Stay aware that Smith may directly offer the greatest number of upper-level courses in important areas (8), followed by Wellesley (7) and Mt. Holyoke (6).
Smith also has ABET acreditted engineering on campus. At Mt. Holyoke there are only dual degree programs (with U Mass, Dartmouth and Caltech) ditto Wellesley (MIT or Olin)
I’m glad I won’t be the only one who decides to wait then 
@merc1 @mathmom
Right, Smith is technically the only one who has engineering and therefore has more advanced courses.
Would you guys vote Smith over Mount Holyoke for Computer Science then?
Well it would depend. Are you going to miss those advanced courses on campus. Is your interest more in math than engineering when you do CS? (My son liked theoretical physics, but I don’t think he stepped foot in the engineering school at Carnegie Mellon, but others in his program considered their robotics half the draw.) I’d probably lean towards Wellesley because I like the location much more. I think you’ll find each of the schools has a slightly different flavor, so you might feel one fits you better than the other even if CS is marginally stronger at one school over another.
@mathmom Hm… I’m not sure…? One reason why I like LACs is because I love the idea of taking classes unrelated to my major. ( I have lots of different interests, although I’m pretty set on CS).
Am not leaning to engineering/physics/math at all.
Elective space for out-of-major courses does not really differ between LACs and other school per se.
However, free electives may be reduced if the CS major program or school does the following:
- If the CS major is engineering-based, it may have more non-CS science and math requirements.
- If the school has extensive general education requirements (e.g. Harvey Mudd, MIT), they can restrict what kinds of courses you can take for your out-of-major courses.
I’d recommend looking up the actual course catalogs. Look at a couple year’s worth of offerings, since some courses are offered only every other year. ucbalumnus’s table is great, but there are plenty of upper level electives it doesn’t cover. Maybe one school’s course catalog will attract you more than the others. Then again, you may not know enough at this point to know what you’re going to think is interesting! That’s okay. You can still get a sense of how rich and varied the upper level elective options are.
@ucbalumnus Yeah, I guess I was thinking more in comparison to the type of colleges you just mentioned. My bad.
@rayrick Haha, yes. It’s hard to know what is interesting to you when you haven’t had as much exposure as you would like it.
Just to stir the pot, don’t rule out Vassar. It is no longer single-sex, but it’s history as a women’s college still influences the ethos. As an example, my D is a physics major- and has only had one physics class that had more men than women (for reference, women get just 20% of physics degrees). Her CS pals feel happy and supported as well.
I wouldn’t dissuade you from any of the others- they are great- just adding another option.
Yep, Vassar has a solid CS program as well. Worth a look (if you can get in!)
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ve considered Vassar, (it’s an amazing school) but I just don’t feel it’s the right college for me. I wish I could pinpoint why exactly, but I guess somethings can’t be explained lol
But I am definitely looking for other colleges too, if you guys have any other suggestions (mainly matches).
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1851843-desperately-need-help-finding-matches-p1.html