UT Austin vs UC Irvine for CS

Hi,

This is for my son, who is a senior at Monta Vista High School
In-state at California, currently living in Bay Area

He is offered Computer Science at UT Austin and UC Irvine as of now.
No info on scholarship\aid at UT Austin
For UC Irvine he has Regents scholarship which is $ 5000 per academic year for 4 years
Again for UC Irvine he has Deans scholarship which is $ 3000 per year for 2 years

UC Irvine will be cheaper for us because of in-state which would be around $ 37K
For UT Austin, being out of state it comes to around $ 55 K

Because of the scholarship factor, he is unable to decide if its worth while considering UCI over UT Austin.

Any advice from folks who have an idea about UCI and UT Austin computer science is welcome. Especially how much value add Regents scholarship tag will add in finding a job later after 4 years, if there is any.

Wanted to add he also has been given Campus wide Honors Collegium. Couldn’t figure out what exactly that means and how it helps for his academics, any insight will be helpful

UCI with $8000 in scholarship money along with the Honors college is a no brainer. UCI all the way.

http://honors.uci.edu/

http://admissions.uci.edu/pdf/2018-publications/2018-chp-guide.pdf

If the difference remains at $17,000 per year, then the University of Texas at Austin deserves serious consideration.

If UT-Austin offers even a small merit award incentive, then the University of Texas at Austin may be a wise choice.

P.S. Unless the difference in COA is a major concern, there is no wrong choice.

UT Austin is overcrowded.

CS students are limited to only 2 CS courses per semester.

Many students do not get their required courses in 4yrs and have to attend extra semester(s), because of registration availability and limited faculty.

He would be best off staying home at UCI saving money and graduating on time.

You’ve been warned.

@Greymeer : How many CS courses should CS majors be taking per semester ?

P.S. Any priority registration privileges for Turing Scholars or for CS Honors at the University of Texas in Austin ?

OP: I know your son has priority registration privileges at UCI, but overall is the CS major at UCI overcrowded to the point of requiring 5 years instead of 4 years ?

Any such limits on CS courses per semester at UCI ?

Thanks for all of your replies. I dont know what COA is.

I am not a whatsapp or facebook person

I was a systems administrator from 98 to 05. after that am freelancer, but a failure.

I am a father, 1st gen immigrant, my son is citizen. CS is huge, I have enough friends for lifetime who are in really well placed in bay area.

My question still is: UT Austin vs UC Irvine.

In two fold

  1. Money wise is it worthwhile (my view)
  2. Reputation wise is it worthwhile (my son's view)

My take anyone can become anything, if u want. that was then

Today competition is so much, I am short of answers.

That’s why this concussion (it is, it’s not a spelling mistake)

Gumbymom thanks for your advice. but more the better, I still can think.

I know for a fact all public universities do give out of state students a chance for two basic reasons

  • skim them with out of state money because of reputation
  • display that they are demographically generous

Its true for every state, of course CA and TX now is hot bed.

I ask all respondents is my view wrong. Especially middle class parents.

I told my son, why the hell pay money for ivy leagues even before applying. elite

ucb is good only because best went there. so u go to ut austin, how many knew 20 years back. ucsd no one cared.

u go to uci and best go and make uci like ucb some day in future

i taught my son dont take the path trodden, take the path, such path is tread, even if ur footwear is lost the sole, still u have trodden,

how many agree with me

1 Like

informative thread…

There’s nothing that UT-Austin offers that he can’t get at UC-Irvine for much less money. The answer is pretty clear.

Undergraduate programs piggyback off the graduate programs. For 2021 computer science graduate schools rankings, US News ranks UT #10 and UCI #30. To give you another perspective, MIT, Stanford, UCB and CM are tied for #1. To give you a comparison, others in CA, UCLA #13, UCSD #16, USC #20, UCD #37 and UCSB #38. UW-Seattle is #6. The top 50 are all great schools.

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings

I agree with the previous poster that nothing UT can offer is not available at UCI. Jobwise, Southern California and the Irvine area offer plenty of computer science jobs.

@kishorekp @Gumbymom @aki2020 I did very detailed research on UCI because we are in the same situation. My DS got accepted to UCD, UCSB, UCSD, and UCI (Regent/Dean) (also out of state UW, UIUC but we don’t consider them). I did a list of class comparison. I am an EE engineer so I know some of these classes well. We are now down to UCI and UCSB. Although we like UCSB better in terms of small class size and fast service (i.e. DS emailed them about appealing for Honor status and got a response the same day while UCI -5-7 days).

UCI pros

  • many classes offer every quarter. If you don’t like a professor, pick another one. I checked ratemyprofessor, UCI’s teachers are ranked highly compared to UCSB. I read an article that said UCI balance class size with experienced teachers (ie. same teacher teach the same course - I checked … they are highly reviewed in the intro classes)
  • UCI CS intro courses really train the students to program (assignment seems intensive). Also, the homework corresponds to the test.
  • At UCI, DS will have priority enrollment. Does anyone know whether priority enrollment also works for GE classes???
  • CS is a department at UCI … therefore, DS doesn’t have to take physics and chem again if he doesn’t want to. Also, Physics C AP is given class credits if the score is 4 or 5.
  • UCI professors come from MIT, Stanford, etc … Does anyone know if Regent will get special internship opportunities??
  • UCI is ranked high in CS … and in certain CS topics, it ranks very high in the 18s.
  • UCI breaks CS classes into in-depth classes (for example, discreet math is broken into 2 classes because CS majors at UCI don’t need to take differential equations). And Linear Alg is taught with CS applications.

UCI con

  • classes are huge even in upper-division. If you look at the class schedule, you will see that classes are around 300 in lower-division … 200 in upper-division.
  • Lots of required GE classes (9 GE + 3 writing + 2 Science)
  • A large school means networking with the professors will be tougher.

So far, we are leaning on UCI because the ratings of teachers are so good. If you look at UCI’s CS staff, you will see that they have professional teachers that just teach … no research! This is what I want. A lot of UCs, I feel, it’s mostly self-learning just like AP classes in HS.

Also, my DS’s goal is grad school. We have heard that GPA and teacher’s recommendations are key to getting into good schools. At this point, grad school is more important than undergrad for us.

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For real ranking in CS without other factors: http://csrankings.org/#/index?none

I am in a similar dilemma with my son who has Regents/Dean’s schoalrship at UCI for CS , UCSB , UCSD (math + cs) vs GTech and UT Austin. My son strongly prefers GTech because of the overall curriculum. Any advise

@AV2020 you’ll probably be better off starting your own thread and including the cost of attendance for each school in it. I’d also probably detail why he prefers GT as you listed many solid CS schools and I’m not sure what exactly differentiates the GT curriculum between those.

My DS got a response from UCI that Regent Scholars have a priority registration window. So I think he will be allowed to register earlier for all classes. I think this is a huge advantage because he can pick the classes that have good reviews.