<p>My son has a nice list of reach and match schools, and I was planning on using a public in-state school as a safety school. Now, he would like me to find an out-of-state safety school for him.</p>
<p>Here's the criteria:</p>
<p>Good in computer science and either business or economics
Size of school: 3000-16000 students
Balanced male/female ratio (rules out tech schools)
In or near a large city
Not in California</p>
<p>His stats:</p>
<p>ACT: 33 (English: 35, Math: 35, Reading: 28, Science: 34, E/W comb: 32)
SAT II: Math 2: 760 Physics: 670
Just took the SAT I, no score yet, expect over 750 in math, in 600s for R/W
GPA: 3.71 UW, 4.17 10-12 W at competitive public high school
Junior year AP Calc BC, AP Comp Sci, this year AP Stats, AP Govt, college Physics
Honors courses where available in other subjects
Leadership position in Boy Scouts every year, including Senior Patrol Leader. Eagle Scout
Two years JV Soccer, one year Varsity Soccer, 2 years club soccer in high school
Summer job for two summers as a Boy Scout camp counselor - recognized as a leader among the counselors by the camp director</p>
<p>Vanderbilt University’s computer science department is within the School of Engineering. Economics is within the College of Arts and Sciences. Many cs students are able to do a second major in A and S, particularly if they enter VU with advanced standing in math and/or science courses. Undergrad. enrollment is 6100. Vanderbilt is located within the city of Nashville, and is an urban campus, but does not really feel like an urban campus. The overall female to male ratio (undergrad) is slightly weighted toward female (about 51 percent), although females are only about 30 percent in engineering itself.</p>
<p>I don’t think Vanderbilt is a safety, however, although it might be a good match for your son.</p>
<p>Erin’s Dad: Case Western sure doesn’t present very well on Princeton Review. “Least Happy Students”, lots of TAs, problems with the administration. Is this outdated, or does it ring true to you?</p>
<p>midmo: I considered Vanderbilt, but I also felt that it was a match rather than a safety. I might add it to the list, though, because for match schools he has Bucknell and Lehigh. Vanderbilt has some nice characteristics that the other two don’t have (like a nice town). Not sure about the quality of the computer science, but I’ll check it out.</p>
<p>Alexandre: UW-Madison seems more like a match to me than a true safety.</p>
<p>FWIW, USNWR ranks the overall engineering depts of Lehigh and Vanderbilt exactly the same, i.e. 42nd nationwide. That doesn’t say a lot about the computer science programs themselves, though. At Vanderbilt, computer science is part of the EECS department, but the requirements for cs have some significant differences with the other engineering disciplines. </p>
<p>If you look at the VUSE (Vanderbilt Univ. School of Engineering) web site for the EECS dept, there are links to a lot of the research going on in computer science. I believe the EECS program landed the largest amount of external research funds at the univ. last year. There are significant research opportunities for undergraduates, but of course the type of research is dependent on the type of research grants coming in. I’m no engineer or computer scientist, so I can’t say if it matters that much exactly what kind of research project one works on as an undergraduate. </p>
<p>The math requirements for a computer science degree would give a boost to a dual economics major. The math classes will double count.</p>
<p>midmo: I looked at Vandy’s website. The SAT range is a bit higher than Lehigh and Lehigh’s CS department fits my son better. It has more flexibility for double majoring with econ and business. Plus, Lehigh requires more CS courses and Vandy requires more engineering and science courses.</p>
<p>20Legend: Union fits the criteria except for the town and size. Both are a little small, I think. Still, I’ll keep it in mind.</p>
<p>Ricegal, a 3.7 (unweighed) student with a 33 ACT score would generally have no trouble getting into Wisconsin. Yes, it is not a “true” safety, but it is certainly a relative safety.</p>
<p>Another top school that meets most of your requirements, save size, is the University of Washington. It has a great CS department (Microsoft interacts heavily with UDub) and the campus is ideally located. Washington is actually more of a safety than Wisconsin, but your son has a very good shot at both.</p>
<p>If you use Bucknell and Lehigh as your match, I will suggest Fordham, Quinnipiac, Syracuse, Drexel, SUNY Binghamton (Small City) and University of Illinois at Chicago as your safeties. What state are you from? I will be happy to make some humble suggestions if I know the state.</p>
<p>t1388: We are from California. Unfortunately, his school has already made him choose so as to get the teacher rec’s in on time. He decided to major in economics and take a few CS courses on the side so he added American University as a safety. However, most likely if he doesn’t get into Bucknell or Villanova he will go to UCSD or UCSB. Not exactly the same vibe, but higher quality economics than American, and I think he just meets the cutoff for UCSD so UCSB is probably a safety. We’ll see what he chooses if he only gets into American and UCSB.</p>
<p>how about Auburn? About 15,000…great in computer sciences. It’s about an hour from Atlanta and with warm weather. Also, OOS tuition is VERY inexpensive.</p>