<p>After all the acceptance came in- S has three top choices now and trying to decide between them. He is going for pre-frosh weekend at Caltech and UCB by mid april, and to cornell ASAP.
While deciding among the three- what are the things that are usually considered by people? If if money is not the deciding factor? S has strong intereset in Comp Sc. and going to major in it. At the same time, he has passion for subjects ranging from economics to artificail intelligence , robotics, physics, chem, math etc. and like to explore a bit and decide what else he will like to study. Would like to hear from people who goes to/knows about these universities/ making or made a decision among them etc.</p>
<p>Before visiting, he should start looking at courses and curricula for his major and other subjects of interest to see what each school offers for his interests.</p>
<p>Also, if he is concerned about class size, class format, and frequency of offering each course, he should look at the on-line schedules at each school.</p>
<p>Of course, he should consider the net price he is looking at.</p>
<p>Is he aiming to work in industry or go on to a PhD in CS afterward?</p>
<p>After having done website research, he may be able to get more out of a visit by being able to ask questions and look for things of particular interest.</p>
<p>Obviously, Caltech is a much different school from Berkeley and Cornell.</p>
<p>Thanks ucbalumnus: that was really helpful. He will look at different programs/course and curricula etc.
He is 50- 50 on working/researching etc- not sure. How easy is to get a research opportunity at UCB? We are out of state for UCB and thus all these schools have roughly same price tag. Will being at caltech limit his industry opportunities than being at other two? </p>
<p>I also would like to hear from people who chose one school over other in the past and what helped them decide.</p>
<p>You might want to ask about undergraduate research opportunities and internship / job recruiting on each of the school-specific forums.</p>
<p>Berkeley is within driving or public transportation distance of Silicon Valley, which does help with the internship / job recruiting.</p>
<p>Thansk ucbalumnus: I will try to post the research opportunities querry this in individual school-specific forms. I am truly interested in hearing on what basis people made their choices and trying to relate. It is such a difficult decision to make.</p>