My parents will pay up to $35k per year, and I’m trying to decide between UC Berkeley EECS, where I will graduate with $0 debt, and Stanford (CS or CS + Music), which gave me $12k in grant aid, plus work study. I would eventually owe the my parents the difference between the federal loans of $27k for the four years, any work study/summer earnings and the cost of attendance. I am a serious musician so the quality of the orchestra is also important to me in addition to CS opportunities. About me: I don’t plan on joining a frat; I’m social but nerdy (into stuff like competitive Magic the Gathering, online Pokemon leagues, etc.) and politically conservative. Are the opportunities at Stanford worth the extra expense over Berkeley? Any advice from current students at either of these two schools, or parents?
forget about money… make your choice based on where you want to go. visit the campuses and talk with the students.
in 10 years you’ll realize that worrying over money was over blown. don’t sweat the small stuff.
you will have great opportunities at both schools. Stanford has a new concert hall… that was built by the same acoustical engineer who designed the Disney Concert Hall in LA.
Go to Stanford. Your future opportunities will be much greater
What would be the difference in cost over four years?
Stanford Profros interested in CS need to be aware that CS may become a capped major soon. Unlike Berkeley EECS where you are admitted to the major, at Stanford you are free to declare any major before the end of sophomore year. The number of students declaring CS has skyrocketed and the dept has been struggling to keep up, There are varied interest inside Stanford that want to cap CS enrollment. They have been unsuccessful so far, but it is inevitable that there will be caps very soon, possibly starting in the 2017-18 academic year. When this happens you will have to get a minimum GPA in basic CS courses. There are a lot of students who have a very strong background in CS even before they come to Stanford - these are ISEF finalists or Google Science fairs winners, many would have already crated smartphone apps or even started their own companies. If you have very little programming experience you could have a difficult time competing against those student and can get shut out of CS.
One of the advantages of getting admitted to Stanford is there has never been a cap on a major to my knowledge… and you can major in any field in you want.
while there may be speculation… I seriously doubt that CS will be capped… it’s never been done at Stanford and I doubt it ever will be. Additionally the number one major for women at Stanford is CS… another reason I don’t believe Stanford would ever cap CS.
Very tough decision. Because you say you’re a serious musician (and have a name reflecting that), you might want to choose Berkeley. Graduating with no debt is very important, especially these days and especially if you end up deciding to make music (rather than CS) your career. I hesitate to say this, because I’m very familiar with and like both schools, and I believe your undergraduate experience (which includes access to courses and professors) would be better at Stanford. But try to imagine yourself in a job four years from now—perhaps in music, perhaps in CS—saddled with a large loan payment every month for years and years to come. Not good. Berkeley CS is top-notch too—it’s just a much, much bigger school, with far fewer financial resources. These two factors will affect the quality of your education and perhaps even ability to make it through your degree program in four years.
Stanford has been trying to avoid capping CS for a while now - it goes against what the university believes, but it has reached a point where its is causing a lot of concern among faculty, teaching staff and TAs. In addition, the department does not have sufficient faculty advisers to help students leaving them to fend for themselves. As of today there are about 1000 undergrad students who have declared CS as their major, that is about 25-30% of students are majoring in CS now. The CS dept is one of the smallest departments at Stanford comprising of 2-3% of the universities faculty. The department simply cannot handle the exponential growth.
it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when the university will starting capping CS enrollment. You have to give credit to university and CS dept for trying other ways to avoid the cap, none of their efforts have worked.
I seem to recall seeing something about this somewhere in 2016. I searched again and found this earlier article from 2015 (the second of two parts in The Stanford Daily):
But what I remember seeing was much more along the lines of the above post—that CS-major enrollment caps were under consideration by the department. That said, my son is a Stanford student and likely CS major; last fall his pre-major advisor told him that the department wasn’t considering any enrollment caps. Given that things can change, though, and sometimes quickly (not at Stanford in particular, but anywhere), my advice would be to consider enrollment caps as a possibility when planning, especially since some core courses are notoriously difficult and grades in them could eventually determine one’s admission to the major.
Stanford won’t cap CS. It’s political dynamite in Silicon Valley… . esp with the push to get more women and minorities into CS.
speculate all you want… it will never happen.
Do you think that perhaps Stanford admissions took this into account during the application process? I wouldn’t be surprised if being admitted for computer science (since it is indicated on the application) has become a lot more difficult in recent years for this exact reason.