SUNY BUFFALO or IOWA STATE or UT DALLAS

I have been admitted to all the three universities mentioned above.
8500$ scholarship from UB
4000$ from Iowa State
UTD - Scholarship worth 26000$(including tuition waiver)

All scholarships mentioned above are renewable for 4 years.(provided i fulfil the conditions)

I am international applicant from India. Financing my education is the major concern.
Hence i would like to be adviced about the university to join keeping in mind :

  1. On-Campus Jobs average salaries. I would love to work as a tutor since here in India we have done pretty much Calculus and Physics. However my major is Computer Science. i can help enough with Calculus and Physics in general. Other jobs also won't be a problem but preferrably tutoring.
  2. Job placements after graduating from college : What are the opportunites like. Average Salaries, reputation among employers. considering i will be a STEM major guy i will have 29 months to work upon on the F-1 visa.
  3. Number of graudates moving to IVY Leagues or MIT or Stanford for Masters : Given that the committee at a particular college has only one seat and they have equally able students from these colleges applying which one of them will they choose.
  4. Departmental & Additional scholarships : Number of scholarships coming in from the the second year.

I have also been admitted to UMich and TAMU , but they are pretty out of reach as they are pretty expensive.

I hope people will be able to help me with this. As i said financing is the major concern so i basically want to see what i can get from college apart from the fact that i will be contributing to the college community in all possible ways i can.

I hope i’ll have unbiased views on the issue.

Regards and Thanks.

Even though you are getting lots of aid from UTD, I would not go there. Iowa State and SUNY Buffalo are both research universities, which means they will have money to pour into CompSci; you will be able to get a much higher level of training at either than at UTD. The thing with CompSci is that companies will hire you solely based on your skills, so you want the best training you can get.

Also, since you are thinking of working on campus, I would recommend SUNY Buffalo. New York has one of the highest standards of living in the US, and therefore the largest salaries. Not to mention that you are getting more than twice as much aid from there.

As for getting into Ivy’s, Cornell is, in my opinion, the best Ivy for STEM. It is also subsidized by the state of New York, and therefore also part of the SUNY system. Therefore, you will have easier access to the ivy league from Buffalo than from Iowa State or UT Dallas.

Lastly, being that my parents were both immigrants from India, I can tell you that you will have a much easier time settling in NY than Iowa. Buffalo has a large Indian communty, where as it is mainly caucasian in Iowa.

@pk2608

1, Since finance is the major consideration, it will help to figure out your net outflow (in addition to knowing where you got your scholarships and how much).

1a. Are you guaranteed these scholarships? renewable does not imply a guarantee. This also applies to point (4). There is no guarantee of any kind.

  1. On campus tutoring jobs depends on how large the univ is -- more students imply more people who need help. Does F1 visa automatically imply you can work, no questions asked? Or do you need some sort of permission?
  2. You are probably mistaken about "1 seat per college" for masters. Also, graduate studies typically imply Ph.D. All good colleges get good students from UTD, IowaState and Suny-B and around the world. However, your chances of getting into the same college (for Masters) is higher from your UG college. I doubt if Suny-B has any advantage to getting into Cornell, over, say some other Ivy.
  3. In terms of academics, UG-CS at any of the three is approximately comparable.
  4. In terms of UG life, Umich might be better. It is off your table for financial reasons.

Rather than listing scholarship amounts, can you list net price and your parents’ budget?

net price =(tuition+fees+room+board) - (scholarships = grants)

Buffalo would be like 30k
UTD 17k
Iowa 26k

UTD (assuming that your 4 year cost remains the same i.e. schol is not for only the first year)

All three are about equal for your criteria, so I’d pick UTD. Very strong in the sciences.