<p>^That sounds like a great suggestion.</p>
<p>Do UCs decide on admission mainly by GPAs and tests?</p>
<p>Putting aside Asian banker’s perceptions of schools, I know a fair amount of students at UCLA, CAL and Santa Clara. All fine institutions, but of the students I know, the happiest ones are at Santa Clara. I think this is mainly a big school vs. small school phenomenon. Most of the students at SC also received significant merit money, so that helps the outlook.</p>
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<p>I believe most of the students who receive merit money from SCU are students admitted with “distinction” which is a small %age of admitted students. I don’t think MOST students receive merit aid…but some clearly do.</p>
<p>The OPs son is well positioned to be admitted with distinction and receive a merit award.</p>
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I think I’ve read that the UC calculated weighted GPA plus the SAT/ACT score is the biggest component but they also look at other factors such as ECs, how rigorous the taken HS courses were versus those available, and social aspects such as whether parents went to college (bonus points given to the first gen to go to college), household income (bonus to lower income), single parent family, other hardship factors.</p>
<p>Another point on the ‘best college’ point - none of the top colleges graduate enough CS grads to fill all the available positions so employment prospects of most CS students from the quite a number of the colleges that are more highly ranked in CS are good. Bill Gates and a number of other software company heads remark on this point all the time. This doesn’t mean that people should just go any ole where to get the CS degree and that it’d be as well received as degrees from some other colleges but it also means that one doesn’t ‘have’ to have a degree from Stanford/MIT/CalTech/… in order to get a very good position at a very good company and trying to split hairs between the top 15 or 20 colleges in this area is kind of pointless for most of the grads from a practical perspective.</p>
<p>“If you’re saying that Harvard has a higher cachet in computer science than Cal (or UCLA or UCSD or USC or…) then I’d say someone over there is somewhat clueless. Regardless, I don’t think ‘prestige’ in Asia is very important to the vast majority of CS majors in colleges in the USA. It might be important for someone from Asia who plans to attend college in the USA and then head back to Asia to work but that’s a small percentage of the students.”</p>
<p>Bingo, exactly. I’d wager a large bet that very few CS majors who are from the US are even interested in going to Asia to work, unless they have family there or are highly adventurous. Most students in that major and on this forum would not care one bit about international name recognition of their college.</p>
<p>^^^ yes, but OP’s son is applying as an international student… hence this part of the discussion.</p>
<p>@thumper:</p>
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<p>Of course you are right, I phrased what I meant to say clumsily. I meant "most of the students <em>that I know</em> " had received significant merit money and may, therefore, have a particularly favorable view of the score versus a full pay.</p>
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If you talk to my son, he’ll say this was the best decision he made. All of his immediate circle of SCS friends landed great internships and jobs.</p>
<p>“yes, but OP’s son is applying as an international student… hence this part of the discussion.”</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with including anything as part of the discussion (God knows we constantly go off into tangents), but in this situation it sounds like he and his family are American citizens, who happen to be working overseas. I haven’t read where the OP indicated her child was intending to work in Asia after graduation, but that he wanted to be near his brother in California, if possible.</p>
<p>“If you talk to my son, he’ll say this was the best decision he made. All of his immediate circle of SCS friends landed great internships and jobs.”</p>
<p>Talking about a random tangent…do you think your son and friends would think a CMU BS in economics/minor CS/Masters Information Systems would be <,>,= BS double major economics/CS, as far as employment goes? Sorry about the detour, it’s a question we’ve been thinking about, since our son can take either path in about the same amount of time, and there seem to be many CS knowledgeable people on here.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that if you are hoping for merit $$$, your student has a better chance of it if he’s at the top of the applicant pool. For schools at which his stats are a “reach,” not likely to get offered much merit $$$. If student applies to “comparable” schools, they may match offers. Even tho USC says it doesn’t, it did increase its merit offer to S to be comparable to the offer he received from Santat Clara. This made it easier for S to accept USC. :)</p>
<p>LMU is a significantly smaller U than USC, which is one of the main criticisms I have heard of the U. One of the kids we know said that the entire department was ONE prof & he knew as much or more than the prof when he started at that U. Still, he did get his engineering degree from LMU & was able to get a job in LA in his field.</p>
<p>BD, My knowledge is purely anecdotal, and second-handed too. </p>
<p>DS was doing a double major in SCS and ECE and felt the opportunities specific to just SCS were much better. This was not because ECE was bad, but right now, SCS seemed to be blooming and in the SCS +some-other-major scenario, the former dominated, hence a double major would be better. Don’t know if this is a temporary bubble or an outlier. If you measure jobs purely on the basis of $s, some of the figures he talked about were truly amazing, but in a high-expense area, though. </p>
<p>To get a better picture, get your kid to talk with some of the ones who completed last year. There were a bunch who interned and got permanent offers in the more established companies like Microsoft and Google, a bunch went to the “new Microsofts” like FB, and probably even more who went to real small places that are not household names, but who dangled more $s, and the few like DS who didn’t make a lot of money but were hooked by the “startup” dream, and equity that may amount to something someday if they are lucky.</p>
<p>Thanks Dad, I’ll tell him to do that. Hope your son’s equity ends up amounting to alot!</p>
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International reputation is primarily derived from prestigious faculty achievements. In that sense, Berkeley is miles ahead of USC and no $6 billion can cover. Berkeley closes out on its own $3 billion fundraising campaign in mid-2013.</p>
<p>UCs aren’t out of money. Funding has increased every year. It is the source of that money that is changing. </p>
<p>To go back to the OP. If applying to UCLA, you may as well check off Berkeley and pay the additional $60 or whatever fee. Berkeley EECS is one of the best programs in the country.</p>
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<p>Also, Berkeley is local to Silicon Valley.</p>
<p>However, if the primary interest is CS, not EE, then applying to L&S may give a slightly greater chance of admission, if EECS’ reputation of being more selective for freshman admission still holds. Students who enter in L&S declare majors after completing prerequisites; the L&S CS major is not one of the few capped L&S majors that requires applying to declare with a high GPA. EECS and L&S CS majors select from the same CS courses.</p>
<p>UCBchem, you’re just completely wrong. I understand that you want Berkeley to be great but wishful thinking will not make it true.</p>
<p>International (and US) reputation is mainly based on what graduates achieve, not on prof accolades. For instance, within 1 mile of Palm Drive you can visit the garage that two guys used to found HP, or you can drive 4 blocks over to a building on University Ave to visit Googles first office, or a few more blocks to the house that a Harvard kid rented as his first permanent address for FB, etc, etc. Same can be said for the grads at USC in LA and San Francisco such as Intuit and Salesforce, and grads from other top private schools. Who was the last big innovator that came out of Cal, Ernst Lawrence in the 1940’s? The achievement of students is what really makes an institutions reputation, the achievements of its graduates! Not its employees. </p>
<p>And you’re delusional if you think Cal has any money. The school has a 2.5 billion dollar deficit. The state has zero money to bail them out. And your so called 3 billion dollar campaign has less than 1.2 billion in it, and most of that is in pledges that are not yet realized. On top of that a lot of donors are reneging on their pledges because the school is so poorly run and their kids can’t get in.</p>
<p>Yet schools such as USC, Caltech and Stanford have zero debt and billions in cash to spend on development (profs, scholarships, facilities), so who do you think is going to be stronger, healthier and have a better reputation in 5 and 10 years, Cal or them?</p>
<p>then go up the hill to where Cal’s reputation really came from, LBL, and realize that they are planning multi-million dollar projects but only have $100,000 in cash to do a tiny study because the feds are not coming through with the 100’s of millions needed to do any of the projects.</p>
<p>If you don’t believe me ask Yudof, he’s telling everyone who will listen that things at all the UC’s are a mess</p>
<p>pacheight, I take it you’re not too crazy about Cal?</p>
<p>UCSD_Dad: I know Intuit San Diego does hire from ucsd and that’s a great example of why lumping Cal Poly in with other top schools in California is ill-advised. Parents who think that their kid with a CS degree is on equal footing with a kid from UCSD with a CS degree are wrong. </p>
<p>this discussion is about not all CS degrees being the same, they’re not. Not by a long shot.</p>
<p>i’m not crazy about people claiming that things are OK or even great, when in truth they are the opposite</p>
<p>pacheight, I doubt that every innovator is coming out of "top private schools. " Chad Hurley. Indiana University of Pennsylvania, not even on the radar of 99+% of people on this site. There are bright, innovative people all over the place.</p>