<p>I'm currently trying to decide between UCSD and OU, and while OU is the obvious choice financially, UCSD is one of the top CS school in the nation. Other than the money (which is still a huge factor), what are some reasons I should choose OU over UCSD? I can't seem to find any reasons to go to one over the other, and I can't make my decision. Can I find any help here?</p>
<p>You get to live in Oklahoma instead of California. 
You get to experience seasons.
Norman is more of a traditional ‘college-town’ environment. UCSD is just a footnote in San Diego.
Cost of living is much lower in OK than in CA.
If you are using US News rankings, remember that they take spending and professor salaries as a large portion of how they rate a college. That over-inflates all California schools due to the high cost of living in CA. Not that they are bad schools, but the methodology is flawed and skews schools upward in expensive parts of the country.
Ultimately, if you are looking for prestige from your program, do it in grad school.
Going to a ‘lower ranked’ school can give you the opportunity to be the ‘big fish’ in your field. Some of your best opportunities at UCSD will go to the other students chasing their ‘ranking’.</p>
<p>Ultimately, you need to go to the campus that fits you and your situation best. I’ll not pretend that OU would have been S1s choice if he got the same money at a few other schools. The biggest factor has honestly been the way the staff at OU have treated him and actually made him feel special.</p>
<p>Good luck on your decision. </p>
<p>@Torveaux
Firstly, I already live in OK so I know what seasons are. 
I wasn’t going by USNews alone. I considered starting pay (which would probably be skewed due to location) and the chances at getting internships at big tech companies.</p>
<p>I have yet to visit both of them, and that will definitely help me make the final decision. Thanks for the help!</p>
<p>If you like SD, get your undergrad at OU and go to SD for post grad or look for internship there. If you are concerned about the prestige of the name of your diploma your post grad is going to trump your undergrad. </p>
<p>$ matters. Unless you have $1k sitting around to pay for school, it is impossible to discount the financials. You have options now, but if you rack up $x00K in student loans you lose a lot of options for your future. </p>
<p>In terms of starting pay, consider that at OU there is opportunity for tech companies in TX, no income tax, add 10%.</p>
<p>During our visit to OU, the guide was a student from San Diego. I couldn’t get over why a person would leave such a nice warm climate to come to tornado alley; so I asked her. Turns out, she and her older sister were NMSF and they both took advantage of the OU money. Her sister is back in SD and I believe she was a CS major too.</p>
<p>I think you should choose OU because of the familiarity you will have with the state, the culture, and probably several classmates. Though OU is well respected in the area, it won’t be as well known for CS outside of the SW. But the good thing is that CS is pretty much the same everywhere; you won’t miss out on any secret computer codes 
Also, a lot of oil companies recruit at OU for CS too and pay big bucks!</p>
<p>Hmm…unless UCSD is offering a lot of money, I can’t imagine turning away OU’s NMF offer. It was great when my son accepted it last year. It’s fantastic this year with the additional money they’ve added to the package.
If you can go to OU and come out debt-free, why wouldn’t you? It’s a great school, they treat their National Merit kids really, really well and, as others have mentioned, CS is CS. </p>
<p>That said, all things being equal, I’d much rather live in San Diego than anywhere in OK. But, you can’t have everything. </p>
<p>Thanks for all the replies. I’m leaning towards OU, even though it was originally my absolute safety. Unless I get some amazing offer from UCSD, OU seems like the place I will end up at. The only thing I am worried about is being recognized by large tech companies for internships and jobs, but there are several in Boulder, Austin, and Dallas, which is relatively close by. However, getting recognized should not be a problem if I get accepted into a good grad school.</p>
<p>Two of the women in my soroity are CS majors. One will work in a major nuclear research facility next summer while the other has a co-op offer at a Fortune 100 energy company. </p>
<p>That makes me more confident. Thanks!</p>
<p>How nice that you have two great options! I don’t know anything about the CS program at either school, but if you’ve done your research and still feel it’s hard to find good reasons to choose one or the other, personally I’d let the financial considerations tip the scales, without any regrets. It’s hard for me to see a down side to a choice that would keep you out of debt or at least make it more manageable long term.</p>
<p>Soonermom:</p>
<p>You wrote, “they treat their National Merit kids really, really well”.</p>
<p>Can you elaborate on that? My son is torn between two other schools that are offering NM full rides. OU is not a full ride. What can you say to convince him to pay money to go to OU? </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>@filius…My son felt like there were some benefits OU offered NMS that you can’t really put a dollar sign on. The NM office is one biggie. They have a full time staff that is dedicated to helping those kids in any way they need it. They are the first point of contact for the NMS. For the most part, I let my son handle everything on his own, but there were a couple of times early on when I needed an answer and couldn’t find it, so I got in touch with our contact at the NM office and he helped me. They are very responsive. While a large part of their job is NM recruitment, they also work hard at retaining the kids who have accepted. </p>
<p>The specialized advising and priority enrollment has been huge for my son. They enroll before anyone else on campus, even grad students. He just enrolled for his third semester, and he has always been able to get every class and section he wanted. </p>
<p>Throughout the year, they have activities and events for the NMS. They have had cookouts, taken museum tours, road trips, etc. </p>
<p>Overall, it’s just a great environment for them. The NM office really personalizes that large university experience.</p>
<p>Also, it’s worth noting that most NMS at OU end up getting first year scholarships in addition to the official NM package. </p>
<p>@filius1 OU is a close to a full ride as any school. We checked out all of the options and any differences turned out to be semantics. Bama and UK are the only other decent size and reputation schools that come close and the money is essentially the same net.</p>
<p>We had the same experience as @soonermom95 . The NM office has been extremely helpful and the way they have treated S1 is exactly why he opted to apply to OU and Auburn as his low cost options. Auburn really isn’t full ride, but the cost there is low enough with the NM that if you really liked the school better it would be acceptable.</p>
<p>Torv:</p>
<p>Thanks but that confuses me. I have checked out other schools too, and I have found OU to be a lot more expensive than Ole Miss and UK, for example. The NM staff itself admits that the estimated first-year out-of-pocket cost is $4,000, and $8,000 for the 2nd through 4th years. Whereas, as far as I can figure, at Ole Miss we would only have to pay the cost of books and a couple hundred in fees (unless we want to upgrade his dorm, etc.)., and at UK maybe $2,000 a year (since the included meal plan only provides 1 meal per day), plus books. </p>
<p>I would be glad to be corrected if I’ve missed something, but I’ve been going over and over it and this is what I’ve come up with. </p>
<p>@Torveaux…Oklahoma State offers NMS a better financial package than OU does. It was a few hundred dollars short of a full ride, and that included factoring in books. At least that was the case last year when my son was looking. Maybe they changed that this year, but I don’t think so. Even with the increase in OU’s package this year, it wouldn’t have brought it up to where OSU was. That said, we really felt like OU offered a lot that OSU didn’t, and it was worth the cost difference to my son. </p>
<p>We did what we could to try and level the playing field. I forgot that we factored in distance. OU is only a 3 hour drive or so. We also made the meal plans and such as much the same as we could manage based on web info. While there are cheaper options (UNT, UT-Tyler, Alabama-Huntsville), but serious drop in quality. For us, the differences between OU, OSU, UK, Bama, and Miss State were small enough that we grouped them together. I don’t recall why, but Ole Miss never even made the spreadsheet. </p>
<p>Our top 3 spread sheet last year with travel (Dallas Area) had OU the least out of pocket and Baylor/Alabama just about equal over a 4 year period. Yes there are other options that offered more $, New Mexico and Idaho being two that come to mind, but these were the three that were actively considered. </p>