Austin:
<a href=“Turing Scholars | Department of Computer Science”>Turing Scholars | Department of Computer Science;
<p>The minimum amount of research that you can do at Mudd will be in the clinic or research program for half of your junior and your senior year (look at the website). In addition to that, professors have ongoing research in their labs that students may conduct. The amount of research a student can do depends on their work to find the opportunities.</p>
<p>Mudd is great choice for Computer Science. My son just graduated from there with a CS degree and is now working at Microsoft. He loved it there. The small size gives you really different feeling than a big reserch university, but the other Claremont colleges prevent it from being too small. The Payscale survey often has Mudd on top for salray and return on investment, even over schools like MIT. </p>
<p>My freshman daughter has a summer research position on campus with a CS professor starting next week. And her freshman friends who wanted research positions all ended up with them – some at the last minute, but her four closest freshman friends are all staying on campus for research this summer.</p>