Hi, I am looking to add more schools to my list. I already have safeties and am keeping finances in mind. I’m looking for schools with a relatively free curriculum (potential for double-majors, study abroad, etc.) with good CS programs. For example, some of the schools I am applying to are:
Carleton
Swarthmore
Dartmouth
Williams
I am looking for similar schools. Also, should I consider Tufts?
For a list of CS offerings at various smaller schools, see:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18855085/#Comment_18855085
Professors from these schools appear to be the first to have actively initiated and designed a model CS curriculum for liberal arts colleges:
Williams
Swarthmore
Hamilton
Amherst
Vassar
Washington & Lee
Colgate
Allegheny
Bowdoin
From this group, Hamilton and Amherst have notably open curricula; two current Hamilton professors cowrote a CS textbook that has been used nationally.
(Some information from the Liberal Arts Computer Science Consortium.)
Lewis & Clark College
Beloit College
Willamette University
Ohio Wesleyan University
U of Portland
U of Tulsa
With regard to Tufts, it depends on what you mean by “LAC-esque”. Tufts is one of the smallest “research level 1 universities” and is kind of a hybrid research/teaching university. It is one of the more “artsy” NESCAC schools in terms of culture, and although it has a School of Engineering it views Engineering as an “applied art” as much as an “applied science”.
Dartmouth, Rice, URochester and Brandeis are other small research universities that might also feel “LAC-esque” to you.
Until recently, in the area of CS and Engineering, Tufts largest area of research was K-16 STEM education (which, unfortunately, is a pretty small area in terms of university level research).
Tufts developed the programming software for the LEGO MINDSTORMS educational package which is used to teach elementary, high school and college students all over the world to program.
More recently, Tufts researchers came up with methods that have been successful in teaching pre-kindergarten kids how to program.
Most recently, Tufts researchers were awarded an NSF grant to figure out a way to teach middle and high school students networked communication, as well as parallel, concurrent and distributed computing.
A Tufts Professor won an IEEE international teaching award for CS.
Tufts (as well as Williams) was on the steering committee of the joint 2013 ACM/IEEE task force for undergraduate CS curriculum. Around 200 schools (world-wide) participated. Stanford chaired the steering committee and UC Berkeley was also a member. The ACM/IEEE joint task force issues new curriculum guidelines about every 10 years. The Liberal Arts Computer Science Consortium (LACS) mentioned above typically adapts the ACM/IEEE recommendations for Liberal Arts colleges. The latest LACS curriculum was completed in 2007 based on the 2001 ACM/IEEE recommendations. More on CS curricula will have to wait for another post, but the Computer Industry changes very quickly, so it is hard to keep up.
So, although the Computer Science Department resides within the School of Engineering, it has a LAC-like focus on teaching. In fact, the School of Engineering remains tightly coupled to the School of Liberal Arts (it used to be part of it) and offers both an ABET accredited CS degree through the School of Engineering as well as a CS major through the School of Liberal Arts. There are interdisciplinary majors and minors (such as Cognitive and Brain Science and Multimedia Arts) that span the two schools and the majority of Tufts CS research is applied/interdisciplinary.
Double majors are typically not a problem because they overlap with distribution requirements, so courses can be double counted.
You would need to decide which school you wanted to apply to, but there is free movement between the schools (you do need to manage prerequisites carefully to be able to switch into Engineering from Liberal Arts because there are more requirements for the degree).
The School of Engineering prides itself on having a net zero attrition rate (the national average is 40%) and a 99% four year graduation rate.
It is pretty hard to rationalize the traditional “weed out” culture that remains at some research universities when you believe that elementary school kids can (and should) be taught both Engineering and CS…
http://www.cs.tufts.edu/About-CS/cool-facts-about-cs-at-tufts.html
check this thread and do a search for similar one - its a question that has been asked and answered numerous times on CC: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1391336-liberal-arts-colleges-with-good-computer-science-programs.html
List of smaller schools and CS offerings updated with some additional schools mentioned here:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18857221/#Comment_18857221
Tufts is highly selective, so one would expect “natural weeding” to be far less of an issue there than at a less selective school. At highly selective schools, the bar for admission is higher than the bar for likelihood of success in engineering or CS. At less selective schools, the bar for admission is lower than the bar for likelihood of success in engineering or CS.
Holy Cross offers CS.
@ucbalumnus - I would suggest that once one accepts the belief that “weeding” is somehow “natural” then one loses the incentive to improve the quality of undergraduate engineering education…
It is more of a realistic assessment that at lower levels of selectivity one is not going to see 100% graduation rates, in any major. Of course, there are some turnaround cases of students who improve their study skills and motivation in late high school or early college, and some aspects of the educational environment can affect how successful the turnaround students are. But it is unrealistic that believe that every lower stats entering college student will be a turnaround student who eventually succeeds, even if one believes that everyone should have a chance to try.