<p>When someone asks for the best computer science schools that are not extremely selective, the reoccurring schools seem to be flagship public schools, like UMichigan, UIUC, and UWashington. What are some of the private schools that are not extremely selective AND are top in computer science?</p>
<p>Define your level of selectivity.</p>
<p>A wide range, as in around 30 to 60% acceptance</p>
<p>Acceptance rates are not very reliable indicators of selectivity, since the strength of the applicant pool can be a significant confounding factor.</p>
<p>For example, both New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology and Cal Poly SLO both report similar 31% acceptance rates, but their actual level of selectivity is very different.</p>
<p>Your other posts indicate an unweighted HS GPA of 3.77, which may help others make suggestions.</p>
<p>How about USC?</p>
<p>Last I saw, USC had a 19% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>(Unlike when I went there, when they had a 99.9% acceptance rate.)</p>
<p>You might look at Santa Clara University. A 51% acceptance rate and its CS graduates don’t seem to have a problem finding work.</p>
<p>When I lived in New York, I remember Marist had a very good CS program.</p>
<p>For the most part, it doesn’t much matter where you get your CS degree. Just about any top 500 school would be OK.</p>
<p>Private schools might matter for liberal arts majors, but outside a few niche schools like CMU or Harvey Mudd, any reasonably ranked CS program at a state school will be fine.</p>
<p>What do you mean that it doesn’t matter where you get your degree? There was a post a while ago showing that Stanford, Berkeley, MIT, CMU, and Cornell had average salaries of over $90k for recent grads and then there was a HUGE dropoff for the next tier of schools.</p>
<p>^Do you think those fall within the OP’s selectivity range?</p>
<p>Collegedata.com might be a good starting point for you. Entrance difficult of <em>very difficult</em> has turned up results with 50-30% acceptance rates. You can pick majors and other factors.</p>
<p>Very difficult entrance, CS degree, private schools returned 60 schools.</p>
<p>Then from there…I don’t really know how to determine the quality of the CS departments. I look around on their web pages to get a feel for the dept (is research highlighted? student involvement mentioned? credentials of faculty, etc).
Good luck on your search!</p>
<p>[CollegeData</a> - College 411 - College Match](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com/cs/search/college/college_match_tmpl.jhtml]CollegeData”>http://www.collegedata.com/cs/search/college/college_match_tmpl.jhtml)</p>
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<p>I would imagine that’s because Stanford and Berkeley graduates remain in SF and Silicon Valley, while the MIT, CMU and Cornell grads end up in nearby, expensive places like Boston, NY and Washington.</p>
<p>If you graduate from Nebraska or Iowa, you probably choose to remain somewhere in the low-cost/low-pay Midwest.</p>
<p>You’ll pretty much learn the same thing whether you go to CMU, SMU, USC or ASU.</p>
<p>You know that many other schools exist next to NYC and Silicon valley, right? I find it funny that you refer to Iowa or Nebraska when the small minority of colleges are in those states or other midwest states.</p>
<p>Your explanation shows nothing.</p>
<p>“You’ll pretty much learn the same thing whether you go to CMU, SMU, USC or ASU.”</p>
<p>And yet you WILL get paid differently.
*I also find this comment hilarious. Many top schools have really specific and awesome classes in niche’s in CS that their professors are known for. Sure, your introduction to Java and network oriented programming could be around the same, but how could you learn the same thing when there is already a pretty significant difference of offerings among the top schools due to specialties of the professors? I wonder what happens when you get into the “other schools” HINT: there aren’t many professors with significant specialties.</p>
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<p>While there are plenty of “best CS program” surveys, they tend to present inconsistent results, and none is accepted as gospel. That’s because it’s very difficult to differentiate CS programs.</p>
<p>Pick your survey. I got the following list from </p>
<p>[Best</a> Schools for Computer Science - 2013 - 2014 College Salary Report](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/best-schools-by-major/computer-science]Best”>http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/best-schools-by-major/computer-science)</p>
<p>Please notice that contrary to the quoted assertion, this survey had Cal Poly-SLO, UC Irvine, and UCSB ahead of Stanford, CMU, MIT and Cornell. </p>
<p>Best Schools for Computer Science Majors
Source: PayScale</p>
<ol>
<li><p>University of California, Berkeley
Starting pay: $82,000
Mid-career pay: $141,400</p></li>
<li><p>California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (CalPoly)
Starting pay: $67,000
Mid-career pay: $125,000</p></li>
<li><p>University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)
Starting pay: $68,000
Mid-career pay: $120,200</p></li>
<li><p>Stanford University (tie)
Starting pay: $90,000
Mid-career pay: $120,000</p></li>
<li><p>University of California, Irvine (UCI) (tie)
Starting pay: $64,200
Mid-career pay: $120,000</p></li>
<li><p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Starting pay: $82,400
Mid-career pay: $117,500</p></li>
<li><p>Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech)
Starting pay: $66,700
Mid-career pay: $117,000</p></li>
<li><p>Cornell University
Starting pay: $70,000
Mid-career pay: $116,500</p></li>
<li><p>University of California, San Diego (UCSD)
Starting pay: $70,000
Mid-career pay: $115,000</p></li>
<li><p>Rutgers University - New Brunswick
Starting pay: $63,000
Mid-career pay: $114,500</p></li>
<li><p>San Jose State University (SJSU)
Starting pay: $65,500
Mid-career pay: $114,400</p></li>
<li><p>New York University (NYU)
Starting pay: $60,000
Mid-career pay: $112,500</p></li>
<li><p>University of Washington (UW)
Starting pay: $65,000
Mid-career pay: $112,100</p></li>
<li><p>University of Maryland (UMD)
Starting pay: $66,000
Mid-career pay: $112,000</p></li>
<li><p>Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI)
Starting pay: $69,500
Mid-career pay: $111,500</p></li>
<li><p>Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) (tie)
Starting pay: $81,300
Mid-career pay: $111,000</p></li>
<li><p>Georgia Institute of Technology (tie)
Starting pay: $65,800
Mid-career pay: $111,000</p></li>
<li><p>University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA)
Starting pay: $65,000
Mid-career pay: $110,000</p></li>
<li><p>University of Texas (UT) - Austin
Starting pay: $64,000
Mid-career pay: $106,200</p></li>
<li><p>University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
Starting pay: $68,000
Mid-career pay: $106,000</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Well that is a completely illegitimate source.</p>
<p>Cornell: $93k is much higher than $70k
[Placement</a> Report | Department of Computer Science](<a href=“http://www.cs.cornell.edu/undergrad/cscareers/placementreport]Placement”>Placement Report | Department of Computer Science)</p>
<p>Stanford: $93k is also higher than $90k
[Stanford</a> Salary Statistics | Student Affairs](<a href=“http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/cdc/jobs/salary-grads]Stanford”>http://studentaffairs.stanford.edu/cdc/jobs/salary-grads)</p>
<p>CMU is also around $90k the last I checked. Better luck finding a credible source. There is a pretty solidified top tier of CS schools.</p>
<p>Well, this thread digressed of the OP’s intention. The purpose of this thread is to provide OP with some good, less selective, private unis for CS. Not to debate upon whos grads get paid more</p>
<p>Northeastern, WPI, RIT, Clarkson, Drexel come to mind, as private schools having well regarded tech programs. but not super selective.</p>