I am in 11th grade and working to narrow down my list of colleges to apply to for a computer science degree. I am interested in applying to some schools in the northeast and am wondering which will provide me the best overall education. Ideally I would like smaller class sizes (don’t really care about the size of the overall university) and to be in or near a big city although this is not absolutely necessary. I do like the idea of a co-op program, but summer internships would also be ok. My list is:
RPI
WPI
RIT
Stevens Institute of Technology
U Rochester
Northeastern
Drexel
Lehigh
I am not from the northeast and would ultimately like to land a job on the west coast. However, I want the experience of living there for at least 4 years. Do any of these schools have good job placement in Seattle or San Francisco? Ultimately I will probably only apply to 4 of these schools, so any help with making my decision would be greatly appreciated.
It might have been better to make one thread rather than 4 or 5.
@TempeMom Just trying to get a perspective from students at the different schools…
@Hosley17 I did the same thing my first time making a thread but in the end the same posters will read this. Post it only on the CS board if you want the least biased post IMO. As to the question, see the NEU board.
Ok, thanks. If any RIT students want to chime in that would be greatly appreciated.
Do you need financial aid? Some of these schools give more than others. There are also many other cost differences between the schools, which may not be “seeable” at first - for example, Drexel used to charge full tuition while a student was on co-op. They don’t seem to do that anymore, however they do still charge full fees, or $790 each quarter. Over $3,000 is a chunk of change that other schools may not be charging.
Based on my two kids’ experiences, I recommend that you apply to your full list (or some of the other schools in the linked article below). Merit awards and financial aid grants have a huge range. It was REALLY worth spending the extra cash for three extra applications for my son. His awards ranged from “loans only” to “full need met.” We couldn’t afford $55,000 a year. The state flagship was over $25,000. The “full need met” school cost us quite a bit less.
I can’t tell you about each of your schools, however I can tell you that the majors at RIT look really interesting. They are in Rochester, not a huge city, but someone speaking from New Media Design (they have a good design school as well) had just finished a Co-Op for Google in NYC. They have an excellent film/animation program and place their graduates in top places. They appear to have great connections. You can see what different majors make $ in both Co-Ops and for entry level salaries here: https://www.rit.edu/emcs/oce/employer/salary
Scroll down to the different majors in Computer Science - the numbers are all over the place. Have you thought about “Computing Security”? The top entry level salary lists: $160,000. Click on the major you want to check out, then scroll down to “Selected Employer Hiring Partners” - you can see which companies are listed. So many of them have branches in so many different places. You would have to research where.
RIT gives a bunch of merit aid. Another big “plus” for RIT is that the professors teach, not the graduate students, as is the case in many other universities.
You might want to read the following for more information regarding other computer science schools: http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/computer-science-degrees-best-roi/
You may want to consider some of those schools to add to your list. Also, one big thing I learned this year is to “run the net price calculators” at each of the schools. (To give you an idea of what it would cost.) Also look at the merit awards.
Best of luck!