UIUC vs UM vs ASU vs UCSC ?

College Search & Selection
1

Hi,

DECISION TIME !!

I’m from CA. Got admitted to the following schools/programs. Need help in deciding about the best of these programs

  • University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign => Comp.Sci + Linguistics from College of Liberal arts & sciences
  • University of Maryland, College Park => Computer Science, from College of Computer, Mathematical and Natural Sciences
  • Arizona State (Barrett's Honors Program) => Computer Science from Ira A. Fulton School of Engineering
  • University of California, Santa Cruz => Computer Science from Jack Baskin School of Engineering

UIUC & UM - no aid/scholarships
UC, Santa Cruz - no aid/scholarships (but in-state)
ASU - $15,500 per year scholarship

Ranking wise UIUC tops, but I’m not sure about the CS+Ling. program at LAS. Since Comp.Eng. & Comp.Sci is also offered in the COE, would this program be diluted and also miss out on interships/job opportunities in the future ?

Appreciate your inputs/thoughts.

2

Computer science is very employable out of college, so it really doesn’t matter where you go. I would go for the least expensive option which gives you the least amount of debt. I would go for UCSC

3

UCSC is near a lot of computer companies.

4

UCSC or ASU Barrett are probably the best value

5

Thanks for your suggestions. I heard that UCSC CS program is not ABET certified. Do you think this accreditation is a concern at all ?

6

For CS, ABET accreditation per se is not important, unless you want to take the patent exam (if you want to take the patent exam after a non-ABET-accredited CS degree, you need to fulfill specific course requirements, particularly in non-CS science).

7

CS programs don’t have to be ABET accredited and UCSC’s program has an excellent reputation.

8

Thanks to everyone