Objective Comparison: UF, FSU and UCF for Computer Science

College Search & Selection
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I’m following up a year later in the hope that relating our experience will help families of rising college freshmen who face a similar decision with respect to choosing between the computer science program at UCF / UF.

After being offered admission to the honors programs at both UF and UCF, my son ultimately accepted UCF’s offer of admission to UCF’s Burnett Honors College and enrolled in the BS in Computer Science program where he has just completed his first year.

While it’s true that the University of Florida is ranked higher than UCF by and the average UF student is stronger than the average UCF student, don’t be unduly influenced by pollsters or averages… the reality is that what’s right for one student is not necessarily right for another. Notwithstanding general rankings and statistics, UCF’s computer science program is incredibly good and its BSCS graduates are arguably stronger than their counterparts from the University of Florida. Why? Unlike UF, the University of Central Florida requires computer science students to pass a rigorous “Foundation Exam” - http://www.cs.ucf.edu/registration/exm/ -after their first year that tests a student’s understanding of computer science theory and discrete structures (with an historical pass rate of only ~40%) that weeds out the bottom ~60% of weaker students. If you pass, you’re in with a group of very strong peers; if you fail, you can retake the exam in subsequent semesters but you cannot register for upper-level CS courses that you need to graduate in CS until/unless you do. Effectively, if you can’t pass UCF’s qualifying Foundation Exam, you’re forced to switch majors (at which point you’re in with the “general” UCF student body in courses/majors that are weaker than UF’s counterparts); however, if you do pass, it’s guaranteed that you know your stuff and are every bit as good as, if not better than, the average UF compsci undergraduate. The ironic conundrum is that if your student “just made it” into UF or is not 100% certain that the BSCS degree is what they want, you should probably choose UF over UCF because UF has no such “weed out” exam after the first year and the programs outside the CS department at UF are probably stronger… whereas, if your student is really strong AND is sure that the BSCS degree is what they want, UCF is probably the better program because they will be surrounded by superior students at the upper-level and the internship opportunities in Orlando are vastly superior to those in Gainesville (my kid passed the foundation exam and is interning with Lockheed this summer).

Yeah, yeah, I know… UCF is perceived as a “commuter” school (a wrong perception, to be sure) and the UF Gator has a higher GPA/ACT score than the average UCF Knight. Then look at the $87,500 average salary of UCF CS grads. the reality is that the BSCS program at UCF is an incredible value for the money. Having been a professional software developer for most of my career and having watched my son grow in his knowledge and capabilities in the BSCS program, with the above caveats about being sure of being able to pass the Foundation Exam and desire for the BSCS degree, I strongly recommend UCF’s BSCS program.

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Thanks for the feedback

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@OrlandoDad

DS will attend UCF in the fall. He never even bothered to apply to UF, as he knew he would choose UCF over UF.

You touched on some great points. I’d like to add some.

1- UCF has some phenomenal clubs/groups related to CS. If you do a little internet search on their Programming Team you will find that they placed 4th at the North American Invitational behind Harvard, Waterloo, and MIT, but ahead of others that included Stanford, Cornell, and Carnegie Mellon. UCF’s top team is currently in Thailand competing against the best in the world. This is not a 2016 anomaly. UCF has been placing in the top 3 of the regional contest for something like 25 years. Also, Hack@UCF, the cyber security club, has won top awards for years, besting plenty of Ivies and other big names along the way. While these competitors represent only the tippy top of UCF’s CS students, clearly they are getting a great education and plenty of support.

2- Word on the street (or in 2016, that means the talk on Reddit) is that the Office of Experiential Learning is great at placing students in co-ops and internships. Lockheed Martin employs many students annually in their CWEP (college work experience program). I know that UF also helps place students in co-ops and internships, but at UCF, they are right in Orlando. I know you already mentioned this point, OrlandoDad, but it deserves repeating.

3- The Office of Ungergraduate Research seems to be aggressively promoting research through various programs, including EXCEL, RAMP and Burnett Research Scholars. The NSF continues to fund UCF’s Center for Research in Computer Vision.

4- UCF is no longer a commuter school! They add new housing every year, and each residential location trumps the previous. UCF students rarely experience the traditional dorm experience(although a smattering of old-style dorms remain), instead they are offered apartments or suites, both with single bedrooms, sometimes with a full bed, sometimes with a resort-style pool on site. This is not your father’s dormitory.

5- Anecdotally speaking, every student that we know that is attending/has attended UCF has reported that they LOVED it. I haven’t heard a single “it wasn’t a good fit” story. Can’t say the same for UF.

I hope to report back in four years that DS made a great choice and is graduating with a job already lined up!

PS- Son #2 is right behind and it seems like he wants to attend UCF as well, for all the same reasons.