<p>Thanks guys for all your time. This information has been really helpful. All this advice has just made the college search process a whole lot easier.</p>
<p>That’s why they pay us the BIG money, OP.</p>
<p>Tufts has a highly regarded CS department in a prime location for CS majors (most of the leading CS companies have offices a few miles away in Cambridge accessible via the subway). They emphasize teaching so prior CS experience is not as important as at MIT/Stanford/CMU which are obviously excellent schools, but at those schools you will run into many kids with a few years of prior programming experience. There are no merit scholarships at Tufts, but it meets full need (I attended for less money than my local flagship). Unfortunately, there is no wrestling team at Tufts.
Tufts does consider work experience (of any sort) and community service important for admissions which is somewhat unusual (and may work in your favor). Admissions Test scores tend to be on the high side, but they consider the inherent cultural/economic bias in standardized tests when making evaluations (which also may work in your favor).
Essays are very important at Tufts - are you a good writer ???</p>
<p><a href=“Prospective Students | Department of Computer Science”>Prospective Students | Department of Computer Science;
<p>If you are willing to consider a tech school, WPI has a non-D1 wrestling team, and strong CS and computer engineering with some decent merit awards.</p>