@Prodigee, there is no easy way to decide which college to attend but it would be advisable to set a few key drivers, like COA, ranking of program, job/internship opportunities and prestige. I will outline the watered-down decision making process I underwent for my D2 last year. She chose GTech (full fare) over UMD (small merit scholarship) for ChemE…similar COA…easy decision. Between UCB and UMich , UMich was eliminated as it had the same COA… full fare. The tough part was deciding between GTech and UCB. After much deliberation, GTech was the final choice as UCB was 11K/yr more and it is substantially more difficult to change from the College of Chemistry (which houses the ChemE dept.) to COE if she had a change of heart. For the sake of simplicity, I have left out other factors that came into consideration during the decision making process for my D2 – city campus, no LAC, research and internship opportunities, racial diversity, representation of students from different states/countries, school spirit, etc…
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Since you have posted this on the UMD thread (and as expected @maryversity has done a tremendous job of providing info on UMD), I will direct you to some links which deal more specifically with CS schools and GTech.
CS/CE rankings
Undergrad – USNWR
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate-computer
Grad CE – USNWR
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-engineering-schools/computer-engineering-rankings?int=997808
Grad CS – USNWR
http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings?int=997808
Best values CS - ROI
http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/computer-science-degrees-best-roi/
Global CS – USNWR
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/computer-science?page=2
Jobs/alumni at the likes of Google and Apple
https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/20-schools-most-grads-apple-153500378.html
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-20-best-schools-for-getting-a-job-at-google-2014-10
You may setup your own search at the LinkedIn University finder.
GTech Career and Internship fairs
College of Computing (Jan 27/28)- http://www.cc.gatech.edu/student-life/career-development/career-fair-attendees
Internship (Jan 27/28) - http://career.gatech.edu/plugins/content/index.php?id=456
Fall (2014) - https://gatech-cfm.symplicity.com/events/students.php?mode=list&cf=Fall2014
(359 companies)
As @vctory mentioned in an earlier post, my D2’s roomie landed an internship with Microsoft on the 2nd week of school, as that was when the Fall Career Fair was held. In her case, she chose GTech (instate Zell Miller scholarship) over CMU SCS (full fare) and we all know how good CMU SCS is. So after due consideration, you can decide whether it is worth paying for certain institutions where you get admission.
Good luck!