Rice vs. Northeastern Scholars with full tuition scholarship for Computer Science?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Rice University
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My son wants to study computer science and was admitted to Northeastern’s Scholars program, which comes with a full tuition scholarship, and admitted to Rice with no financial award. He does like that Northeastern has its own College of Computer and Information Science vs. Rice having it within the College of Engineering.

Rice is a great school with an International reputation vs. Northeastern which is not as highly regarded, but is improving its reputation significantly every year.

Looking for some opinions as to whether it is worth paying $40k+/year to go to Rice.

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I can’t specifically comment on Rice in any way, but as a 25+ year veteran of the software (and hiring) market in the Boston area, I can tell you that Northeastern University students have historically been among my favorites for internships or entry-level hiring. Northeastern’s coop program means students have relevant experience and know how to work in the real world.

As a parent – obviously I don’t know your financial situation – I would lean strongly toward Northeastern for the freedom that graduating debt-free would allow. Northeastern is an excellent school in a vibrant college town, and, in the end, your son’s college experience will be the sum total of what the program offers and what he puts into it. Were my son in the same situation, I wouldn’t even think twice. $160k is a lot of money for him, and for your family. What else could you do with that kind of money? What kind of start in life could that provide in four years?

Good luck, and congratulations to you both!

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I think your financial situation would factor into this decision greatly.

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Ok this is the post I was born for. I go to Rice and study CS and my girlfriend goes to Northeastern. She’s studying political science and minoring in education, but has friends in CS. You’re right that Northeastern is rocketing up in ratings every year.

I’ll start with this: Rice is a better-regarded school with in my opinion a better CS program. This is based off of helping my girlfriend on homework when she took an intro CS course there. It has greater name recognition in Silicon Valley and Austin and probably most other places. Northeastern has the advantage of being a name in Boston and maybe surrounding cities in the northeast like NYC. Its co-op culture is also great because you get a lot of work experience (especially cool in CS) and they have a great network of hirers. My girlfriend knows a girl who got hired for a co-op at Apple, so they do have the ability to get name-brand co-ops outsie of Boston. That being said, at my residential college (population about 1/11th of Rice undergrad, read about Rice residential college system if you haven’t) I know like 5 people who are working at Google this summer, 2 at Palantir, someone at Two Sigma, etc. Those are all sweet and ludicrously high-paying internships. I took a less name brand internship in Austin because of the project I might get to work on, still making $30/hour, and the others I mentioned are 1.5 to 2 times that. I also have friends who graduated who can refer me at Facebook, Google, and Square. So Rice wins out in job/internship placement. It also has really good research available to undergrads, but Northeastern might too.

There’s a very different atmosphere. Rice is smaller and friendlier with an arguably better campus, but Boston is cooler than Houston. If you think you might get seasonal affective disorder, be aware that it snowed in Boston today and it’s been 81 and sunny in Houston all week. That was something that she has struggled with and she’s actually changed her mind about living in the Northeast permanently, but if you already live there or don’t mind then it’s a moot point.

The Scholars program at NEU is pretty sweet, and that’s one of my girlfriend’s favorite things about going there. I would go so far as to say that’s the reason she went there and the reason she stays. She got to go to India for free for a month last summer. Honestly I don’t think the College of Computer Science isn’t really a big deal, but someone could correct me. CS is the largest engineering major at Rice and growing, and the professors are pretty great. I can’t speak to NEU CS professors except for what my girlfriend thought about her intro professor, which isn’t accurate enough for me to be comfortable asserting.

I always have a rough time when people ask if it’s worth it. I am here because my parents are paying my tuition, but my family is fortunate enough to be in a place where we were definitely not gonna get any need-based assistance. That’s really something for you to decide, and it depends on who will be fronting the costs, whether that money is expendable for you, etc. If I had to decide between $40k/year in student loans, I would pick NEU, but I didn’t have to make that choice. If it were $10k/year in student loans with what I know now, different story.

Sorry that was a giant post but let me know if you have questions! I can ask my girlfriend stuff for you, too, if you want.

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^EDIT: Your son will probably not have to do grad school. If he does a PHD it will be free. Masters would cost but I’ve had multiple profs from different universities tell me masters CS isn’t really worth it unless you really love a specific subfield.

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Thanks for the extremely informative response @jfking01‌. That is exactly the kind of information that we were looking for and more.

We’re very familiar with the residential college system, quality of life, weather and all the other great attributes of Rice. In addition to it being a very prestigious school.

It would be a much easier decision if they had offered even a small scholarship but we can pay if we have to although it would be a bit of a strain.

What we want to know though is more about the Comp Sci program specifically. We even met with an associate Dean of Engineering while we were there last year but couldn’t get a good feel for the Comp Sci program. But you seem pretty happy there and the internship pay is a lot more than at NEU which is in the low $20’s. It seems like all the big companies recruit there?

What year are you in at Rice?

How is the advising and the overall treatment by the college of engineering and the university given the extra attention that the scholars get at NEU?

Are Comp Sci classes easy to get into with a good selection?
Availability of Professors?
Class sizes in general classes and your major?

Also @jfking01 one of the concerns my son has is how much of an engineering push there may be at Rice given that the Comp Sci program is in engineering, although it is similar to MIT which is considered one of the best Comp Sci programs? Also, their flexibility on letting you take more advanced classes if you come in with quite a bit of programming experience?

I may have my son DM you if he has any additional questions if you don’t mind.

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Thanks for all your help @jfking01

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That is great information, jfking01… thanks!

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@apccpa Yeah, I’m very happy with the CS program. I wouldn’t say every big company recruits here, but a lot do. Also, though I think it shouldn’t be this way, I’ve heard first hand from employees at certain prominent tech companies that they don’t really look at applications except from a list of 20 or so schools, because they don’t have the manpower. This is certainly not indicative of the job field in general, but my point is that being at Rice can give an edge in some cases.

I’m a sophomore, so for what it’s worth I’m currently taking three CS classes: Parallel programming, systems, and Databases. I think the advising is good, but honestly I haven’t used it much. There’s a strong CS student community at a lot of colleges, so I mostly just go to older students for advice on classes – it’s just more convenient. You definitely won’t be given the monetary perks of the NEU scholars program, but to my knowledge they don’t get any advantage in quality of education.

Comp classes are generally full, but if you’re a declared major they will not let you not get into a class you need. The first semester you have the choice between two different intro classes, and I had to take one because the other was full, but then then this year they added another section of the other so it shouldn’t be a problem for a couple years. The professors are available within their office hours, and TAs have office hours basically every day. For most CS classes the TAs are undergrads, which is nice because they have actually taken the class. This may go without saying, but the classes are never taught by TAs.

I would say CS classes go from like 20 or 30 students to over 100, but honestly size has never felt like an obstacle. If anything, there are more students to collaborate with (very important because the assignments are hard, and even harder if you do them alone). Outside of the major it varies a lot. PHYS 101 and 102 were really big, because basically every engineering major who wants a BS has to take it (side note, that class also had fantastic student support). Right now I’m in an education policy class that has fewer than 10 students.

I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean by “engineering push.” CS is fairly isolated in terms of having its own clubs, its own Major League Hacking hackathon, its own Facebook groups and fun events, etc. Some CS students will take classes where they’re a part of a team of engineers that work on a real project or something, but that’s not standard. If that’s not what you were wondering you can respond or your son can explain if he wants to message me.

Hang in there, I’m almost done! The flexibility for intro classes is very low. I entered having taken a second semester CS course from Illinois Institute of Technology, and they offered for me to skip the first semester class, which I turned down because I would have to wait a semester anyway for the 2nd semester class (Algorithmic thinking). It depends what your son’s programming experience is, but if he’s taken AP CS and has a good amount of personal experience, he’ll probably have to take the normal classes like everyone else. I actually defend their decision, though, because Rice has really good intro CS classes and really good professors, and they are trying to curate your education and make sure you learn what they need you to learn. Plus, almost all of the classes are offered either one semester or the other, so your son would either have to skip a year of classes (unlikely, since that involves an intro computer engineering class) or he’d just get ahead on non-major requirements for a semester.

Hope that was helpful, and feel free to ask more questions or have your son DM me!

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Thanks @jfking01, that was exactly what I was looking for.

My son’s concern with CS being in Engineering is that thay may require a bunch of engineering classes but it sounds like if you declare your major early that it really facilitates you getting what you need.
My son has done quite a bit of competitive programming in Java and some web development but doesn’t mind covering fundamentals in classes if he has to.

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@apccpa If he comes to Rice there are student dev groups he could join if his classes aren’t hard enough for him :wink: Non-CS department classes that you need to take for the major are calculus up to differential equations or multivariable calculus, matrix analysis, probability and statistics (very different than high school stat), intro to computer engineering, and also physics 101 and 102 (mechanics and e&m) but that one’s only a requirement if you want a BS instead of a BA, since you can get either degree in CS.

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Those sound like basic classes that he would probably have to take no matter where he goes @jfking01‌. We would just have to see what kind of relief AP/IB provide.
I believe that Rice also has an ACM competitive programming team that he would be very interested in joining. Do you know anything about that?

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@apccpa I asked a friend and he told me that it’s a small thing but everyone who does it likes it a lot. They aren’t competitive with each other (they’re very good though) or a big time commitment.

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Thanks @jfking01. You had mentioned that CS was the largest major in engineering at Rice. Do you know approximately how many are in the program and if the would only be sophomores and above that have declared a major?

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Found this @jfking01 that says 70 graduate and 70 undergrads in CS at Rice. Is that correct?

http://compsci.rice.edu/about.cfm?doc_id=3470

History

The Department of Computer Science was formed as a separate department within the George R. Brown School of Engineering in March 1984 and has maintained high standards of achievement ever since. Prior to 1984, the computer science program, which had a long tradition of excellence, was offered jointly by the mathematical sciences and electrical engineering departments. The computer science department currently has 21 full-time faculty members and approximately 70 graduate and 70 undergraduate students.

The computer science faculty has a distinguished record of achievements in research, especially in the areas of compilers, programming languages, and parallel and distributed programming systems. The department maintains close ties with the Departments of Computational and Applied Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering; faculty in these three departments collaborate closely in several interdisciplinary research efforts in parallel computing.

A former Rice undergraduate, Adam Thornton, has compiled a history of the R1, an early computer designed at (what was then) The Rice Institute.

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@apccpa That page hasn’t been updated in years apparently. If the undergrad CS population isn’t at 300 yet, it’s at the very least 250

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Thanks @jfking01. Do they offer all the CS classes every semester with such a small group?

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@apccpa No they do not. Usually a class is either fall or spring, so I can choose from half of all offered electives for a given semester’s schedule. This is a downside definitely, but it’s not unreasonable given the size of the school in my opinion

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Thanks @jfking01 and what you say about at least being offered once a year makes sense, especially since they make sure you get the classes that you need once you declare your major. We’re going to visit Rice on April 20th and trying to get some time set up to meet with Dr. Rixner.

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@apccpa‌ Rixner is a great professor and has done great things for the Rice CS curriculum (he completely redesigned the intro classes a few years ago, which resulted in his research taking a hit). That being said, don’t be turned off by his dryness or sarcasm if he exhibits it. That’s just his style and it’s not indicative of all of the professors haha. Have fun!