Son is confused on which school to pick for Computer Science

College Majors Math/Computer Science Majors
1

Hey, parent here. I don’t really use this website a lot, but someone at work told me it could help my son out.

He’s currently struggling with five colleges, he wants to study computer science.

His options are:
Yale
UPenn
UIUC
Georgia Tech
UMich

Of course, his stuck with the traditional ivy league degree question. He’s told me that it’s respected among the industry. My only question is if he picks Yale over Georgia Tech, will he have a harder time finding a job after college since Georgia Tech is ranked significantly higher for CS.

Also, he’s confused on which rankings are reliable for CS. Some websites have Yale ranked top 20, while others have it at 40-45 for CS. He’s visited Georgia Tech and UIUC so far, but still is having a hard time deciding it.

Edit: I also told him to take into account the connections he would make at these universities. I don’t know if that made his decision even more difficult, probably did.

2

First, welcome and congrats! This is a great problem to have.

Generally, not any more than the prestige of the other schools here, so I’d drop that part.

A graduate from either will have no problem getting a job. GT tends to have more direct industry connections and is also a bigger school, so employers tend to like their grads, but no one will be filtering resumes by “okay let’s only look for GT, and if you see any ivy grads, reject them”.

Generally speaking, Yale probably isn’t the best CS option here, but if there are other fit reasons, it’s not a bad choice. If it’s just about “prestige”, then I would say it’s a bad choice.

Between these, there are a lot of other factors. UIUC/GT/UMich tend to be the best here, but the student populations at each are very different. What is your son looking for beyond academics? Campus feel, location, sports, peer quality outside of his major - where does he stand on all those?

3

If he wants a Wall Street or consulting job, those may recruit more at the Ivy League schools, whereas more typical computer company jobs may recruit more at the state flagships.

For UIUC, he needs to make sure that he is admitted to the CS major. Getting into the CS major otherwise is very difficult.

4

UPenn is highly regarded in Computer Science. UIUC has consistently been top 5 grad for UIUC (think wolfram alpha, payscale, netscape, AMD, Malwarebytes Antimalware, Palantir, Tesla, Yelp, Youtube, Girls who Code, etc).
Georgia Tech and UMich is considered top 10 in engineering/computer science in general.
Yale is …well, Yale. When I think of Yale, I think of StackOverflow. Single best site ever made for Computer Science majors.

All universities you listed are widely respected in the field for undergrad.
For Yale, go to google and type: where-do-yale-cs-majors-work-3396510b3f56

From this tier, the “opportunities” the student receives is similar across the board. For top tech companies, all are about the same. For top non-tech companies, notable edge to Yale and UPenn. For grad school, all are again basically the same since GPA/research is more important at that point.

If you worry about “outcomes” after graduating, these schools are all similar across the board in the software industry. But if your child “really” wants to learn in his spare time specific firmware courses outside the more general ones (more theoretical level of how intel chips work, etc.), more tech focused schools like UIUC, UMich, Georgia Tech could have an edge However, I won’t be surprised opportunity wise, it should be similar at the end in even those types of industry.

5

He should pick a college that fits his personality.

Enrollment, undergrad, stem%, cost, setting, weather, personality
Yale 12k, 5k, 21%, 70k, town, cold, elite
GT 21k, 15k, 80%, 44k, city, warm, nerdy
Penn 24k, 10k, 23%, 70k, city, cold, elite
Mich 44k, 30k, 33%, 62k, town, cold, sporty
UIUC 44k, 33k, 33%, 47k, town, cold, sporty

CS Undergrad Enrollment
GT 2.4k
UIUC 1.2k
Mich 1k
Penn ~450
Yale ~200

He shouldn’t worry about job opportunities all these schools would have great career fairs. However since GT, UIUC and Mich have simply more high calibre engineering students, their career fairs will be much larger than Penn and Yale.

6

The last thing that a computer science student of this caliber should worry about is finding a job. That’s like worrying about whether a kid of this caliber would get into college. These are not things to be concerned about.

Go for fit.

7

These are all potentially good choices. Worrying about whether a degree from any of them would be respected by employers is silly.

The bad choices would be:

  1. Taking on excessive debt
  2. Going to a school he didn’t really like due to some ranking website or parental pressure
8

Computer science is a degree that’s very employable, so you’d be wasting your money sending him out of state or to a prestigious university. The best option for him would be a scholarship. Entry level jobs don’t pay that well, so being debt free would give him a huge advantage. Starting out with large debt is a sure-fire way to cripple or even sink a career, especially when he gets married and starts a family. If he marries a college educated woman, he inherits her debt also. Starting a career, he needs to be focused on his job rather than worrying about money.

“Prestige is an emotion that has no rational or financial basis to justify its existence.” --Wise quote from Coolguy40-- :slight_smile:

9

For UIUC he told me he was admitted into the College of Engineering CS program. Granted I have no idea what that means.

Thank you, everyone, for the replies, I told him to go which school he deems the best fit.

10

Cannot comment on any school from your son’s (amazing) list except Michigan. My roommate for two years was from France and in our engineering program. He said it was amazing and he couldn’t have imagined better professors, better facilities, and a better overall experience than what he had in A2. That isn’t to say there aren’t dozens of excellent engineering programs around the country (and the world), but there’s no question Michigan is among them.

If it matters to your son, Michigan also offers first-rate competitive sports teams, and we have a very active, nation-wide alumni network.

Congratulation and best wishes to your son!

11

https://qz.com/967985/silicon-valley-companies-like-apple-aapl-hires-the-most-alumni-of-these-10-universities-and-none-of-them-are-in-the-ivy-league/

This could help.
The last three on your list are amazing options!!

12

Where did he decide to go?