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.
My DD visited / applied to almost all of these schools. These may not answer your questions but these were her impressions.
RPI - very nerdy 80+ percent male. Campus is beautiful but Troy (the closest city) is not nice.
WPI - Loved it. They are on a quarter system. They go 6 weeks on 2 weeks off. This might not work out with comuting back to west coast. Not sure if you can stay on campus through the 2 week breaks. Easy enough to find out. They have 6 week work programs built into the curriculum. You will have 4 projects / jobs to put on your resume when you graduate without even taking internships. They do also have internships. Beautiful campus. Worcester is a pretty cool little city.
Drexel - Much easier to get into than the others on your list. Campus is very urban.
Northeastern - Great school, lots of opportunities for coop. MY DD’s friend loves it there.
Lehigh - Kind of in the middle of no where. Very hilly. School life revolves around greek life. One of the highest % of any school we looked at. My DD didn’t end up applying because of this.
Stevens - Coop program is amazing. Really high percentage of students are hired from their coop company before graduation. Coops are paid really well. Stevens has the highest return on investment of any school you’re looking at. Hoboken is amazing. The train to the city is a few minute walk. DD went there and loves it.
We didn’t look at any schools in Rochester because it was just too cold up there. Most of the schools have tunnels because it is too cold to walk outside.
If you’re narrowing it down to 4 I’d go with Stevens, WPI, Northeastern and Drexel as a safety. Look up freshman retention rate, graduation rates and ROI (return on investment) for each school. These are all great choices.
These are all good schools; I would narrow them down based on the location you prefer. I like Snappin’s summary. I agree with several of the descriptions (the ones we also visited).
My D '16 is also interested in CompSci, and prefers a smaller, tech-oriented school (vs LAC). She visited WPI and really liked it. We agree w/ Snappin’s assessment of WPI – lovely campus, academically rigorous, philosophy and curriculum seems well-thought out to support STEM majors through graduation. She also liked the Fall break, after the 1st quarter! (I think the quarters are 7 weeks on though, not 6?) We live in the Seattle area, and friends at Msft are familiar w/ WPI. I think WPI’s career placement is solid in Seattle & Bay Area. Are you considering Carnegie Mellon or Case Western (not the NE but very strong CS programs.) Case also is starting a Decision Science/“big data” major – very hot career right now.
My D did not care for Northeastern. It is a larger school, and seemed too focused on coops. She thought campus life may be disruptive with the constant in/out flow of students doing coops. She did like the city of Boston.
Another friend just visited RPI, and had the same observation as Snappin. Very technically-focused, students didn’t seem to be as relaxed as WPI, and male-dominated.
She goes to Stevens and loves it. We looked at a bunch of state schools also. She is in the engineering program so I can’t speak about the computer program. Coincidentally all the schools OP listed are engineering schools.