Hopkins Engineering BS or Cornell Arts/Sciences BA for Computer Science

My son was admitted to Cornell Arts & Sciences and Johns Hopkins Engineering, both for Computer Science (BA from Cornell, BS from JHU). He’s considering a career in software engineering, or possibly law school. He prefers stem classes, especially math and physics, but also likes the idea of having freedom to choose other classes which interest him, e.g. economics/foreign language. At Cornell, he is considering transferring to Engineering, but is concerned about the potentially much greater, more competitive and high-stress/high-anxiety workload and grading.

Here are our questions:

  1. We’ve heard from some that a BS/Engineering Degree is preferred over a BA by employers of CS grads. Is this true? Opinions seem to vary a lot.
  2. Does it matter much at the undergraduate level that Cornell’s CS program is ranked more highly than JH’sU? It’s #5 according to US News and World Report, compared to JHU’s #20.
  3. We have heard that Hopkins professors are more understanding and caring than Cornell professors (i.e. to grant extensions, develop relationships with students, understand extenuating circumstances, etc.) Does anyone have any insight on this or know if it’s true? He likes the idea of JHU’s small, more intimate CS department. Assuming Cornell’s is much larger, how does this affect the CS student’s undergrad experience?
  4. How are the Cornell A&S vs. Engineering CS major experiences different?
  5. Is either JHU or Cornell’s level of all-nighter-stress/competitive pressure much greater or less than the other?

Financially the two would be similar for us. He likes different things about both campuses and communities. Some concern about long walks to class and study spaces from North campus dorms during Ithaca’s cold, dreary winters, but that’s offset by concern about safety issues near the JHU campus. We figure both are doable.

Thank you very much!

A BA from any respectable CS school is great, no difference in employability. You’ll find a few people here and there who really like the more ECE style that 1-2 schools in particular are known for, but no major employer cares, all of FAANG included.

US News’s CS ranking is complete garbage as it’s solely based on an under responded to opinion survey (under 50%). While not perfect, research rankings are marginally better at measuring CS reputation (note it does not measure undergraduate experience or employability): CSRankings: Computer Science Rankings

You’ll find there that there’s actually far more of a gap than US News. Both are sufficient CS programs, but JHU is not really known as a CS school while Cornell very much is. So certainly a point to Cornell CS, though it sounds like major is not as important given the chances it could change here honestly.

I can’t directly address the rest so I’ll leave those to others, but given that it sounds like fit isn’t crazy leaning one direction and price is the same, I’d be leaning Cornell here both for CS and general strength across many majors.

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Thank you very much.

No and not much.