These are all schools I’ve been accepted into for Computer Science & Engineering, including the University of Washington, Seattle, which I was accepted under Direct Admission into its CSE department. I also want to point out that although the CS & Engineering departments of each of these schools is very important to me, I also have some sub interests in media and graphic design that I want to pursue.
Please give me advice on which school to choose!
For undergrad? UW by far.
Future success? UW still by far (statistically speaking, you’re pretty much guaranteed a 6-digit salary at Microsoft, Google, FB, or Amazon).
Double majoring? Probably UCLA (esp if you want to double major in an art - UW is kinda “meh” in most departments EXCEPT for CS [tied with CMU, Berkeley, all three are similar in undergrad to Stanford and MIT] and Microbiology [ranked #2 worldwide, next to Harvard]).
City wise? UMich - Ann Arbor is beautiful, you’ll love the city there.
UW CS is no easy feat to get into though (the DA acceptance rate is ~3.8%). DA only exists to stop kids from going to MIT and CMU (and it’s working well, amazing program).
I’d say pick UW, I didn’t like UCLA very much. UMich I never went to, but I’ve heard it’s alright, and the city is beautiful.
Is there a significant difference in cost between these schools for you?
@ucbalumnus Fortunately, cost is not really a factor for me, although UMich would definitely be the most expensive out of the three because I have in-state tuition + small scholarship for UCLA and I got quite a bit of scholarship for UW. Nothing for Michigan.
@Furoni Thanks a lot for your input. Can I ask what you attended UCLA for (undergrad/grad, major, etc) and why you didn’t like it?
Seems like Michigan drops to third place behind the others, since it is the most expensive and most distant from metro areas with a high concentration of computer companies (although there are computing jobs in other industries, like automotive). Remember, the big companies (GAFAM) recruit widely; it is the smaller companies where being geographically closer is an advantage, due to them making fewer distant recruiting trips.
Michigan’s primary advantage over the others is that CS is easier to declare or change into, but it is not really significant if you have direct admission to CS at the other two.
@atom418 I felt like the teachers didn’t know me personally at UCLA - there were so many students there, classes were kinda packed. I had to actively seek out things to make my resume look better [like research, internships, jobs, it’s hard to do anything at a school with classes so competitive and big]. You’re gonna have to seek out opportunities everywhere I guess, but at top CS schools (such as MIT, Stanford, UW, Berkeley, CMU, maybe UIUC), most of these things come easily, since the opportunities seek you out (literally - UW has maybe 500+ jobs each year, and only ~250 kids are seeking the jobs usually - you’re guaranteed one).
I give the curriculum at UCLA a 5/10 - they had an “meh” selection, too theoretical (nothing to help you in real life). The students in the classes are “clique-like”, with most being foreigners, and the required classes are just weird (some don’t even make sense as to why they are needed). The professors are hard to understand also.
I love UW CS, so I might be biased, but many people agree with me https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-be-a-computer-science-major-at-the-University-of-Washington
for innovativeness as well, UW ranks #4, only topped by Columbia, Stanford, and MIT http://www.computersciencedegreehub.com/50-innovative-computer-science-departments/