Waitlisted/Rejected from my favorite colleges. Aspiring to transfer.

Applying to College
41

It is hard to listen to your arguments, a mix of good information, misinformation, teenage drama (I presume) and pressure because of the cost (again I assume.) Some of your questions are just petulant. I’m curious what country you are from if you care to disclose. I know some countries the name of the school is very important in some countries but it really isn’t so much here in the US. even this forum is too name and brand conscious that the real world. I know it is hard to believe but people don’t care too much after you have some work experience. The CS field is one of the most egalitarian fields in that way.

I wonder if you are involved in programming now and have good math skills. Because not everyone smart takes to CS or programming. My daughter lucked into it after learning Matlab in physics class. But kids who have some background at least that is an indicator.

Also is your family able to well afford this education or is this debt? I’m asking because of strategy for you.

Now I know the grad rankings don’t directly reflect the undergrad department but at least you will know it is strong and well known department. Your choices aren’t mediocre ones. And all state schools have some lower performers and higher performers. People know that. Any mediocre people will flush out of the major. Grad ranking is based on peer perception of the dept and research and innovation output. Your current choices

6 UW - Seattle

11 UW - Madison (tied with Caltech, Michigan and UCLA are tied for #13)

20 Purdue

29 NYU

Now you are right that proximity seems to be helpful and I would suggest that there is more going on in Seattle that any on the list, followed by NYC. I know the CS major is a risk but the related major mentioned above could be very good. I have to take a break but I will be back with some Madison info.

42

"I know their opinion is meaningless. But that means I have to give up my country completely. Never return.
And yes, most of the people on the world’s richest lists or people from the new startups or whatever, great things in general are from top colleges.

I am not saying I am better than everyone. I am saying that if I go to a top college, I can be the person of my dreams. Otherwise, I will most likely fail and live an average life."

That’s complete and utter nonsense. Plenty of people who go to “non-top colleges” have perfectly nice lives. What you do with your life is up to you. Stop giving where you go to school so much power over who you are and what you accomplish. Wisconsin is an excellent school. You can be a winner and go to Wisconsin and kick butt, or you can be a loser, go to Wisconsin, whine that it’s not a “better” school and accomplish nothing. The choice is yours.

So what about the people on the “world’s richest lists”? Is that SERIOUSLY your ambition? Or is it simply your ambition to do well and have a nice life? EASILY accomplishable through Wisconsin.

43

If the people in your home country have such poor critical thinking skills that they think that whatever they know about US universities is “truth” and that the world neatly divides into “great college” and “crappy college,” then I can’t imagine that it’s a place that offers a lot of opportunity anyway. That’s old-school thinking, found in places that only wish they had the resources of America.

44

@woogzmama I know that most of my decision lies in the opinions of others, and no matter how much I want to control it, I can’t somehow. I am very relieved to know that UWisconsin-Madison is a respected school.

@Pizzagirl Are you really saying that Berkeley CS grads and Wisconsin CS grads are seen in the same light? I find that hard to believe. Statistically speaking a Berkeley CS grad would be better than a Wisconsin CS grad, it would be illogical to NOT have some sort of prejudice developed in your head.
But yes, if it’s really as you say it is, I am glad to know.

@BrownParent I know right? My hormones are berserk right now. Mostly due to the frustration of seeing my friends with lower scores go to better schools than you, while you realize all your hardwork in high school was kinda pointless and that you could have gotten away with doing nothing too :stuck_out_tongue:

My family can afford my education very well, and this another thing that is contributing to my frustration. I can actually afford a nice education, even the most expensive ones but I can’t even manage to get into a top college :stuck_out_tongue: My parents are giving me all the opportunities I could ever dream of and I am not able to take them.

Also, I don’t care about the rankings at all. I sent my Early Decision to UPenn and UPenn isn’t even in any engineering or computer science rankings. I just want the prestige, that’s all.

I can study a related major a top school, but I will die before studying a random major at the University of Washington. I can study Gender Studies/Philosophy/Anthropology/X useless major at Harvard, but I will not study anything other than Computer Science at a 2nd or lower tier university.

@Pizzagirl Yes of course I want a nice life and yeah maybe I don’t care about being the richest human alive but freezing in the Tundra of the USA for the rest of my life isn’t even close to my definition of a ‘nice life’. If Wisconsin was in California, this thread wouldn’t even exist.

And yeah, even Wisconsin has more opportunities than the best cities of my country so no doubt there whatsoever.

45

“land of equal opportunity and the land where dreams come true”

If you do go to school here, you may be one of the only people in America who believes this. While there is definitely more movement between socio-economic classes here and certainly more opportunity than in other countries…it is not as easy as your statement might lead you to believe. Hard work and luck — and what socio-economic class where you live/where you live/what race you are all play a part.

Best of luck. Keep dreaming and working toward your dream with open eyes.

46

@SevenDad Well I guess, cliche quote in coming, “The grass is always greener on the other side” ? :stuck_out_tongue:

47

@derprage, if you’re not good enough, you probably won’t get through the UW-Madison CS program. I don’t know what it’s like in your home country but

  1. The academic talent in the US is very deep, so you can get a good CS education at many schools.
  2. People (in the US, for the most part) are not stupid and don’t rely on where a person goes to school to tell them whether some person is smart/capable or not. They can ascertain for themselves (pretty quickly) whether someone is smart, creative, driven, skilled, etc. . . . or not.
48

To avoid the embarrassment of having to attend UW-Madison in computer science, the OP could apply to a community college in CA that has transfer agreements into a UC and then transfer after two years. This would also solve the cold weather issue, which presumably only arose after the OP applied to the UW and not before.

49

derprage - The US is a big country, with millions of students finishing high school here every year and many more seeking to attend college here from overseas. Every major state “flagship” university offers an excellent education for motivated students, especially in technical and pre-professional fields. There is little meaningful difference between a school ranked #8, say, and one ranked #18. Those rankings are a scam, designed to sell magazines, and colleges play all sorts of games to artificially improve their rankings. University of Wisconsin has long been considered one of the best public universities in the country. It is pretty meaningless, in a broader context, to obsess over its ranking this year. It might rise or fall a few rungs in the coming years, but that won’t alter the fundamental fact that it is a great university. There’s no getting around the rough weather, but you were willing to allow for that when you applied.

50

@woogzmama I really don’t care that much about rankings as I said earlier. It’s about the name in the prestige and what happens to me after I graduate. If people would treat me well because I am a Wisconsin, Madison graduate then it’s fine. I have no issues.

Btw, How does University of Wisconsin, Madison compare to University of California, Irvine? Like in the reputation game that’s not on any rankings? (UCI beats Wisconsin somehow on US News -___-)

51

I would have said there was no comparison, but I understand that UCI has a strong reputation in certain fields. Wisconsin’s reputation is much longer-standing. I bet most people over 50 (and plenty under 50, too), from outside of CA, would have no opinion of Irvine, but could hum the melody of “On, Wisconsin.” People in the '60s were well aware of its role in the anti-war and student protest movements. It has always had a world-class reputation, which I don’t think UCI has ever had. UCI has better weather, but I think that UW’s overall academic reputation is far superior. I am speaking with no formal expertise, but as a middle-aged product of the “Eastern Establishment.” Had anyone asked me which university had a better reputation, I would have laughed out loud. It is probably different on the West Coast, but UW-Madison has always had a “public Ivy” reputation in my experience.

52

Of course people would think well of you if you’re a UWisconsin/Madison graduate! Or, more accurately, they wouldn’t think poorly of you because you’re a UWI graduate, and would think well of you based on what you did there.
UWI ranks higher than UCI in “reputation” because it’s the state’s flagship, whereas UCI is only a midtier UC that has top-level flagships stacked on top of it. Place UCI in Nevada or Arizona and it’s another story, but the UC system is very, very strong so even if UCI is excellent, it suffers from the competition with the other UCs. UWI is likely closer to UCD or UCSB anyway (UCSD?)

53

Personally, I think that UCI (especially honors) is fine for CS, but UW-Madison would be a school that all the big tech firms recruit.

I don’t know where you get the idea that going to school at Madison makes it difficult to work in CA.

And yes, in the US, people will judge you by your individual merits.

54

UCI has a very good CS program. They have a very large program with quite a lot of professors. They are in CA which makes it convenient to Silicon Beach startup scene.

Madison has a small but present startup scene in CS and engineering. My dd interned in Madison at Google and in SF while she was a UW she also interned at a startup with fortune 500 clients She got her first job through a referral from the startup who worked with the same VC firm as her company. There is a larger software employer, Epic in town. And a Fortune 500 insurance company that funds startups and has a joint venture with microsoft ventures accelerator to finance and mentor startups for smart home technology. There is not nothing happening there and Chicago is also accessible.

I think you may be overlooking Visa issues. You are just presuming you are going to be credentialed to work here. I don’t know all the ins and outs but you will get an F1 visa/OPT credential to work for 12 mos and I think you can get a STEM extension. The legal and paperwork burden for startups to sponsor and hire under H1B seem to be high enough that not that not as many hire that way as at larger established companies. I think there are more H1B visa available to MS holders.

55

@BrownParent Yes damn. I didn’t even consider all that. Wait so if there really is a possibility that I wouldn’t able to work in the USA, then I most certainly would require a degree that is better respected world wide right?

A Wisconsin Degree would be much better for me, because Irvine isn’t well recognized outside the United States at all.

56

This is how it works, typically:
you get your degree, with internships on CPT (use between 3 and 5 months of time), then you get an OPT with extension for about 2 years, during which time you work and earn money, and after a while you apply to Master’s or PHD programs (PHD programs are for students with a BS/BA who need funding, they do their Master’s then decide if they stay on. Many don’t.) Then when you’re done you apply for H1B and this time it’s much easier to get sponsorship.
Your PHD/Master’s will depend on 1° your major subject’s grades 2° your GPA 3° your GRE or GMAT or LSAT scores 4° research accomplished, published, presented at conferences… 5° letters of recommendation about what you’ve accomplished during your time at the university.

Plus, let’s be optimistic, this situation has become so inefficient and unproductive (and costs us so much money because all these people with Master’s that we’ve trained, just end up working for companies that will compete with US companies, when those US companies would have liked to hire them if the process hadn’t been made so incredibly difficult - we’re not talking immigrants with a 10th grade education, we’re talking people who approve of the US lifestyle, embrace US values, and have college and graduate degrees valuable for our economy.) So I’m hopeful this vain loss of money and talent will cause a major shift and there’ll be a relaxing of rules for highly educated students who graduated from US colleges.

57

@myos1634 Are you by chance Eric Schmidt?! He said the exact same things lol

So basically, I NEED a graduate degree to stay back in the USA?
Thanks for all this information btw! Foresight into the future is something I really require at this point.