I’m starting college this fall and I am struggling to decide on which college to go to, can anyone help?
Respective costs?
With a scholarship, Rpi is around 50,000 and Ohio State is around the same but I have received my financial aid package yet.
What do you want your college experience to be?
RPI is a very rigorous 70/30 M/F kinda geeky engineering environment,
OSU is rather different, also they don’t admit by major, do they?
OSU grads seem to adore their experience …
Honestly, I would prefer to have a fun time in college, but I also want a good education that will prepare me for internships as a software engineer. I’m not sure if they admit by major or not. On my application portal, it said Program Engineering and Plan Computer science and Engineering.
Honestly, the deciding factor is going to come down to which college has the better computer science program. I’m also still waiting on UW Madison.
Without a direct comparison, note that RPI has attained world-level status in areas such as supercomputing:
RPI is likely a lot more rigorous and will have smaller classes.
OSU and UW will have much better “college experience”.
OSU would be waaay more fun in terms of attitude, academic rigor, sports, large campus, tons of people around, etc. etc. it’s a good school but RPI has the better academics for STEM/CS by a pretty wide margin. It’s been well respected in the field for decades.
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If you do not have direct admission to the CS major, take a look at the secondary admission requirements:
Ohio State: CIS - Application to Major and Requirements to Apply | Computer Science and Engineering
Are you talking about RPI or OSU?
He is talking about OSU.
I don’t think OSU is a direct-admit university, and judging from the website to declare you need
to satisfy a certain GPA in the core classes, and if the major goes “impacted” i.e. if they have too many students wanting to declare, these requirements may shoot up.
RPI I believe accepts into major, and, in general, private schools are more flexible in these matters.
OSU:
CPHR* of at least 3.3 and MPHR** of at least 2.7
CPHR* of at least 3.0 and MPHR** of at least 3.2 having completed CSE 2221, 2231, and 2321
B+ i major incl CS classes may not be as easy as it seems, especially if some of these courses are “weeder” courses, i.e. designed to make most student struggle either because of rigor, or workload, or both.
I think your right, on their website it said that all students entering Ohio State in the College of Engineering enroll in the Pre-Major Program. I guess you can’t declare a major right off the bat, these want students to “test drive” majors first.
Where did you find all of that info up top^?
so yeah, for the same price you are probably better off going where you’re guaranteed the major you want. (and it happens to be a pretty darn good school)
OSU or possibly both.
OSU does not appear to be direct admit for CS. CS is available in both engineering and art & sciences divisions, but either way requires a secondary admission process (as linked above for arts & sciences; first year engineering students have a different process described at Admission to Major | Engineering Advising ).
If you are admitted to RPI but not in the CS major, check the RPI link for criteria to change into the CS major.
When I got my acceptance letter it said I was admitted into the CS Major at the School of Science.
Bachelors of Science with a major in Computer and Information Science (BS CIS)
Bachelors of Arts with a major in Computer and Information Science (BA CIS)?
I want to say thank you to everyone who took the time out of their day to help me out I really appreciate it. Didn’t really know who else to ask about this stuff because both of my parent don’t understand the whole college process, so I’m glad I found y’all.
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Up top I was talking about RPI, I should have clarified it.
CC is a great resource but you should also check with a trusted teacher or guidance counselor to help you make the best decision. It sounds like you have wonderful options! Best of luck to you.