For what you want coffeelover, CS, you will have to flexible to some degree on size, party culture, location, etc.
@2019Parent Could you go into more detail by what you mean by that? I’m not saying I’m disagreeing with you, but many other posters on this thread have argued that I can indeed get a good CS education at smaller schools/liberal arts schools.
I will not being considering schools where 40 percent plus are in Greek Life. Period. That is not what I want out of my college experience. I believe that Greek Life is a detriment to colleges and facilitates dangerous and crude behavior. On that point, I am very inflexible. My parents are in agreement on this one.
Find any college that is has ABET certification in CS. List out the major CS courses that school offers, and use it as a checklist for the schools you are considering. You want to see the main courses listed as being offered at least once a year; that tells you the department is staffed well to teach the courses in a timely manner. You want to check how many students are in a department. Some schools draw more education majors, some draw more writers and English majors. You want a school that already has a solid CS presence, and is not in danger of dropping their CS major while you are enrolled.
There are pros and cons of studying CS at an LAC, and it is fine to make your choices based on other factors that are also important to you. CS is a field that is constantly changing, so it is not like you can learn everything you need to know about CS as an undergrad. You will learn new things constantly as you work in your field.
If you choose not to look at research/tech schools like Georgia Tech, you do miss out on some aspects of the big research world. But you also miss out on TAs, weed out classes, etc. It is up to you to hold on to those factors that are important to you.
Good luck to you!
I immediately thought Brown. I mean c’mon, quirky, liberal, northeast??? It’s a shame it’s so hard to get in Brown. On the other hand, do not feel like you have to compromise what you want in a school. If you don’t want 40%+ Greek life, you don’t want it and you don’t have to be shamed for it. There’s nothing wrong with knowing what you want.
I’ll recommend some schools but it highly depends on what you and your family can afford (mostly parents since you can only take out $5,500 first year and that amount only goes up 1,000 per year. Soph 6,500 Junior 7,500 etc.)
Think about Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Brown etc. for reaches. MIT maybe if you’re interested in there as a reach too.
UConn seems to have a good CS dept. I don’t know if you’re interested in it but it’s a nice match/safety option since it’s instate. UMass Amherst is good too. Straying away from public schools, Lafayette, Tufts, Rochester, Williams, Case Western, RPI, and Bryn Mawr (I know you don’t want all women’s but just throwing that out there) also are good options.
ABET accreditation doesn’t matter for CS, just engineering.
@TheDidactic Cost is irrelevant; I am from a full freight family and I will not need to take out loans regardless of where I go. I am not from Connecticut- I’m from Massachusetts. I’m pretty sure my math score would put me in the .005th percentile at MIT…lol. I have a few friends there and I have to say that I haven’t met someone at MIT with less than a 780 in math. But thank you for the suggestions.
I’ll look into Lafayette, Williams, and Bryn Mawr!
@Coffeelover123 Computer Science is a highly specialized field that requires a lot of money. How many students at an LAC of 2,000 major in CS? I would guess about 20 or 30 and maybe that is high. The program is there to broaden the curriculum and that’s all.
If you really want to major in CS with the intent of going into the field, you need to pick the strongest program you can get in, which could be an elite school like MIT or more normal schools like Rutgers or Purdue which have top programs. This is how specialized fields are much like engineering. Did you know lowly Rowan in NJ is one of the top schools for mechanical engineering?
By the way, U Mass is one of the top CS schools.
That is what I mean by being flexible.
It all depends how serious you are about CS.
So all successful CS majors are either from large state schools or tippy-top privates with a focus in tech? I’m not necessarily looking for tiny LACs here. I like LACs, but larger universities are fine as long as they are less than 10K or so; in that ballpark? Are there really no good schools for CS with fewer than 10K undergrads?
There’s being flexible and then there’s going for the exact opposite of what I’m looking for. Purdue and Rutgers are the exact opposite of what I’m looking for. I don’t think saying that means I’m not serious about CS.
To check the completeness of a CS department, go through the catalog and schedules to see if the following advanced level courses is offered on a regular basis:
algorithms and complexity
theory of computation, languages, and automata
operating systems
compilers
databases
networks
security and cryptography
software engineering or project course or projects in other courses
computer architecture and digital design
elective courses like artificial intelligence, graphics, etc.
Frequency of offering matters. Every course every semester is ideal, but smaller CS departments usually do not offer most courses every semester. If a course is offered once per year, then you will have two, maybe three, chances to take it over your four years. If a course is offered once every two years, then you will have one, maybe two if you are lucky, chance to take it over your four years. If it is offered less frequently, then it may not be offered at all when you are able to take it.
LACs try to hold the line on small class sizes while not using TAs. However, the rapid rise in the popularity of CS may force some of them to choose between (a) allowing class size to increase beyond their usual policy, (b) using TAs, © using adjuncts, (d) shutting students out of full/overflowing classes. If the schedules indicate that the classes are completely full/overflowing, find out what the school is doing about it.
Some LACs have cross registration with nearby research universities. E.g. Amherst has cross registration with UMass - Amherst, whose CS department is much larger and more complete, so an Amherst student can fill in gaps in the Amherst CS offerings by taking UMass - Amherst CS courses (the schools also have a career center sharing agreement). However, with any cross registration agreement, you need to check on how convenient it is, in terms of commuting, whether the academic calendars are the same, and what administrative limitations there are on cross registration.
Newsweek has a couple of lists that would be worth browsing through:
“The 25 Most Desirable Suburban Schools,” and, “The 25 Most Desirable Urban Schools.”
You can confirm some of your current preferences or get a few new ideas. The pictures aren’t bad.
Oh sorry I had read somewhere Connecticut I thought. Maybe the threads were mixing together in my brain! UMass is a top school and THAT would be a good choice/safety/match for you. Rutgers and Purdue are also great options but I didn’t recommend them because I had thought they would be too far/expensive.
Unfortunately, when you look at the best CS schools, you see either huge public (UMass, Purdue, Rutgers, Ohio State) schools or very selective, prestigious places like MIT or Cornell. It’s places like Tufts and Williams that are still selective and solid yet lay in that middle ground. Some flexibility (aka considering UMass) is good but you don’t have to give up wanting to stay away from Greek life or wanting to go to a co-ed school, JUST for a school with a good CS program.
@TheDidactic I would rather go to a middle of the ground school that fit me rather than a top CS school that wasn’t a good fit. What if I change my mind about my major? A lot of kids do, and that would mean I got myself into a school I didn’t like for a program I was no longer interested in. I’ll consider larger universities outside of New England but I’m not about to drop everything and run to a school with 20-30K undergrads just because it has a marginally better CS program than, say, Tufts.
I disagree strongly with 2019parent - there are many LACs/mid-sized universities where you can get a good education in computer science - for example, my cousin went to Bowdoin for CS and is now in a top computer science graduate program (and by the way, I would not really consider Bowdoin rural - it’s in the middle of a small town and it’s a half hour from Portland, ME, which is a very nice city).
I do think you should consider broadening your locations a little, but that’s obviously up to you. Schools which I would recommend include the following:
U Rochester (already mentioned)
Oberlin - about a half hour from Cleveland
Macalester - in Minneapolis/St. Paul, an easy plane ride to the northeast and has a pretty good CS program
Carleton - very rural, but has a good CS program - I think you would probably really enjoy the kids at this school
Brandeis (already on your list)
Claremont McKenna or Scripps (I know you said no all-girls schools, but the Claremont schools are pretty much adjacent to each other and you would have access to Harvey Mudd).
I’m open to broadening my location! Thanks for the suggestions. I’ve heard a lot about Oberlin, Carleton, and the Claremonts.
Another vote for Swarthmore! I’ve researched around and I hear they’re really friendly and helpful and nice, if that matters to you. Plus Swarthmore is one of the stronger LACs in engineering. I applied to it as a CS major.
Neither of these schools offers a CS major at all. The Claremont colleges with CS majors are Pomona and Harvey Mudd, both of which are usually seen as “reach for everyone” schools.
@ucbalumnus Good to know. I’m not Harvey Mudd material, so I’ll cross off the Claremonts.
@Coffelover123 Don’t cross off the Claremonts yet! @ucbalumnus only has part of the story. At the Claremonts, if your school does not have your major, you can major at another campus. You could be a student at Scripps, Pitzer or CMC and major in Computer Science at Harvey Mudd or Pomona. Check out their websites for more info.
Claremont Mom is correct - you could consider applying to any/all of the Claremont schools (other than Harvey Mudd -I don’t think you’d get accepted or even necessarily want to go there). Here’s what the Scripps website says about a computer science major for example:
"Students who wish to pursue a major offered by another Claremont College may arrange to do so by fulfilling the requirements of the major at that college. Arrangements for pursuing this major must be made with an off-campus major adviser in the appropriate program. See guidelines concerning off-campus majors and cross-registration.
Students may cross-register within The Claremont Colleges when off-campus enrollments fall within the guidelines listed in the Policies and Procedures section of this catalog. Individual course restrictions are indicated in semester course schedules. Scripps College does not separately fund course costs, such as materials or travel costs, associated with courses at other Claremont Colleges."
Computer Science (Harvey Mudd College)
Computer Science (Pomona College)"
Claremont McKenna also has a Computer Science Sequence which you might find of interest http://www.cmc.edu/math/CS/
I feel like doing a major at a different campus would be very complicated, though, and a bit silly when there are a number of other options given to me in this thread. I know that I would not get into Harvey Mudd, so I won’t worry about it. Thank you, though!!
So here is an updated list:
ED: Tufts
Reach schools: This list is a bit lopsided (aka top heavy)…
-Wesleyan
-CMU
-Amherst
-Brown
-Swarthmore (perhaps too intense)
Match:
-Brandeis
-Rochester
-Lafayette
Safety
-Umass Amherst (most likely Honors College)
-Clark
Thoughts?