My S is facing similar choices. I read that Madison’s CS is not an LEP(limited enrollment program), students are having problems signing up for CS courses and the CS class can become very large.
Maryland College Park has LEP bc UMD hands out around 1300 Bachelor’s degree related to CS per year, whereas UW Madison hands out 600+ CS bachelor’s degree per year.
UWM is catching up with the number of CS undergrads over the past years in comparison to UMD (1300), CAL (1200), Cornell (1000), UMich (1200) and more.
1 Like
According to collegefactual.
Popularity of Computer & Information Sciences at UMCP
During the 2019-2020 academic year, University of Maryland - College Park handed out 1305 bachelor’s degrees in computer and information sciences. This is an increase of 20% over the previous year when 1,086 degrees were handed out.
Whereas in 2021 University of Maryland - College Park handed out 1321 bachelor’s degrees in computer and information sciences. This is according to usmd.edu IRIS itself (Screenshot attached).
usmd.edu IRIS 2021
The reason for the difference in the numbers is because, at UMD, Information Science is in the College of Information Studies and Computer Science is in the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences. These are really 2 completely different majors. Computer Science is a Limited Enrollment Program. Information Science is not a LEP.
2 Likes
UIUC CS is UIUC CS … even though its not Grainger, if linguistics is interesting (and should help with NLP), it makes for a good choice.
Purdue DS is a very good program, and is very CS-heavy. Almost CS-lite, I wouldn’t dismiss it.
UW(M) great program, great town, but CS is uncapped and very crowded, horror stories about getting into class.
UMD Some description about the program: UMD CS vs NYU CS, Pros and Cons: A Transfer Perspective
UCSB … Awesome weather, Awesome campus, very good program (and a direct admit?) … close to the High Tech jobs … I’d find it tough to not pick UCSB
1 Like
yes, I was going to say the same.
UW-Madison CS major is capped too. LEP is specifically used in UMD only. If the discussion is about student unable to get a desired course then in general it’s a challenge everywhere, decide a specific course in advance.
Here are details about UW-Madison CS majors
-
CS majors BS and BA are now already under School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences. The new CDIS 300,000-square-foot facility is expected to compete by the end of 2024 - $175 million in private funds helps launch UW-Madison’s School of Computer, Data & Information Sciences. This link provide inforamtion about new CDIS. To meet the demand UM-Madison keep adding new facility members (https://www.cs.wisc.edu/new-and-incoming-faculty-members/).
-
Department of Computer Sciences (Department picture)
About – Computer Sciences – UW–Madison -
Department of Statistics (for Statistics and Data Science Majors)
https://stat.wisc.edu -
Information School
https://ischool.wisc.edu -
Prospective-students
https://www.cs.wisc.edu/the-student-experience/prospective-students/ -
In 2011, the computer science major at the UW-Madison had about 200 students (On average 50 students in Freshman, Sophomore, Junior and Senior). Today, in CDIS it has more than 2,000 all 4 year combined. In 2019-2020 academic year, UW - Madison handed out 628 bachelor’s degrees in computer and information sciences and in 2018-2019 academic year 485 degrees were handed out.
-
From UW-Madison number of students garduated with BS or BA major in CS are 122 (2020-2021),139 (2019-2020), 127 (2018-2019) as shown below.
They do not seem to regulate entry into the CS major very much, needing only a BC* grade in one CS course and 2.250 GPA over a CS course and a math course:
*BC is a grade at the mid point between B and C, or 2.5 for GPA calculations.
What is the benchmark in UMD for lower level and upper level concentration ?
At present don’t remember exactly but I read few months back that its with a minimum grade of C-.
https://lep.umd.edu/cs-lep.pdf describes what UMD requires.
C- or higher grades required in two CS courses and one math course. Frosh direct admits must have a 2.0 college GPA when they reach 45 credits. Others seeking to change into CS must have a 2.7 college GPA to change in.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UWMadison/comments/qwhn1j/best_formal_action_to_take_against_uws_failures/
Here is a post from a UWisc CS student 5 months ago complaining CS course registration issues. I think this is a problem that school and department take seriously and are putting in effort/plans to fix it. But probably not soon enough for class of 2022.
1 Like
Basically, the claim is that Wisconsin CS is unable or unwilling to deal with overcapacity problems by:
- Hiring more instructors.
- Increasing class size (partly because of classroom size limits).
- Raising the entry-to-major criteria (see post #31 for the criteria).
1 Like
We were looking at all of these as well and just committed to Purdue. The visit could not have gone better; it’s just a great school, super friendly students and the campus was way beyond expected (I had heard all this talk of boring flat cornfields and it was in fact the nicest campus we have been to). That said, they made it clear you cannot get into CS as a major if you were not admitted (luckily, my son did get a direct admit) BUT they just announced a new BS for Artificial Intelligence which kids can transfer into starting in September from CS or DS (no direct admits this year as it is too new). My son is now going to double major in AI - originally getting a BS in AI at CMU was his goal (waitlisted) but we are thrilled with the option to have a AI at Purdue. If your DS-admit kid had interest in AI, this might be of interest. We are so excited for our son’s Purdue journey.
3 Likes
Congrats on the decision! Boiler Up!
1 Like
It’s a very well designed program!
May I ask why does your son choose Purdue over UMD? Thanks!
On paper, he was deadlocked with pros and cons for UMD vs. Purdue. Cost with merit was identical. Purdue he was in Honors (UMD not). He liked UMD’s higher rankings for AI (his focus). UMD is 45 minutes away, Purdue is 10 hours. Did not like UMDs dorms. UMD CS major is not capped, Purdue’s is - so it seemed much harder to get classes at UMD based on reddit and student feedback though UMD had a very nice new CS building. UMD has nice areas but felt very crowded and there was a lot of construction on campus - trucks and noise, etc. Purdue felt almost like a private school. Expansive, modern elements mixed with traditional and impeccably clean. Wide open spaces, super friendly students (he went out with some kids we knew there) and he just loved everything about it. Then to top it off, they announced a new AI major and that was it, he was done.
4 Likes
Thanks for the reply. Just FYI, we were concerned about UMD’s CS class enrollment at first, but after checking the link below (which shows Spring22 course enrollment information), we found that there was almost no CMSC class that was waitlisted.
https://app.testudo.umd.edu/soc/202201
My son wants to go oos for college, both Purdue and UMD are pretty far away from home, so we are still deciding.
Thanks again for your detailed information!
2 Likes