UIUC vs Northeastern vs Purdue for Undergrad Computer Science

College Search & Selection
1

So far, I’ve been accepted at Northeastern, UIUC, and Purdue all via Early Action. Since I’m out of state, all 3 will be roughly equal in tuition.
For overall CS prestige, I believe UIUC is strongest and most well-known. However, I also heard it is very competitive and idk if I will be able to survive w/o so much prior programming experience.
Purdue seems to be a step down from UIUC in most ways, but any additional info/experiences about Purdue would be appreciated.
Northeastern isn’t as prestigious as the other 2 for CS, but I’m leaning towards Northeastern because of more individualized attention at a private school and I feel that’ll help me succeed the best. I also like the co-op there, giving me lots of experience.

I’m mainly trying to decide if the ton of experience I get with co-ops can give me a bigger advantage over the prestige of UIUC, assuming I can take on some summer internships or whatnot.

Experiences at any of these schools for CS is greatly appreciated!

2

Hi, I’m a current sophomore CS student at UIUC. The program is great, and there’s tons of internship/co-op opportunities in any field. Our career fairs are massive and there’s all sorts of companies looking to hire CS students. Also I’m curious as to what you mean by “very competitive,” are you referring to the difficulty of the classes, or the competitiveness of the student body? Also how much prior programming experience do you have? There’s a decent amount of people who go to CS who have never programmed before, the intro class assumes no prior knowledge and is almost a blowoff if you’ve done APCS.

3

For UIUC, were you admitted to the CS major, or just as an undeclared student? If the latter, be aware that it can be difficult to get into the CS major later after enrolling as an undeclared student.
https://cs.illinois.edu/admissions/undergraduate/transfer-students