there is some massive expansion by those companies into NYC
(should be closer to home for your DD)
it’s actually part of the reason why I am hesitant for my DS to go to school on the West Coast - if
he does, he’ll likely stay there … and that, would be … far …
There is also presence by many of these same companies in the DC , northern Virginia area. And there are tons of VT and UVA grads that end up in that area.
Even with expansion, it’s not a huge percentage, Google has around 135K employees of which 9K are in NYC. The other thing is to have some idea of where the product teams are, most will be at the company HQs, which is kind of where you want to be starting out of college. Also most of these are companies are remote now anyway, you need to find out their policies post-Covid will be.
I would still lean to VT because of cost, if Purdue is affordable OOS, that would be next.
@sevmom, you are correct about the FAANG-type companies expanding to DC area; many of them focus on government contracting though which is not of interest to my daughter. I believe that SV employer environment with core product teams and innovation focus (thanks @theloniusmonk), is where she will thrive.
So, where does that leave us? We are leaning toward Virginia colleges, primarily because of cost considerations and secondarily because she can reasonably easily return home in case of situations like spread of a new Covid strain. VT and UVA are far enough where she can be independent; but not so far that she will have trouble getting home in case of emergency. And knowing the limitations of companies in DC metro area and generally east coast, my daughter will have to figure out how she can connect with companies in SV. It will be challenging but the UIUC alternative is tougher. She has not made a final decision yet.
Let’s see -
Virginia schools are cheaper.
Virginia schools are GORGEOUS - UVA in the historical way and for my money of the 30 or so schools I visited with my daughter, Va Tech (and Duke) are tied for the nicest. UIUC is - for lack of a better word…a dump.
I think your decision - at least which state to attend school in - is an easy one.
True, it does not show well. The new Grainger school will be nice though!
“it’s actually part of the reason why I am hesitant for my DS to go to school on the West Coast -”
I get it!!! I have one each right now in San Francisco, Austin, and NY!! We live in Chicago!!! I lived in Iowa for 5 years after those 3 were born and no way was I ever going to stay there and one reason besides never wanting to live in a small town was because I knew my kids would never want to stay there either, but I never in my wildest dreams thought my kids would also not stay in Chicago or go to school in the Midwest! Now #4 will most likely not be going to school here either!! The best part though, lots of places to visit if we ever get to travel again!
The CS building is also very nice.
One thing my son who lives and works in SV has always said when he would do interviews for his prior company is that they look for people who have interesting projects.
A lot of people find jobs online through the companies directly or through Linkedin, Indeed, etc. My daughter is a CS major and her interest is in FinTech. She is attending a FinTech conference this year (virtual). There are a ton of companies that attend that. So there are opportunities like that. Many people do not find their internships through their school’s career planning office or job fairs that come to the school. Those could be a good resource for what to do to find jobs, but not necessarily for placement, especially with covid.
I know … we are in NYC, and HMC would be a great home for DS … but we are just so hesitant …
(Big Red will still be #1 choice)
So funny. My kids looked at HMC and did not like it one bit. They probably should’ve looked at one of the other Claremonts. The tour guide also took them into his room as part of the tour and why I have no idea but apparently it was a disgusting mess and not really the type of room that you show during a formal tour. They said the campus was also soooo quiet with no one milling around or really socializing. I forgot the other things they didn’t like as their dad took them on that visit. This was 3 years ago well before Covid so definitely make a visit as it definitely wasn’t for them.
The former girlfriend (who was from California) of one of my kids was a Harvey Mudd computer science grad . It is a great school but seems like a school where fit would be very important, especially given the small size.
would a bootcamp be just as employable?
No.
To summarize your arguments:
A. Don’t attend UIUC because the engineering must be weak, because it also has other colleges which have many students
B. Don’t attend UIUC it’s engineering is no better than that of VTech, since both have many students who are not in STEM
C. Don’t attend UIUC because their acceptance rates are too high
The only argument which is actually correct and relevant is:
D. Don’t attend UIUC because it is too expensive for what it offers.
To clarify:
UIUC and VTech are not “the same school”. They are not even close to being “the same school”. VTech was a land-grant small military academy which was transformed in the 1960s to a university. Admission rates are around 68%, and are no different between colleges, of which there are 9. It is an excellent college, but, as a university, it is a relative newcomer. It is competing for state funding with UVA.
UIUC is a state flagship, which has been a full blown university since the late 19th century. It was built to teach mostly Agriculture and Engineering, like many land-grant universities of the time, which is why its college of engineering is so large and powerful, but has expanded to 15 colleges, and has about 1.5x as many students as VTech. Overall acceptance rate is about 59%, though that of engineering is far lower, and CS is lower than that.
As for “similar academic profiles”, well, VTech gives the average weighted GPA, but UIUC gives unweighted. So let’s look at test scores. The average SAT for VTech engineers is 1351, the mid 50% range for engineering at UIUC is 1430-1530. So VTech’s engineering average sits in the bottom 25% of UIUC students.
UIUC doesn’t put GPAs in the CDS, but you can see that, across the university (not just engineering), 55% were from the top 10%, 86% from the top 25%, and 99% from the top half . At VTech, the numbers were 29% from the top 10%, 68% from the top 25%, and 88% from the top half. So no, neither the students at the colleges of engineering, nor across the universities, have “similar academic profiles”.
Colleges like UIUC are OSU, Michigan State, (more so than U Michigan), and Wisconsin.
Yes, UIUC isn’t an engineering school, it just has a college of engineering which is larger and better at engineering research and teaching than almost every “engineering school” in the country, including Colorado Mines and RPI. MIT, Caltech, and GTech, that’s the entire list of “mostly STEM” schools which are better at engineering than UIUC (also HMC, if we look at LACs).
I wouldn’t send a Virginia student to UIUC for engineering because it is expensive, and while it is better than VTech for engineering, it is not $100,000 better. In fact, I would very rarely recommend that an OOS student attend UIUC, because it is insanely expensive even for in-state students, though UVA is even worse.
Then you proceed to state that you would choose UVA because of prestige.
So, UVA costs about $11,000 more a year than VTech, so the price of prestigiousity is about $44,000.
BTW, CoA for engineering
UIUC OOS: $56,000
UVA In-State: $41,500
VTech in-State: $30,300.
Honestly if I had to spend four years at those two schools and take everything else out - and everyone thinks differently - but I could go to UIUC and get depressed by its dreadful campus. I looked there for my MBA 25 years ago (they actually flew me in for a visit, like a job). I knew flying in from St. Louis it wasn’t for me.
I took my son the other year after visiting Purdue which was surprisingly nice. UIUC was close. We walked for 15 minutes and he was like - not applying here - it’s horrible.
Va Tech - nicest school, perhaps, in the country.
Save depression from waking up - go to Va Tech!!!
Older article (2017) about Silicon Valley hiring:
I can see that campus preference is very personal. I have been to Purdue twice with my family and it did not make to my son’s list of applications. For me, the whole impression was totally dull. My cousin got his PhD there and seemingly enjoyed it 
It’s a good idea to visit the campus before making a decision. UIUC is on our schedule for the spring break.
The OOS cost is a huge burden though.
UIUC is really expensive for any OOS however their CS building is relatively new and they’re building an entire new Engineering facility (it may actually be finished) as well. It’s about 2-1/2 hours from Chicago and many high profile companies recruit there. Plus they finally are back on the map with a highly ranked basketball team!
With the 46th ranked recruiting class coming to campus in the Fall 2021.
Do I need to tell you who has the #1 ranked b-ball recruiting class? 
OK, couldn’t resist, my apologies. Carry on.