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.
The smaller and/or more local the school the less name recognition outside of its area.
I only know from personal experience that some of the very large tech companies actively recruited some of the CS kids I know from UR.
I don’t really compare UR to RIT; the latter is a very different kind of place. You can see that at a glance if you look at an aerial photo of RIT. Don’t know much about Drexel or Lehigh, except regards to civil engineering at the latter. I know a fair amount about Northeastern and think UR is a much better school but NEU is in Boston, which may count.
Only thing I know about RPI is they have a hockey team. WPI doesn’t have much name recognition in MA and is mostly known for engineering so I don’t know anything about their CS. Don’t know what Stevens is.
@Hosley17 I see you have posted on quite a few forums. I don’t know if you have tried the math/cs forum.
I think ucbalumnus gave you the best, most general advice, of courses to look out for, making sure they are offered often enough, etc. I would also add that you can contact the career development centers at all of these schools and ask for statistics regarding west coast placement. That will be your best source of real data,
I know that RPI and WPI place a few computer scientists every year at Google or Apple or MS, though I don’t know if that is specifically West Coast. I was recently at the accepted students day at WPI and they mentioned employment/grad school placement of 96%, with a starting salary for CS majors that was pretty astronomical. However, they admitted the data are skewed because a few go to Google, etc, and the salaries are very high. Also, salaries in the Boston area can be on the high side.
Lehigh is very well-regarded in Engineering and Computer Science. It’s a very rigorous school Northeastern, Drexel and RIT are all known for their co-op programs. I would say in the Northeast, Northeastern would be more well-regarded, but in the Mid-Atlantic (where I am originally from) Drexel would definitely be more well-known. When we visited RIT, I was actually much more impressed than I expected to be. But, I have not looked into the details of courses, job placement, etc. Stevens seems to cater to the NYC area.
I think Rochester has a very solid program, and folks on this forum who know a lot more than I do about the school routinely comment on students they know who have gone on to great CS jobs.
I would think that getting a CS job is not difficult, but that getting a job on the west coast is going to be weird from many of these schools unless you can intern at a company on the west coast. I know a few kids from UR who did that but I can’t extend their experiences as general.
We visited U of R and RIT last week, and WPI in the spring. My son loved them all. RIT’s co-op program is very impressive, and they have a department that will work with you to reach out to companies if there is somewhere you would like to co-op that is not on their list. That way, you could co-op on the West Coast. I was very impressed with U of R. I will say this, if you want a big city feel in the Northeast, Northeastern is your best bet. Northeastern is very tough to get into, though - it has become very competitive. WPI is smaller, but we really liked it for their “project abroad” program - this could also be done on the west coast, doesn’t have to be abroad - which is sort of like a co-op in another country. Allows engineers to go abroad and still graduate in 4 years. May I make a suggestion? University of Chicago, though not in the Northeast, is right in the city of Chicago, has a beautiful campus, and Chicago is definitely a nicer city than Rochester (sorry Rochester), and equivalent to Boston. WPI is in a smaller city about an hour from Boston.
UChicago’s CS has a strong ‘theoretical’ bent vs. practical so depends on the type of program you want . If u r sure about CS I would also second IIT as a good urban option as well as CWRU. Consider University of Pittsburg as well - mid size urban university. In CS you don’t have to be in the top programs to still have good job opportunities. Check out the University of Minneapolis - TC as that is urban with many internship and job opportunities nearby.
I researched CS schools a couple years ago, and in my opinion, U Rochester is the best on your list. RPI is a very good engineering school, but CS at RPI is not in engineering. Same with Northeastern, though I like Northeastern’s CS better due to Co-op and location. Rochester financial aid is also better than NEU and RPI. I saw a ranking placing U Rochester undergrad comp sci at 21 in the country, and if you go to their web site (or any of the school web sites) you can see their CS curriculum is quite deep.