UMiami vs UCF vs UF for computer science?

College Search & Selection
8

The original question relates to computer science, not to overall universities’ statistics. If you want to talk about academics in computer science - which is what the post asked about - the proof is in the pudding:

  • UCF is ABET accredited in computer science whereas UF is not.
  • For 33 consecutive years, the UCF programming team has finished in the top-three spots in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. In 2014, UCF finished 3rd in the nation out of 8,000 regional teams around the globe (beating the teams from MIT, USC, and Stanford in the process). Source: http://today.ucf.edu/ucf-3rd-nation-21st-world-world-cup-computer-programming/
  • In 2015, UCF's programming team has advanced to the ACM World Finals in Morocco (along with Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Iowa State, MIT, Princeton, and Rice). UF didn't make it.
  • In 2014, UCF teams took home the first place trophy out of 109 teams in the southeast regional competition (Source: http://icpc.baylor.edu/regionals/finder/southeast-usa-2014/standings). UF placed 12th.
  • In 2014, UCF's cyber defense team took 1st place out of 180 teams in cybersecurity, recognizing UCF as the best team in the nation for overall performance at multiple cybersecurity competitions. UCF also won first place in the 2014 Raytheon National Collegiat Cyber Defense competition (Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2014/04/28/ucf-wins-2014-raytheon-national-collegiate-cyber.html)
  • The median starting salary for a major in computer science at UCF is $87,800 versus $76,000 at UF.

The secret? UCF weeds out the weakest 40% of CS students through a tough “foundation exam” at the end of the sophomore year. These exams are tough ( http://www.cs.ucf.edu/registration/exm/ ) and have no parallel at UF so obviously the average upper-division CS students (those who pass the exam) will be significantly stronger than their average UF counterpart.

For most majors outside of computer science, I would agree that UF has more resources; however, when it comes to computer science at the undergraduate level, UCF offers the strongest academic program in the State of Florida.