I applied for the Questbridge scholarship, and I have to rank my schools within October 11th. If I get matched, I’ll have to attend the school.
I want to study CS and eventually get into Data Science. For the top schools, I’ve decided on MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, UPenn in that order. I am not sure about whether I should rank Tufts, Vanderbilt, Rice, Duke, Dartmouth, and Northwestern. I can’t decide on which ones to rank and in what order. I want to have at least 2-3 schools from these to maximize my chances.
I care mostly about the quality of undergrad teaching, internship and job opportunities. I prefer to be on either coast, preferably on the east coast. The location isn’t really a strong requirement as long as the college has top recruiters there. I am not into partying. I guess you could call me a stereotypical nerd. I prefer a rigorous curriculum that integrates theory and applications.
All of the schools you are considering are great. I would rank the others in terms of best fit for your personality. Unlike some of the other schools on your secondary list, Rice does not have Greek life, but inclusive residential colleges instead. Rice has a happy nerd vibe. The Fraternity/Sorority scene is big at Vanderbilt, Duke, Dartmouth, and Northwestern . Rice is not on either cost, but is in the museum district of Houston, the nation’s 4th largest city. Dartmouth is in rural New Hampshire and has a hard partying reputation. Vandy (Nashville), Duke (Durham), Northwestern (Evanston/Chicago area), and Tufts (Boston area) are located in urban areas. FYI Rice matched with 51 QB scholars last year.
Seconding that Rice for fit and CS would make the most sense. Northwestern would be next in line, again based on fit/CS strength. Good news is you can’t really go wrong with any of these.
There are lot of economic benefits associated with the Questbridge match program, but one of the hidden benefits is that it is effectively allowing you to apply ED to multiple schools. Since all the schools that you have listed are very selective and all of them (except possibly MIT) are easier to get in via ED, it would seem like a good strategy to err on the side of inclusiveness when constructing your match list (I believe the maximum is 12). The downside of this strategy is that it requires you to do your research and make your relative determinations this fall rather than next spring. Care also needs to be taken not to “force a fit” - assuming you have an affordable non-Questbridge option.
For the record, all the “top schools” in your list are known more for their research than undergrad teaching. It is research that drives most rankings, not teaching. They are all good for summer internships and recruiters, but locations embedded in high tech clusters make internships during the school year possible.
In terms of your area of interest (Data Science):
Tufts is a good fit. It is the only Questbridge school that offers a general undergraduate major in Data Science . It is a new interdisciplinary degree jointly administered through the Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering departments. It is heavily weighted toward CS and, in terms of rigor, it has course requirements similar to an ABET accredited CS degree. It is a well designed program that includes cognate courses and a capstone experience which allows students to gain experience applying Data Science techniques to a chosen application domain (which is very important).
Northwestern is one of the major talent factories for data scientists. There’s not really a data science program at the undergrad level. But there are few related programs such as statistics, MMSS, management science and industrial engineering (the last two are well regarded among grad schools and employers). Their Econ is also one of the top in the country. They also have a very well-established masters program in data analytics. You should check out this page because the bio of students would may give you ideas how best to approach this. I am not sure going straight to data science program at the undergrad level is the way to go. https://www.mccormick.northwestern.edu/analytics/our-students-alumni/meet-students/.