I am working on sifting through schools to figure where would be the best fit for computer science. Whether its big or small, prestigious or focused.
Furthermore I have heard that a lot of the lists of “Top colleges for __” are mostly based on how selective there admissions are, and how rich the school is. While those lists are a good starting point, I am not sure how much to trust them.
Do you have any tips or personal stories that can help me sort through schools? Are there any features of a CS program that should be red flags (accreditation, class size etc)?
A red flag would be if junior/senior level CS offerings are too few, too infrequently offered, or overly specialized but missing coverage of some the usual topics. This tends to be more of a an issue when the CS department is small, with few faculty.
A yellow flag would be if you would be required to meet a high GPA or compete for admission to the CS major after enrolling at the school. How big a flag it is depends on how difficult or competitive such admission is. A 2.5 prerequisite GPA may not be much of a concern (many who get lower prerequisite GPA lose interest in the subject due to difficulty anyway), but a 4.0 prerequisite GPA makes it difficult to get into the major (UCSD spring 2016).
Lack of regional accreditation at a school in the US would be a red flag for the school.
ABET accreditation for CS is an indication of meeting a minimum quality standard, but lack of such accreditation does not necessarily mean the the program is of low quality. ABET accreditation for CS does mean that the program includes some non-CS science course work, and automatically qualifies as a prerequisite for the patent exam without having to meet the specific course requirements listed otherwise.
You are getting good advice above.
I would add:
Who teaches the intro level classes, TA’s or the Professors?
How large are the classes?
How often classes are offered within the Curriculum?
How large is the faculty in the department?
Is CS its own department, or is subsumed within Mathematics or some other department? (We toured one school where CS was part of the Journalism department !?)
A publication like Rugg’s Guide (should be available at your Guidance Counselor’s office) will rank CS undergraduate programs in tiers, Tier I highest, Tier II second, etc. While this is not the final say, it should give you some idea of the relative strength of various CS programs.
Once you find strong programs that meet your criteria, then you need to compare all the other factors for school selection–can you get in, can you afford it, small-medium-large, rural-suburban-urban, climate, etc.
Good luck!
Although I do think that finding a good solid program academically in a desired major is important, I don’t think you should focus overly much on it. You’re not choosing a computer science program; you’re choosing an undergraduate college, where you will get a well-rounded liberal arts education with only about 1/3 of your classes in computer science. So for sure, check on the qualities listed above, but make sure you are giving appropriate weight to other factors too (including the non-academic ones like fit, weather, location, size, etc.) Those factors have more to do with your success and happiness than you might think.
Also, CS not being its own department might not be a bad thing. It might just be an organizational thing. CS really is at its core an application of mathematics, so its location in the mathematics department could be a legacy organization that was never changed yet the department still has robust offerings and a strong faculty focused on teaching CS courses. (And while I am puzzled at CS in a journalism department, that’s also not necessarily a bad thing - although I would definitely be curious as to why.)
Size is also a function of the size of school, so make sure you take that into context. There are lots of smaller schools with good CS departments who may have smaller faculties.
I am also wary of rankings of undergraduate departments or “programs,” as they often take into account things that aren’t necessarily directly related to undergraduate education (or are based on graduate program rankings).