$130,000 starting salary for SWE grads and around $100k(+/-) for CS grads from Cal Poly. Never saw stats from college CS departments or on social media from parents or students from Columbia, GTech or U of I-Champagne with a 130k starting salary. Think I saw one post of $120 but mostly heard of $90-100k for starting salaries for these college grads in Silicon Valley. Stanford, Cal Tech, CM and MIT might be more comparable to Cal Poly SWE starting salaries but only visited MIT (which we loved but knew it was nearly impossible to get into and then survive the rigor) and there is always an Ursuline grad that goes to Stanford every year but itās always pre-med majors and not engineering majors that get in from Dās all girls high school so she didnāt even bother. Figured Columbia starting salary for CS was pretty comparable to the rest of the Ivies.
I never use ranking, especially for engineering. It uses one metric, institutional reputation, and nothing else. It is really a proxy for graduate programs.
USNWR ranks Cal Poly #1 or #2 on every engineering major they rank, yet 7th overall. Odd!
If you want to use rankings, Iād suggest understanding the methodology. We discounted them completely.
The thing Iād add is top employers on LinkedIn and College Scorecard. It has a regional bias, and LinkedIn is self reported, so take both with a grain of salt.
Class size and who taught them was important to my son too.
Youāll be shocked, but in The Bay and LA, those numbers are all low. SWE and CS grads all make the same. According to Levels.fyi (their data is accurate) starting at Apple, Facebook and Google is north of $150K.
Remember, salaries are regional and students tend to stay close to their school. Texas, Illinois, and Purdue have salaries that look low, but put them in SV and theyāll earn the same as the CA school grads.
True and know itās due to cost of living in SV but saw postings on Reddit from from some of the college students and they were saying starting salary in SV (or NYC/Boston) was $100k and if they stayed local it was high $80-90k. I am sure it is here say and take it with a grain of salt but typically you hear of people overestimating on social media. They were parading around on Reddit like $80-100k was high end of CS salaries not low or mid range in SV and NE. Thatās even better if you are hearing starting salaries of 150k for CS/SWE grads in SV!!! If D decides to head to that area after graduation I would like her to be able afford a roof over her head with out needing to live with more than one roommate.
Maybe this LinkedIn and College Scorecard is a good replacement for rankings. Iāll check it out.
Class size, Teachers makes sense to track.
My son lived with two engineers for 3 years, but it was a 3br/3ba. It allowed them to all save money and stuff their 401ks.
Ease or difficulty of entering or changing major.
OOPS, deleted
Iād say skip 2-5 unless your son or daughter is doing all of that research. Whatās most important IMHO is where your kid feels most comfortable (6 & 7) and how much you are will and able to pay out of pocket. For instance, if youāre will to pay $150K for college, your kid has the option of applying to more publics vs. privates and graduating with little to no debt vs. gunning for privates and graduating with $$$ in debt. We took a similar āquantitativeā approach with our oldest and it worked out well but in hindsight, was unnecessarily stressful. We are taking a much much more hands off approach with our youngest and it feels much easier, albeit still stressful lol ; )
Closing. Further comments can be made on the updated thread. OPās son was accepted to UCLA, so has added that into the mix while removing Davis.