<p>My son is waiting to hear from USC, his first choice. He has been accepted at several other schools, so is thinking about where to go if USC rejects him. He wants to major in CS with a focus on video game programming. His #2 and #3 choices are University of Denver and Digipen. We visited both in October.</p>
<p>This is a dilemma. Denver is more the typical college experience, he could swim (not competetively, he used to but now just swims for fitness), be in plays, and do more typical college things that he enjoys. DigiPen is a different sort of place. Very intense. All games and programming, all the time. Even the general ed courses have a game development focus. The kids (mostly male) live, breathe, eat and sleep video games. My son could see himself there, but if he changes his mind, the credits probably won't transfer, and he'd have to go elsewherw for any non-gaming (CS or art) major.</p>
<p>Denver was the first 4-year university in the country to have a game development major (according to their website). But they don't even rank on the Princeton Review list of the top 25 programs (we asked about this when we were visiting with a CS professor, and he didn't have a clue about the list or why they weren't on it). USC is #1 and DigiPen is #3. My S will be able to get a job with a degree from DigiPen, no doubt, but we don't know what his prospects will be with a degree from Denver. He prefers Seattle to Denver, but wonders if he'll even get into the city much from Redmond.</p>
<p>We don't have the full Financial Aid packages yet, but my educated guess is that DigiPen will be more expensive out-of-pocket (he got merit scholarsips at both, but Denver says they meet full need for engineering and CS students, and DigiPen does not, and I'm sure he'll be gapped there). OOP will probably be about $10,000 more per year at DigiPen, and we probably don't have that without borrowing at least some of it. But, their placement rate is very high, for very good jobs.</p>
<p>What say you all about a CS degree from Denver? Their placement stats? Anecdotes? </p>
<p>It's his decision, but I'm just trying to help him gather info.</p>