I’m not recommending CMU as a liberal arts school, but he’d also find plenty of people who not just like him if he went looking - they give out liberal arts degrees and also have undergrad degrees in art, architecture, drama and music. You may have to make a little more of an effort to seek them out, but they are there - in dorms, in clubs, in half your classes etc. That said it’s the sort of school where an awful lot of people already know what they want to be when they grow up. It has a different vibe than most midsize research universities like H, Y, P or the smaller LACs.
In my experience there are no real matches for high stat kids. For safeties you generally have to compromise on something. If you compromise on size look at honors programs at the big state unis. If you compromise on fit - look at the smaller tech schools. If you compromise on the perceived intellectual quality of your peers, you can look at any of the next tier of LACs. There are lots of threads on CC about LACs with decent comp sci and just which courses you need to look for to make sure the program is adequate. For my oldest the most important thing was to have kids around him who were as smart or smarter than he was. He wanted to go somewhere where gifted CS students would be “thick on the ground”. Good luck with the search!
Have you looked at New College of FL or College of Charleston? Both are public universities with a LAC feel. Your son would likely get in-state tuition plus additional merit at CofC.
I probably wouldn’t pick either over UCF for CS due to the strength of UCF’s program and the fact that with UCF you also put Computer Engineering and many other options on the table. But those are options if you son doesn’t feel that UCF is a good match.
CMU would be a good reach to consider (5% admission rate into their CS program). If you go to tour, also take a look at Pitt. Pitt’s merit aid has been a bit erratic over the last couple years, but from what I’ve seen this year his stats could get him a pretty nice merit package ($15-20K per year).
This is what I read between the lines @momofdom that he might be interested in the LAC environment.
People here are pretty good at knowing who has good merit but here are a few LAC type places that have CS and might have merit: Grinnell, Centre, Emory, Lehigh, Rhodes, College of Wooster for a start.
You missed Penn State, which did as well as UCF in 2017. In 2016, Harvard was the highest ranked US college (3rd place). In 2015 Berkeley was best in US (6th place) . In 2014, NYU was best in US (13th place). In 2013, CMU was best in US (11th place). Etc.
Who knows how much effort and resources that few schools that chose to participate put in? Who knows how much of the result depends on random luck about the particular questions? Who knows how reflective the few students who participate in such contests are of the full student body and/or strength of the CS teaching, resources, and employment success? It’s silly to base college selection on whoever happened to win an arbitrary CS contest in one particularly year… especially a contest that only ~20 US schools even participate in.
I’ve known 2 fl kids who went to Rollins for free. UMiami can also be free. They have a calculator to determine what scores and Gpa are, and how much merit aid u receive.
Your son might also like someplace like Washington university of St. Louis. A mid size research university that will have a range of students. Slightly less selective than HYP etc or the tippy top CS programs like CMU. My nephew is a freshman comp science / systems engineering major there. He chose it over u of Washington direct admit for cs even though UW is one of tippy top, highly competitive cs programs. He preferred the campus vibe and smaller size. Wash U has some competitive merit and is known for liking high stats. You would have to run npc to see whether FA would be adequate without merit. Or for places lower than wustl on selectivity scale you could look at u of Rochester or case western reserve university. Both offer merit aid but both have high sticker costs to start. Depends on your budget/what you are willing to pay. Different part of country than Florida if that’s what son is looking for.
Did did you look at Miami of Ohio or University of Virginia or Virginia Tech-the “public Ivy’s”? From what you describe Miami of Ohio might be a good match but they are all well worth considering.
@momofdom Curious to know what his counselor at school recommended. Other LACs to consider would be Haverford by Penn and the consortium of Claremont Colleges near Los Angeles.
You can expect variation in net prices (despite the “meet need” claim) so do run the online NPCs on any that interest you. Also check the online course listings to see if they offer enough CS courses to meet your expectations.
Case Western and the University of Rochester are two somewhat larger schools that seem to be popular as “target” back-ups for Ivy applicants. Case Western claims to meet only 86% of demonstrated need on average (per 2016-17 CDS) but is relatively generous with merit scholarships, compared to many other selective private universities.
IMO, for a high-stats prospective CS major aiming for top schools like MIT or the Ivies, some of the best target/safety alternatives (for quality and net price) are likely to be found among in-state public universities. If you’d prefer a LAC, check out New College of Florida.
Wake Forest and Case Western are pretty much exactly the same size at the undergraduate level, and Rochester isn’t much bigger. CWR and Rochester do have bigger grad programs than Wake Forest, but they are all in what seems to be the private research university undergraduate sweet spot of 1,250 - 1,600 per class. The other colleges on @tk21769 's list are meaningfully smaller, ~500-700 per class.
My son was very similar in stats and was also a CS major going into college (he changed his mind later on). There are two different sides to CS, however, so that’s something to consider. You’ll notice that in some schools, the CS department is found in the engineering school (such as Princeton), and in others, it’s in the liberal arts. You can be interested in the software or the hardware. DS wanted nothing to do with the hardware and was only interested in programming and applications. He was very interested in game design, although he ended up at a school that did not have any studies in that area.
I would say that all the Ivies are reaches - my son applied to 4 and was turned down at all of them, including the one he applied ED. He was left with only his safeties and one match school after applying to 9 colleges.
I would suggest that your son apply to at least 10 schools, especially if he’s going to apply to the Ivies. Male students going into CS are a dime a dozen, unfortunately, so be prepared for a lot of denials, just in case.
Case has been very generous (if you can believe the parents) with high stats kids without need or only modest need in my neck of the woods. The kids coming out of the CS programs have done very, very well (this I can attest to- not just parental bragging). Top grad programs, excellent jobs with terrific employers (not just the midwest- companies recruit from all over the country) and a kid at a start up who might be his “cohort’s” first self-made millionaire (some genetic/CS/modeling thing which sounds incredibly exciting).
Agree that Rochester and Wake are good mid-sized options.
@tk21769 FYI Case claims to meet 100% of need as of the current first year class ('started fall '17). I’d be really interested to see how that worked out for people as they came nowhere near meeting need for D in '15.
Bates (mentioned by @tk21769 in post #30) is in an interesting position when it comes to computer science. They recently launched a new Digital and Computational Studies program funded in part by a $19 million group donation from a group of alumni. It’s meant to be interdisciplinary and forward looking, with CS profs embedded in departments beyond the DCS department. In the words of someone involved in the donation, “Our advantage is that we won’t be weighed down by tenured faculty who have been teaching the same old Fortran and Cobol courses for the last 30 years.” DCS will become a major this fall. My sense is that a kid willing to grow with the program would be very attractive to Bates.
It’s not a coincidence that Case switched to a need aware admissions policy at the same time they claimed to meet 100% of need. I wouldn’t count on the OP getting admitted to Case, if he needs a lot of FA.
Also, beware of “safeties” that use level of applicant’s interest. “Overqualified” applicants must convince such schools that they are high choices, not last resort schools.
Reed College now has a computer science major: http://www.reed.edu/computer-science/. It has produced many graduates who’ve gone into the field in previous decades. It’s very strong in math, physics, biology, math, the humanities, and just about every major discipline.
Confession: I attended Reed several decades ago. I got a tremendous education there, majored in social sciences. But Reed is a liberal arts college that produces a significant number of graduates who go on to doctoral programs: https://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html. If your son is interested in a fundamentally solid education in humanities, social sciences, or sciences, Reed’s worth his consideration. His numbers would make him an almost assured admit.
For LAC’s check out Union College (NY). they advertise as "Liberal Arts + Engineering.’ Not sure about merit. University of Rochester is also excellent, and def offers merit.