<p>The kid's doing pretty well - Junior with 217 PSAT and he thinks he can do better on the SAT (as he didn't really study for PSAT) - and all A's for the most part. He has a knack for languages - working on a fourth. MIT would be a top choice but obviously no guarantee with a place like this. I am looking for recommendations for alternates to MIT - he wants to do Computer Science and continue with his languages (now Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, English). He would like to perhaps spin up still more languages as they come pretty naturally to him and he'll study new languages even in his spare time. We are in CA so UCLA and UC Berkeley will be on the list and they have a nice discount compared to the private schools for us. Anyhow - would appreciate other thoughts.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are many parents of Juniors and Junior students themselves that are very happy to hear your child won’t be applying next year to the big 500lb GORILLA whose name starts with S sitting at the table…to minimize their competition…</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon has an extremely strong Comp Sci program, and should be an easier admission for a strong student. For more “reach” schools, Caltech, Cornell, and Stanford should be on his radar. Some of the other state flagships, UofM, Georgia Tech, and UT Austin are known for strong programs, but probably wouldn’t beat out Berkley (which is usually ranked in the top 5) considering the in-state tuition.</p>
<p>Depends on how much you want to pay. Carnegie Mellon has a good Comp Sci program, one of the best. Then, since you’re in CA, have you forgotten about Caltech, Stanford, and a lot of these schools?
By the way, you need to get him to start learning programming languages and not just speaking languages.</p>
<p>I failed to mention that - he’s taken a college course in Java and is self taught in C++ and Python via the O’Reilly books mostly. He and his computer club won a Si Valley coding competition recently. Cal Tech and Stanford I put in the same league as MIT - something to hope for. The problem with Cal Tech is they don’t seem to have much to offer in speaking languages. Thanks for reminding me on Carnegie Mellon (and neuromajor thanks too). I have a good friend who went straight to Google from there and he’s pretty remarkable. And come to think of it I know an Engineering VP of a well know Si Valley who went there.</p>
<p>Don’t forget Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>Oh yes - we visited Harvey Mudd and that looked great. They have a large liberal arts offering through all their Claremont sister schools - Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Scripps, Pitzer. All right there within walking distance. Their net price calculator was disheartening - I’ve got three boys who will be going to college. But that was true at MIT, Tufts too. Cal Tech, Stanford, Harvard predicted more help with grants and whatever. But I figure we’ll plow ahead and apply and see what the final offers are.</p>
<p>Because of the desire for foreign languages: Berkeley and Stanford.</p>
<p>CMU is amazing. But while SCS admit may be slightly less difficult than Stanford it is probably as hard as Caltech and harder than Cornell these days, in my opinion. That’s just the college of computer science. Other departments are slightly less difficult to get into (except musical theater). CMU is not known for its foreign languages although they have decent departments. If you are truly desiring to combine programming languages with foreign spoken languages, cross registering at Pitt down the road a little is an option for the more exotic languages also. As one poster above alludes to, SCS will keep you plenty busy and stimulated.</p>
<p>Thanks Kaukauna. That is a good point that once he hits a solid CS program it may well be that he has to hold on to his hat just to keep up with the requirements let alone taking on Urdu or Arabic. 
High school even with all the APs is not quite enough challenge so he goes looking for others. But leveling up could force him to focus. Brings to mind that another advantage of the UC/Cal States is that they generally accept more of the AP classes and community college courses. He’s taken 3 community college courses (Engineering, Java, Chinese) and will end up having taken 10 or 11 APs. So if those counted toward certain major requirements perhaps a double major (say CS/spoken language) might be more doable than at a private school where they seem to pish-posh high school courses more. At least that was my impression at Cal Tech where high school calculus or physics were not really counted for credit per se. All take their version of those to make sure you got it right. :-)</p>
<p>Hi! I got in early decision to Carnegie Mellon’s engineering program (and early action to MIT) and I’ll be attending CMU next year. I’m here to chime in recommending their computer science program and the school in general. One of the biggest draws for me was that while CMU has great engineering and CS, they also have great arts, theater, and a lot of humanities types too. That diversity was something that I didn’t see at any of the other top tech schools I visited. I’m planning on doing a minor in Spanish, and lots of language classes are offered at Pitt, which is just a walk away. Their language department is limited but they offer a few majors, and it’s easy to take other languages at Pitt. Any questions and you can PM me! :)</p>
<p>@CollegeBargain Glad to hear. Java, C/C++/C#/VB, JS/PHP/HTML, Objective-C, Python here. I spend too much time programming. I should learn a speaking language.
But the really popular languages nowadays are Perl, Ruby, and Python. So he should look into Perl and Ruby. Also tell him to make a github account and post anything cool he has - when you are applying for internships/jobs, the employers ask for your github account and it serves as a portfolio for programmers. I’m assuming he already has an account on Stack Exchange, which is also helpful for internships/jobs.
And again - you didn’t mention anything about how much you’re willing to pay. This has a large impact on the school’s I’d recommend to you.</p>
<p>man, all these people who know a gajillion languages…both spoken and typed…(sigh)</p>
<p>Thanks #undef. Great ideas on the github and stack exchange. I am familiar with the former but not the latter. It may be that the guys used github for their project - will follow up to make sure because they had some pretty cool algorithms for the game play. </p>
<p>He does have a beat on an intership due to the competition. Or so the sponsoring folks said. Hoping they come through.</p>
<p>One of the other team members did the git hub code check-ins. But I told him to make sure he has access so he can show and explain if needed. Good thinking! :-)</p>
<p>@cpraf - we normal folks just need to find other ways to conquer. :-)</p>