To state it a little differently, I think what he’s trying to say is that people hiring expect a baseline of technical knowledge. The additional technical depth and/or worldliness is a nicety.
I think Reed will deliver a better classical education. If that’s at the expense of CS depth and breadth, I don’t know. If it is, it would be a poor choice. Somehow, I expect they do an ok job. I don’t expect they’d be better than Davis in CS specifically though.
Class size is overrated factor for stem classes, you don’t sit around Calculus discussing topics, like in a non-stem class. STEM is about solving a lot of problems, at least in the first couple of years. Most of the large classes also have smaller sections to do the actual problems discussed in the lectures. And even at places like Stanford the popular intro classes in CS, Math have large numbers, the 3-400 range.
I would strongly disagree with this. I have a STEM degree from a large lecture school. Watching my son’s experience at a small lecture school, I’d choose that EVERY TIME. That said, all other things equal, I’m not sure I’d pay $100K for just that.
The point is that there are many people who are ok with the larger class sizes and there are actually some the prefer the anonymity of that. So UC Davis got about 80K apps last year and Reed got 7K maybe. Let’s look at Pomona, probably a more relevant comparison for a CA resident, they get 10K apps. For a college that meets full need like Pomona, shouldn’t they be getting 30-40K apps since their experience is supposedly better and would be affordable? My point is that class size in stem is not as big a factor in choosing colleges as people think it is.
Not sure that logic works in CA where there are a large # of families who are full-pay because the cost of living here is high. I know a bunch of people who make too much to qualify for financial aid but who would much rather pay $40K/year than $80K/yr.
Back to Reed specifically - I will say that despite the department’s growing pains, my Reedie has really loved all of her CS classes so far (and almost all of the other ones). She’s more likely to go to grad school than into industry, at least at this point (2nd semester sophomore).
Davis has a much wider breadth of majors and is far cheaper, both reasons why they’d get more applications. Your analogy is like saying that the F150 is a better vehicle than the Mercedes S Class because they sell more of them. They are apples and oranges in so many ways.
It is as if you know my kid! Yes, this is an excellent idea. I can’t find $100K worth of reasons for him to choose Reed over UCD right now.
Thank you so much for your insight- as we weigh this decision- both financial and fit at this highly regarded school. It really helps to hear directly from a Reedie parent in CS. So glad to hear that she has loved her classes and CS major.
For some people, class size doesn’t matter. For others, it does. It’s all about fit. I transferred from 50K Ohio State after my freshman year to the 3K University of Alaska Fairbanks. It made all the difference in the world to me. I was much more motivated and engaged in my classes at the latter. If I was screwing up at Ohio State - and I was, the professors didn’t care because I was one of 400 or 500 nameless faces in a lecture class. At Alaska, the professors all knew me and did care. If I was confused about something during a lecture, I wouldn’t have asked about it at an Ohio State lecture, whereas I would in an Alaska class.
Right, that was what I posted as well, we actually agree then.
“Davis has a much wider breadth of majors and is far cheaper, both reasons why they’d get more applications.”
Pomona has 8K, the same as Cal Tech, which less majors as well. It’s not that Davis has more, it’s an order of magnitude (80K to 8K). The reason I picked Pomona was not only in CA, but they tout their small class sizes (8:1) and Davis (subject of the thread) doesn’t.
“Not sure that logic works in CA where there are a large # of families who are full-pay”
Davis is going to have its share of wealthy families attending it, agree, according to the NYT mobility index, UCD has 45% of families in the top-20% of income, to your point, 9% in the bottom 20%, so 46% in the middle 60%, average income is $96K.
Anyway I didn’t know CS was a new major, here’s a letter from Reed students expressing concern:
https://reedquest.org/articles/2022/2/25/a-letter-from-concerned-computer-science-juniors
I don’t doubt that DS would happy with small classes and getting to work closely with professors-I just don’t want to pay more for that experience. He will attend UCD admit day and hopefully meet and connect with other CS students. He mentioned needing some UCD swag yesterday- so that’s a good sign. I am still glad we are going through this -at times messy-college decision journey - I think he has learned a lot about himself and where he will thrive.
One other pro (in my opinion) in favor of UCD for DS, that I haven’t seen discussed a lot on these forums- Both DH and I grew up in Northern California, went to UCD with a majority of NCal kids at the time. We still live in NCal and so do most of our UCD friends. It has been wonderful to have so many college friends and their families within an hour or two away for the past 30 years. UCD is now more geographically diverse - which is a great - but he will probably have more local connections post college than if he went to a small and/or out of state school.
Again- thanks everyone all for the help. You are all a wealth of information and resources. I think we have all the info we need to make the decision for now. I hope this post has helped others.
The students’ letter is a pretty damning indictment of how CS has been treated at Reed.
Class size being overrated and what “some people” don’t mind are different things.
I wonder why large publics with honors colleges tout smaller classes if they don’t matter? Or are “overrated”.
Sure. I wouldn’t have cared if my kids’ high school classes were in an auditorium of 8 or 9 hundred people. So why would I care in college? 
This appeared in the letter:
Even at a small school, a CS department pretty much can’t be run effectively with just two professors.
From what I understand from my student (and that letter), it’s a perfect storm between having a couple of professors who put their sabbaticals off due to covid and have to take them next year, at least one and maybe more visiting faculty who aren’t returning because they got permanent offers elsewhere, and the school has been trying to hire additional faculty but isn’t offering large enough salaries. I don’t know how this works at other schools (maybe some of you know) but I guess at Reed every faculty position at the same level/ years of experience pays the same regardless of department. One of the departments, IIRC it was econ, got special permission to pay more to attract top talent and CS asked for but has yet to receive the same permission.
CS is a subject where those with PhDs in the subject have non academic job options, so it is not like some subjects where a faculty job posting will attract hundreds of top quality applicants.
I’m currently seeing six CS professors listed in Reed’s CS department.
Some Reed computer science majors, who are now in their junior year, have speculated that Reed may have as few as two active computer science professors during their senior year. Please see earlier posts for more information.
On the one hand, Reed is known for “life of the mind” types who yearn to learn for learning’s sake. It is like the U of Chicago and Swarthmore in that regard. So that part fits your son to a T.
On the other hand, the CS offerings probably do not match Davis’s, in number and frequency.
I would strongly suggest mapping out a couple of plausible four-year course plans at Reed, keeping in mind that not every class will be available every semester or even every year. You could maybe base this on the 22-23 course sched and 21-22’s, if it is still available for reference.
DS is now focused on choosing between CS at UCD and UCSC.
Aggie admit day will give him plenty of opportunity to learn more.
We appreciate all the previous responses. We now have enough info to make the decision.