I’m a high school senior currently admitted to RPI, NYU Tandon, BU and Northeastern, all for computer science. I’m not sure which school has the best program for undergrad, all the rankings I can find are for graduate research. RPI currently gave me the most scholarship 18k a year, BU and northeastern is each giving me 10k a year, and NYU is giving me no scholarship. But aside from the money aspect, I really want to know which school has the best computer science program. I want to potentially focus on AI in the future. (Money is secondary to the quality of education).
Unless you were looking at MIT or Stanford versus one of these other universities, I don’t think “rank” or prestige is an issue here. They’re all about the same. Employers will look at what you did those four years – your grades, how many software programs you learned on your own outside of class, and the internships you obtained during the academic year and in the summers. A typical CS major won’t teach you everything – so expect to be proactively learning on the side, either by taking free online courses or through other means. Try to find a professor doing AI research, and see if you can assist. Evaluate your options based on how much experience and skills you are likely to obtain at a particular university, and how much you will enjoy going there and living in that location – that can affect your happiness and achievement levels.
Actually I believe there is a rather big difference with different focus for CS in different schools. I know that Northeastern is a rather weak theory CS and a stronger more practical CS program than some other schools, RPI has a good cognitive science program. Some of these schools are also know for being academically demanding, with summer courses that are expected and projects in students’ free time. One of the reasons I asked is because I’m not sure which undergrad gives students the most opportunity to work in research labs.
Rpi has a really strong reputation. Northeastern has the COops. Both are the strongest in your list, but have different orientations.
Check out this site: http://csrankings.org/
Forget the “rankings”, but turn off every area concentration but AI, find each school, and check out the professors and publications. That will help a lot in finding who is working on AI and how much. It links to professors websites, and the blue dots actually show graphs when clicked on.
I would agree that RPI and Northeastern are a notch above. Northeastern has the best undergraduate CS teaching here too in my opinion, which I can detail more if needed. You seem to be focused on research though, so the above may be more helpful.
Getting involved in research at both RPI and NEU is relativly easy and doesn’t have any huge barriers. It will likely take a few years to be useful, unless you’re coming in with a special skill set already. Speaking from experience of myself and friends I know at both.