@mundanewarrior, have you looked at University Of Richmond? For a LAC, they offer a good selection of CS courses.
Make sure you look at the actual class schedules though, and not just the list of courses they offer in general. They offer a lot of topics as 340 - Directed Independent Study and they do Machine Learning as 395 - Selected Topics.
I’m not sure if they give financial aid to international students, and I don’t know too much about their merit aid, but I think it matches your other criteria. It’s in a really nice area. It’s not in the city, but it’s very close to Richmond.
@WalknOnEggShells
I have missed the December 1 [scholarship[/url] deadline of UR. So most of the merit aid will be gone and I’ll be dependent on need-based aid. According to College Board, they offered 6 million in total to around 150 internationals. And they meet full financial need if admitted. Do you think I have a good chance there?
@ucbalumnus @Corbett
Guess what? I was researching on Trinity College and I accidentally entered the website of Trinity University. I was very impressed. It is an LAC in San Antonio, a fantastic location. AND it has a very [url=“<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/trinity-university/1935941-computer-science.htmll%22%5Dwell”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/trinity-university/1935941-computer-science.htmll”]well established CS department](http://scholars.richmond.edu/). It is apparently the second best private school in Texas after Rice (which I’m also applying to). How cool is that? They meet full demonstrated need and I fall at the 75th percentile of their SAT scores. This is exactly the kind of LAC I was looking for. It is less known to out-of-state applicants and internationals, and I think that’s an advantage.
I think I’m going to apply to Trinity University, after gathering more information. The other one is probably Macalester. Two LACs, in addition to Colby and 7 universities. Looks really balanced.
Macalester CS majors seem to have fairly good post-graduate outcomes*. See: https://www.macalester.edu/academics/mscs/aftermac/
Among LACs, Macalester may have one of the better locations for internship opportunities (as long as you can tolerate Minnesota winters.)
@tk21769
A considerable number of the CS majors on that webpage are internationals. So, I’m not worried about that. Moreover, it depends on how I perform there in college, really.
Work visa is difficult to get, but I will be eligible for three years of work (OPT) on my student visa. If the company likes my work, they should be willing to sponsor my work visa.
Minnesota weather is what brings Macalester near the bottom of my list. But it’s still better than Canada, where I was initially considering applying.