Crowdsourcing here, thank you in advance… All things being equal (+/- 10K per year range), which option would you pick for CS major? We are from NJ .
Stevens (Pinnacle Scholars)
UMD (Direct CS, FIRE community)
Rutgers (SAS Honors Program)
NJIT
Drexel (Pennoni Honors)
First off, congratulations to your daughter. Those are all great choices.
Is she just starting her CS journey or does she already have programming knowledge/experience? (This is to determine if she can start with more advanced classes)
How important is research vs industry experience (via co-ops)?
How important is a traditional campus?
What about sports? Especially basketball and football?
Thank you, yes really happy that these are all great choices!
Yes she has previous programming knowledge; No experience outside of her highschool’s CS-relaetd Capstone project. Has 3 APs (4’s and 5’s) , 1 AP and 2 IBs in progress now.
Industry experience more preferable than research
Absolutely don’t care about sports 
Maryland.
If $$ = UMD or Stevens but that’s a huge contrast.
Which does the student prefer ? At UMD they get great CS but sports, Greek etc and many other majors if CS doesn’t work out.
So, UMD is definitely by far the strongest CS school on her list. If she wants to skip a couple of lower level courses and get into more advanced topics she’ll be able to do that easily. Note though that FIRE is a research program - if she doesn’t want to do research she may want to explore other options at UMD. The non honors/LLP dorms at UMD are a hit and miss, depending on which one you get - so keep that in mind.
My second pick on your list would be Stevens. Also a very good CS program (although lags quite a bit behind UMD), has a strong co-op program, a really nice newly built dorm (two towers that house everyone) and a lovely location by the Hudson river overlooking Manhattan.
Has she/you all attended admitted students day at both schools? See if you can sit in on a class or talk to current students. UMD and Stevens would be my top choices if I were in your place.
Rutgers is emphasizing sports at the expense of academics. I would have to imagine that the other schools on your list are not heading in that direction.
UMD or Stevens - has she visited both (perhaps requesting to sit in on a class)? They’re quite different so she would likely have a preference.
Thank you all for the responses. Sorry was at the Rutgers Admitted students yesterday and didn’t get a chance to reply. (on the plus side, Rutgers is out of our list )
Yes, she has visited both UMD and Stevens, but didn’t get a chance to sit in on any of the classes. We are going to the Stevens Admitted students day on the 15th.
-UMD is definitely a better program, but Stevens is closer to home.
-Stevens will be about $10K less per year than UMD.
-Not in Honors program is a bit of concern mainly because of the dorm issues that @DadOfJerseyGirl pointed out. Also, without honors, priority registration for courses is out.
-We have to factor in travel charges, staying atleast overnight when we go to visit etc which definitely adds up (I have booked for move-in day and parents weekend, just in case and it is already close to $1K)
-Have read about some concerns about getting internships on Stevens parents FB group, not sure how it will be in a couple of years…
I feel obligated to point out that Stevens has an extreme and seemingly intractable gender imbalance: 70% male, 30% female. I suspect one of the reasons Stevens doesn’t publish a Common Data Set is that it would reveal a very high percentage of true commuter students. Not that there is anything wrong with either.
I’m curious to know why. Can you elaborate?
This isn’t true. You may want to familiarize yourself with the honors program via their FAQ.
Do Honors students receive priority registration?
No, priority for registration for classes is based on the number of credits a student has. However, Honors students have priority to all the campus Honors version courses and exclusive access to Honors courses each year.
Why Rutgers is out of list ? I thought I thought the CS , data science offering and Wise programs were pretty good on top of honors college
Yep, definitely… We are aware of that and as you say, doesn’t matter one way or the other.
Too big a campus, which struck us more when we took the bus yesterday. Also, it did feel like highschool 2.0, lots of kids from her school. Overall, not the vibe that she was comfortable with.
Thanks, even if not for priority registration, the obvious advantages that Honors students have cannot be discounted. And she is not going in with over 10 AP/IB classes that lot of kids seem to have.
She got Honors Program, not Honors College.
Overall, having UMD & Stevens as options may be is holding her up from considering Rutgers as a top choice…
Agree bus system and size is a negative for Rutgers. We felt Steven on the other hand was too small. UMD is actually perfect size but too expensive for us, almost twice as Rutgers.
What about NJIT?
I would assume she got Honors there, too?
Have you been able to visit?
It may not have the reputation that UMD, Stevens, or Rutgers have, but it’s known as a solid STEM school and their Honors college is very very good.
NJIT’s location is an issue and no, no Honors
I’m sorry wrt Honors at NJIT - I assumed she’d get in due to getting into UMD, Stevens, and Rutgers for CS. Honors automatically creates a supportive, tightknit community.
Were you able to visit campus (to see whether location bothers her for real or in the abstract) compared to, say, Stevens.
No worries… I would have assumed too… was surprised about no Honors, but that’s ok considering she has other good options…