UMass Amherst vs purdue vs Uwisconsin madison vs UT Austin. Which one should I chose?

College Search & Selection
81

Right - cost is an important variable. No, UW/UT/PU are probably not worth tens of thousands (of dollars) more, if the OP sticks with CS. (and probably even if he doesn’t)

And being able to take (especially) Humanities and SS courses at the other Five Colleges members is a sweetener, as I’ve said. You could use Smith and Amherst (et al.) for many of the distribution requirements and UMass for the major and have one heck of a high-class degree. (assuming kids can take a bunch of classes at the other schools…)

82

All of these schools are in the same tier for CS. Choose based on your preferences beyond academics in addition to financials".

Is there any evidence on this, most rankings on CS will have Austin, Purdue, Wisconsin ahead of UMass Amherst. Here’s Niche’s:

UT Austin - 25
Wisconsin - 43
Purdue - 47
UMass Amhest - 89

While I think rankings should only be used in a general sense, Niche seems reasonable. In silicon valley just to balance the posts on NY and Boston placement, Purdue has the strongest reputation among the four in CS and Engineering. They would not be considered to all be in the same tier.

83

^@PengsPhils

After following @PengsPhils posts for some time, he truly seems like one of the most knowledgeable contributors for CS being immersed in CS educational world. I’m sure he is not basing his opinion on Niche. Additionally @MYOS1634 (and @prezbucky) are some of the top college advisors here.

84

ROI ranks usually do not correct for cost of living. 100k in the Bay Area is nothing, 80k in Arkansas is a lot. So looking at gross salary is a poor way to compare schools. Most of the higher ranking schools are in the northeast where it is expensive to live thus the higher salaries.

85

@Greymeer We were looking at ROI within New England which was the target location of the student and therefore relevant. Clearly Arkansas will be different than Cali but for a person targeting the Boston Tech corridor actually seeing no benefit after the ten year mark based on school was relevant since you could see salary AND location.

86

“After following @PengsPhils posts for some time, he truly seems like one of the most knowledgeable contributors for CS being immersed in CS educational world. I’m sure he is not basing his opinion on Niche. Additionally @MYOS1634 (and @prezbucky) are some of the top college advisors here.”

I’m not basing my ranking on niche, just giving it as general guideline. My ranking would have Purdue ahead of the other three based on the alumni I’ve worked with in silicon valley and the hiring practices of SV companies which actively recruit at Purdue and more than the other three.

Let’s take Purdue out of the equation, would you advise someone to pick UMass Amherst over MIT even if the latter was say 40K more over the four years?

87

@theloniusmonk MIT is top tier. That is worth a discussion because you are actually getting into the tippy top tier for CS.

We don’t know if the baseline of 160k is affordable. They could be taking out 60k or more of debt for that. Adding an additional 30k of debt could be a significant burden. It would be to most American families. I would only consider pushing a family into that much debt for a LIFE CHANGING career choice which Purdue would certainly not be IMHO versus UMass for CS. An ambitious UMass student with a great portfolio who has taken advantage of internship opportunities and the five college consortium of Amherst and Smith will have a top quality and competitive resume.

88

@theloniusmonk Also keep in mind that most UMass grads probably head to the Boston Tech corridor or NY (New Englanders tend to stay put) so it is of no surprise the SV does not head to UMass.

89

Re CS strength, if I had to order them Purdue would be #4 of these four. For engineering, different story. @theloniusmonk is your experience specifically in CS and software or in engineering and more hardware bent areas? That I think would make an obvious difference in your opinion of Purdue.

Their CS is not the same top-tier their engineering is. The other three schools listed are explicitly known for their research in CS and recruited accordingly, though there is a fine argument to be made about the effect on undergraduates of said research. Still, Purdue is far from a frontrunner ahead of the other schools listed. I don’t see any reasonable ordering that would justify any sort of significant price difference.

Anecodtally against your experience, I have worked on both coasts and encountered grads and interns from every school in this thread except for Purdue. I’m very software bent and work at companies also emphasizing that as the OP seems to be. If OP is considering majoring in engineering, Purdue is indeed the best choice, and that should be considered. Still, it’s hard to justify a price difference when all four will still offer solid engineering programs and equal to better CS.

In terms of pure research, check out the research output for CS for the schools. This is one data point but shows that there is really not a significant difference.

UWis: 11
UT-Austin: 16
Purdue: 19
UMass: 21

http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2007/toyear/2017/index?all

I’d trust Niche absolutely zero for academic rankings. Putting all of these colleges as low as they do is a red flag. Understanding and ranking CS colleges is hard for many reasons, and research should not be the gold standard, but it’s a start.

Looking at their methodolgy:

Overall Niche Grade - 25.0%
Computer Science Student SAT/ACT Scores - 20.0%
Percent Majoring in Computer Science - 15.0%
Computer Science Program Demand - 7.5%
Computer Science Student Surveys - 7.5%
Percent of U.S. Computer Science Graduates - 7.5%
Computer Science Program Demand Within School - 5.0%
Computer Science Research Expenditures per Student - 5.0%
Comparison of SAT/ACT scores of students majoring in Computer Science - 5.0%
Computer Science Research Expenditures - 2.5%

So over a third is Niche surveys, almost a quarter based on test scores of students (self-reported on Niche), and another about a third is based on simply the relative size of the program compared to the school and other CS programs. To round it out, the research funding also can be tangential at best to program quality, especially again with federally funded programs with long track records at the state schools above.

Research funding versus actual contributions to the field is a big difference. Niche captures little to nothing of value for CS. Not saying they really have the ability to do much given the available data, but they shouldn’t be considered with any authority.

90

@gearmom the COA of Purdue would be 10-15k more for four years (assuming UMass increases 2k per year and Purdue doesn’t ). And as per Purdue’s website their total coa for international students is $46194.

91

My experience is both sotware and hardware.

US News global rankings for CS are similar:

Austin - 2
Wisconsin - 34
Purdue- 60
UMass Amherst - 167

92

@pat07ek 2k per year would be high increase estimate. Your total estimated additional cost should be 10k over four years or 170k for four years. You should find out in March if Purdue is freezing tuition. With freezing, you are at $184,776 for Purdue. If you are getting 36k in scholarships over for years for UMass, your total cost with a 3.6% increase is ~$170,840. You have about a 14k difference. What GPA do you need for the UMass scholarship? Which school do you prefer?

93

Apologies for the triple post, the first two were held due to the methodology link, and I was told to repost without via a mod. If someone could delete those, that’d be great.

Different experiences I guess, but the point being, I don’t think Purdue is in any way a standout, and if anything trends towards the bottom half, if one is forced to order them. But the same student should have equal opportunity and success at all four schools. I’d choose based on things beyond that like cost and fit for that reason.

94

@theloniusmonk O’k see that.Surprising that Austin is ahead of MIT and Stanford on this. And UIUC is only 46 and U Wash is only 56. Not sure why U Wis is ahead of UIUC???

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“I don’t think Purdue is in any way a standout”

It’s not a standout agree, but UMass is not at the level of the other three in CS and most rankings will show that. If cost were the same, I’d recommend UT Austin. In silicon valley Purdue would’t standout either but it has the best reputation of the four.

96

I guess it all depends on region then, because on the East Coast (New England and MidAtlantic) UMAss CS would be considered wayyy better than Purdue CS (but the opposite for Engineering).
This however doesn’t really matter much, or only insofar as OP as an international student will need to go on to a Master’s degree to access an OPT and I don’t think s/he’ll be hindered by a degree from any of these universities.

97

I have hired CS grads for nearly 25 years. Do you know what kind of company you will wish to work for after graduation?

Ask the career office at all places who comes there to recruit – and maybe even call the HR departments of your dream job and ask where they recruit from.

For example, a friend of mine’s son chose a college over less expensive options because his dream job company (Pixar) recruited heavily there.

If you don’t want a specific kind of job and will just be happy coding, then any choice will suit you fine, and paying extra for prestige will have a negligible effect, if any. Good coders always get good jobs and great coders get fought over like the last slice of pizza.

Since none are in-state, the 4 year differences are not huge so I also recommend going where you’ll be happiest. If it were me, I freaking love Austin and Amherst is an amazing college town…

98

“UMass is not at the level of the other three in CS and most rankings will show that.”

I frankly don’t care about the rankings. Rankings are somewhat arbitrary and can be based on a lot of things that don’t affect the ability of someone to get a job or do their job well. I care about the people who I have worked with. I have worked with a LOT of CS grads from UMass Amherst and most of them are excellent. Also, we hire tons of them (literally, since a ton of software engineers is about 10 or 15 people – fewer if they are large).

Recently I had to find an expert on a particular subject, where I was lucky that the company that I consult to has three top experts. I called one and asked and he said “you have to talk to either X or Y” (naming the other two experts). Of these other two top experts, one is an MIT graduate and the other is a UMass Amherst graduate. No one cares where these top experts went to school. People care about what they know (which is a lot in this particular case).

Any of the schools that are listed in the original post for this thread are very good for CS.

99

That’s where I disagree. I think the rankings you are citing don’t really capture the industry reputation of UMass (on both coasts) for CS. My experience matches with @MYOS1634, even on the west coast.

100

UMass Amherst does not appear in the top-10 or even top-25 of schools that silicon valley companies recruit. I’ve not run across any UMass grads here but of course that doesn’t mean that there aren’t some out here. I’ve run across alumni from the other schools in various roles and positions and know what out-of-state schools companies recruit from. They would be - MIT, CMU, Michigan, Ga Tech, Purdue, Illinois, UNC, Washington, Cornell, Penn.

Ok let’s say for the sake of discussion, UMass Amherst is better than Purdue, Texas-Austin, Wisconsin in CS. Where would you put it wrt to the schools above along with Stanford, Cal Tech, Berkeley? If you think it’s better than UT-Austin, you have to think it’s top-15 or 20 and better than Duke, JHU, Dartmouth, Vanderbilt, UCLA, Washington etc…

And what schools would be worth the extra 40K in CS? Any? UMass is that good that you say no to Stanford and MIT and CMU because it’s 40K more expensive?