Yeah, I wouldn’t take a lot of stock in that list. It is also not all about the amount of $ one can make when they graduate either. You really want to know who will be teaching these courses. Nothing against UTD, but you’re going to get a completely different quality and type of professor at UT-Austin a CS powerhouse than you will from UTD. One factor to look at is where the professors themselves got their training from. Also, how easy it is to get into the CS classes at the respective schools as well as how hard it is to graduate in 4 years if you can’t get into the classes you need. Many schools have this problem unfortunately.
CMU, MIT, Stanford, UIUC, Cornell, GA Tech, U-Washington, UCB (in no particular order except CMU is usually #1) have been at the top for CS for years. Nothing is going to topple them. I may be missing 1 or 2 but those are generally the very top of almost every list. After that it’s just one of those things that you can find a myriad of statistics to change the order and make a school sound better than it is.
One other thing, that chart/link you showed has data for CS and CE combined so in a way that is tainted. There are schools that have CS in Liberal Arts or Engineering, and there are schools like UT-Austin that their Computer Engineering degree is part of Electrical Engineering. To get it you have to major in ECE. CS there is in CNS. So that data in that link is probably not great data to use based on you’re not really looking at true CS data only.
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@srparent15 Agree. In the end, it’s which school gets the most pushed out to the major employers. I think Google has a major presence on CMU campus and it’s just a major CS vibe in the Bay Area. The major companies have their go-to recruiting hub and that’s the ultimate measure.
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Yes, re Google at CMU. If I recall when we looked there with my oldest son (‘15) Google has an office there and they recruit very heavily there. There’s also a relatively new building donated with funds from the Gates’ as well as one at Cornell. Some of these schools and their offerings are so amazing, I hope these kids realize just how lucky they are with the resources they have available to them. My first college boyfriend was a CS major, and this was in 1987 when you had to dial in by modem and there was no internet. Everything was just learning different programming languages. How far we have come.
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UTD isn’t in the top 50 in the aggregate rankings at the bottom but Rice and UT-Austin are within a spot of each other. That seems believable. I’m not sure how good Williams’ computer science department would be, or other top LACs. The extra California schools, like Cal Poly and SJSU, aren’t shocking due to their location.
However, like Fordham or Rutgers in the NYC area which would get jobs at Wall Street firms but potentially more back office vs IB or research.
A lot of the jobs out of college are also going to be based on what kind of internships these students get during college also. So that’s also a factor. The other issue and it will be interesting to see as I have a soph in CS now who’s already seeing the impact of covid on a lot of this as many companies only want juniors this summer since junior year internships are the most important, but this industry had never had layoffs until now with covid. This is becoming a major that more students are going into but there may not be the demand for jobs in the same way as there has been in the past. Something with my current hs senior I am also paying attention to is versatility for him to double major and minor. If a school is too small those opportunities may be limited, or if a school is technical it may be somewhat limited. It’s a hard year that’s for sure!
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You mean like UTD, TTU and TA&M? SJSU and SLO are “extra.” 
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@srparent15 You’re telling me! Was still learning FORTRAN and ADA in CS142 at the University of WA and our campus is literally funded by Bill Gates and the late Paul Allan. Prob ran out of buildings to name after their family members. Before that, it was Boeing and the Gov’t (thus, FORTRAN). I was very fortunate as an engineer to be at a hiring hub for companies from all over. I saw it on the flip side of the hiring table when I became a recruiter. I can’t imagine now with Amazon, Google, Starbucks, and FB also having a presence in Seattle—if they’re anything like they are at UCB, Stanford with recruiting.
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That’s so funny. I had wanted my son to look at UW but he said it’s impossible to get in OOS plus it’s only on the coalition and that was enough to also say forget it. Lol. I am not CS savvy at all but my 4 kids for some reason are all great at it, only 1 didn’t go in that direction. Their dad is not in that field but if he did it all over again, then maybe he would’ve. I had to take Pascal in college and that was so hard for me! I remember my boyfriend helping me a lot! The only languages I remember him having to do was something called Assembler and C+. I know my oldest has had to do a lot with C and I know my current husband has mentioned Fortran but he’s 62 so maybe he had to do something with that in college or hs because he is definitely NOT tech literate at ALL. So impressed at what these kids can do today and can’t wait to see what they can all do in the future.
@srparent15 They switched over to C+ the quarter after I took the class. They require all of us to take CS if we major in any engineering. Another weed out class at the UW. I was all about having my son apply because he’s interested in bio and it’s a legit bio school with all the biotech network in Seattle (my sister is a bio chem and chem major from UW). But then I realized they require essays AND it’s on coalition. Coupled all of that with OOS tuition, I told S21 to forget it. 
I mean, I think there were 3 essays! I wished it was part of the Western coalition group like Washington State U (UW people don’t care for Wazzu). That would’ve gotten S21 in-state tuition.
Kudos to your kids for having a passion in CS! It’s an amazing field!
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My H was just reminiscing today about handwriting out his FORTRAN programs in college and then very carefully typing them on a VAX terminal that had no monitor, just green and white printer paper.
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Nah, the aggregate rankings at the bottom. The ones that are graphed. I like that those look at the salaries, % in the computer science field, etc. UTD and TTU don’t make top 50 but Rice and UT are top 20.
For parents with older kids and previous college kiddo experiences, can you share what’s the next big milestone once the kids find out who wants them? (e.g. Decide on the final school, deposit, deposit for dorms, etc).
I’m a fan of using credit cards to pay for things (I pay them off monthly) to get my travel points and cashback. What things can we pay without getting assessed fees? I assume we can’t pay tuition with credit card and not pay a fee. BTW, so you pay with a check? That was how I did it back in the day. TY!
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@GetCollege19 We had monitors. LOL. We even had the internet once I got into college!! Like actual internet World Wide Web. We said the three words together. The printout of the programming was on dot matrix paper. The ones where the paper had white and light green stripes. If you know, you know!
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Hah. I remember those monitors. My first monitor was a monochrome monitor that was that yellowish color screen.
The best is I wonder how many of our kiddos would know what a dot matrix printer and paper are.
I just paid spring costs with direct deposit from checking account because I waited until a couple days before the deadline. There’s a fee if you pay late. You can also write a check or pay with CC with fee. We did deposit shortly after committing and maybe were able to use CC.
Best use of CC is buying books and dorm stuff. 
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Then I’ll say it more straight forward.
Your comments about SLO and SJSU being “extra” are at a minimum insensitive and I found them rude.
Although my D isn’t a CS major, both schools aren’t considered “extra” around here in Silicon Valley and D is awaiting decisions from both.
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Thanks for the directness. Being a Texan I was surprised but said I shouldn’t be due to proximity to Silicon Valley. I also said I should consider SLO for my son. I’m more familiar with the Spartans. I think he’d prefer SLO over San Jose but both appear great, especially for CS. I see U of San Francisco is #103 in national rankings.
BTW congrats to Michigan alum Tom Brady. Truly the GOAT.
@MommaLue
So every school is different and they don’t all allow credit cards and some that do have a credit card fee.
I pay UT-Austin with a credit card. They have a fee of 2.3% but my card gives 2.5% back so it’s worth it plus I get the extra float. There is a deadline of when you have to pay tuition or they automatically drop registration. Your kid also has to be on top of it there as they get the email, not parents. I can only imagine how many kids get dropped each year, lol. They also have a payment plan where you can pay 1/2 then 1/4 and 1/4 for some nominal fee like $15 so that’s also worth it and then you can charge each of those. I did that last year before my daughter was a resident. This year the tuition as a resident is not worth breaking it up.
For Cornell they don’t allow credit cards so you have to pay by check. Classes start tomorrow and payment wasn’t due until today so they let you go right up until classes beginning during most semesters. They have monthly installment plans which start earlier though and charge a higher amount which is nice for people who don’t want to pay one lump sum.
The other thing because I take money from my kid’s 529 to pay the qualified expenses, I never have them pay the school’s directly. I always want to have control of the money and have a paper trail.
As for books, I usually shop around for them as soon as my kids register. I rarely buy them from the school as I’ve usually found them much cheaper at other places. Mine tend to like hard copy books, but the schools are going towards more ebooks, especially Cornell. One daughter is a business major the other is CS and the business books are WAY more expensive.
Another thing to start looking for is dorm items on sale. Some of it is good because it doesn’t matter what school your kid is going to, you need it anyway! Girls will need/want way more than boys! Yay I have a boy this go around.
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Likely very few would know! It sounds like at least we were beyond the punch card era.
I remember when my HS acquired a couple strange new computers called Apple and the teacher asked if anyone wanted to help him figure out how to use them. 
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