^ With Edinburgh, it really depends on whether the OP’s interests will change and he will change between 18-21.
Almost everyone does in that age span.
@PurpleTitan - that’s a big downside to the UK system of undergrad specialization (for many people, not all, of course).
@marvin100: Fair point.
Most people (in the UK) don’t really have a choice because of financial constraints.
Some people on both sides of the Atlantic do and often the trade-off is some combination of strength in a field, prestige, finances, and educational method.
Oh, and Edinburgh, being Scottish, would offer some leeway early on; the OP can likely switch between CS and AI (and combined programs like “CS & business” or “CS+a language”) without too much trouble in the first year or two.
And the advantage to specialization is that you can go in to a subject really deeply as an undergrad. I know a guy who at one point was considering a PhD in math. He said that the first year of American PhD programs in math at the top schools is essentially to get the American kids up to speed. The Americans are shell-shocked as the profs cover so much material so fast while the European and Asian kids are bored stiff as the profs are going over materal they’ve already mastered.
I’ve described English undergrad as grad-school-lite, which it is at the top schools (where the 3 years cover the same ground as junior and senior year as an undergrad and a masters in the US).
However, UChicago offers an option for CS majors to delve deeply in to CS and get a masters in 4 years as I noted above.
Yes, there are plenty of advantages to early specialization (I have several former students who earned law degrees in 3 years at Oxford), but in my opinion, the vast majority of US-educated applicants will be poorly served without further liberal arts education, and there are strong downsides to attempting to commit to a future education/career path at age 17 or 18, when their brains aren’t even fully myelenated and they haven’t even been exposed to whole swaths of disciplines. Works fine for some, though, of course.
@marvin100: True. In fact, with brain development not fully complete until 30, arguably, all of the teens and 20’s should be a mixture of work and schooling.
Hasn’t somebody somewhere been saying that since about 1957?
I agree with @Alexandre that a good place to focus would be on building a foundation in CS. Even so, if you’re more interested in engineering applications than theory, then the University of Chicago may not be the best fit. If MIT does not come through, then how about Michigan or Cornell? Forget about global rankings at this level.
@tk21769: There use to be a big divide between “theoretical” CS and “practical” systems/engineering CS, but that’s blurred quite a bit. After all, algorithms, AI, and machine-learning are all very practical now even if theory-heavy. But yes, UMich & UIUC come from the practical" side (Cornell in the middle).
But CS at UChicago for someone who can handle the math is perfectly fine.