Hi everyone, I was admitted to these three schools for computer science: Yale, Northeastern, and NYU. With financial aid, they are all in a similar range with Yale and Northeastern being slightly cheaper than NYU. I know that Yale is an IVY but I’ve heard bipolar opinions about the CS program and that it is not up there, while I’ve heard about Northeastern’s curriculum being undergrad focused, and they have Co-ops as well. However, being that Yale is an Ivy, I would have a lot more opportunities to participate in different areas.
My research and understanding of these schools may be wrong, so I would like to ask for your help.
Between these three colleges, which would the best in terms of CS curriculum, rigor, extracurricular opportunities, recruiting, and career prospects?
My nephew graduated from Yale CS several years ago, and had no trouble finding a great job with Google during the depth of a recession. He has no regrets.
I think everything you said is more or less accurate. While Yale is not known for CS, you’ll still have very good postgrad outcomes due to the Ivy name. Northeastern’s CS program is the best here IMO (based on combined teaching and research strength) and co-op there helps with the postgrad outcomes of course with 66% of CS students having at least one full-time job offer from a previous co-op when they graduate. NYU’s CS is solid though leans a bit more math/theory based, which is good/bad depending on what you want. Unless you’re heavily leaning into math/theory and considering research, I don’t see how it’d be worth more than your other options.
I think when you average these areas out, Yale and Northeastern, for CS, will be pretty even. If you’re uncertain of CS, Yale of course will have the advantage generally in many fields, so consider that. If you are sure of CS, I would be focusing on fit here as the environments of the two are quite different. Northeastern’s in the heart of Boston and gives you access to the city daily, is very much city-focused as a result, and slanted a bit preprofessional due to co-op. Yale is going to give you the beautiful Ivy campus and college town feel and gives off more of something like a LAC vibe. Which do you prefer there?
You bring up some good points. In your opinion, what would be better, the co-ops and practical curriculum of Northeastern, or internships and the more varied opportunities of Yale? Do outcomes skew in any way in terms of career-wise? Does Yale’s Computer Science really lag that behind compared to Northeastern’s and is that poor?
That’s more of a personal preference it sounds like to me. It’s also unclear what you mean by “varied opportunities” here. I personally went to Northeastern and never considered Yale (likely would have been rejected, but still) and have no regrets, but I was someone who very much valued both being in a large city and a practical approach to academics. No approach is objectively right/wrong.
Anecdotally, it seems to me that Yale grads are more both more likely to go into academia and into fintech, but I don’t have any data there. Neither will close the door to any interest/intent though, so I think these outcomes say more about what students choose than what they have available to them.
Yale’s CS program is in no way “poor”, it’s just not quite as developed as Northeastern’s in this case.
Judging teaching is hard, but to get some relative scale, check this link and expand the pie charts for Northeastern and Yale. This tracks papers at top CS conferences by school/professor and subfield.
While Northeastern’s research is more varied and generally more, there’s still plenty going on at Yale.
This is all still mainly affecting the graduate level though. Still, it at least gives an idea of the depth at each school. Teachingwise, I’m not familiar with Yale, but Northeastern is known for its unique approach, specifically to intro CS. You can read about it here: