<p>I’ve stated repeatedly on CC, without seeing much push-back, that CS departments offer pretty much the same set of courses at almost all selective schools (and at many non-selective schools, too). The Association for Computing Machinery has published Curriculum Recommendations. Most departments are more or less in line with them, so even a small LAC usually will offer an Introduction to Programming, Algorithms, Database Theory, Programming Languages (theory), a Discrete Math course, etc. The big powerhouses (CMU, etc) will offer more upper-level courses in Robotics and such.</p>
<p>Your kid needs to think about how ambitious he wants to be. Does he dream of founding the next Google … or working for Microsoft? If so, a degree from a big name school might help. Would he be content with a decent job supporting IT for a major international bank? Any top 100 or so school (including LACs) ought to position him well for that (especially if he takes advantage of internships). Doing web design for the county government? Practically anywhere would do.</p>
<p>Once you get to the level of state flagships and selective private colleges, in my opinion the most important differences are on the “soft” side (the liberal arts), the internship/research opportunities, and the “fit”. Not the CS department offerings. Unless, that is, you’re talking about a few tip top schools like Stanford, Berkeley, and MIT. Shoot for those schools if you really want to get in on the next big thing in hands-on application design, or if you’d like to learn arcane computing theory from some of the best minds in the field.</p>