Where would be the best place for me to go majoring in Computer Science?

College Majors Math/Computer Science Majors
1

I’m a junior in high school and based on my interests/thinking right now, I’m most likely going to major in computer science. These are the colleges that I’m considering applying to:

Carnegie Mellon University
University of Pittsburgh
Northwestern
Yale
UC Berkeley
UCLA
Stanford
Boston University

Pitt and BU are more of safety schools which I’m applying to just cause I really like Boston and I live in Pittsburgh and I’m interested in Yale because my brother went there and I love the campus, but I’m more interested in the rest listed. From what I gather, CMU, UCLA, Berkeley, and Stanford would definitely be the best for computer science, but what about Northwestern? I know it’s not top ranked in computer science, but would it offer a good program? For example, if I were to get into CMU school of CS and into Northwestern school of engineering with the purpose of majoring in cs, would choosing Northwestern put me at a disadvantage in the field? I really like Chicago and the atmosphere/campus of Northwestern, and since I live in pgh, which CMU is in, I kinda want to leave the city. Since Northwestern is on the quarter system, it would also be a lot easier to major and minor which would be good for me. Along with CS I really want to double major or minor in either astrophysics or cognitive or neuro science, and logistically doing so would be easiest at Northwestern.

Also how do the three in California compare to each other cs wise and general experience wise? I’ve heard Berkeley and UCLA have huge class sizes since they’re public schools, which I don’t know how I feel about. I guess I’m just trying to get a feel for the differences in the top CS programs and if going to a top CS program makes a large difference from going to a really good one.

If it makes any difference I’m most interested in theory, super intelligence, and robotics. Any advice would help!

2

There is just no point in speculating which one to attend until you have offers of admission and know the costs. This is a short enough list you can just apply to all of them, and worry about choosing when the time comes.

3

Established rankings for undegraduate computer science programs do not exist to the best of my knowledge, nor would they be a good idea in my opinion. However, for a range of schools that happen to be strong in CS, this article can suggest further options such as Harvey Mudd and Georgia Tech:

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4546120

4

@merc81 how does that article suggest a “a range of schools that happen to be strong in CS”?

Just because a school has “more computers than undergraduate” does not mean they have a stellar computer science program…

5

  1. Find out how much your parents can pay/year for college? Are you eligible for need-based aid and/or merit aid?
    If you are not in-state for California schools, they will cost you close to full price at $60K/year, so just do not pick a school if they have a good CS program. No point in applying if the school is unaffordable.

  2. Run the Net Price Calculator on each school of interest and run the numbers by your parents for input.

  3. You can use Graduate rankings as a basis for determining if the CS programs are well respected, but also take a look at the CS curriculum to see if these schools offer your areas of interest.

  4. Class sizes will be large in public universities, so you might also want to consider some private schools such as Harvey Mudd and Santa Clara in California. You could have a better chance at FA.

Just remember to apply to a wide variety of schools since college admissions can be unpredictable. Having competitive stats are not always enough to get into these top schools.

Best of luck.

6

@audblock

All of these schools are very hard to get into. BU and Pitt are hard to call safeties for anyone. As far as your list, getting in for CS will be even tougher for many. I would look at more midrange CS schools to add to your list.

As far as Northwestern goes, it’s not in the tier of CMU/Stanford/UCB/UCLA when it comes to CS reputation. After those very few “tippy top programs”, there are a lot of other schools in the tier below that are great for CS. I’ll come back to this in a second.

Are you planning to go into industry or academia? If you’re going for academia, paying attention to the top CS schools makes more sense. However, generally in CS but particularly in industry, the field is mainly about your abilities and connections to a lesser extent. The big name schools get your foot in the door, but there are other ways to do that as well. Finding a better fit can often be more important that being a big research powerhouse.

You touch on that with the question about the experience as a student at those in CA. They will have bigger class sizes and getting the classes you need could be difficult, depending on a variety of factors. I don’t think you need specifics quite yet, so I’ll spare those, but @ucbalumnus knows that area well if you really want to know all the ins and outs. Fit can be an important factor, so don’t get blinded by ranks if you really wouldn’t fit or learn well at a certain school. So, if Northwestern is really that good of a fit, it will be absolutely fine for CS. They’re investing in the department there as well, so it’s only going to get better. It’s a lot more student focused when compared to many impersonal research powerhouses.

The suggestion of Harvey Mudd (despite the link having little relevance) is another reach but would be a great example of both high ranking and student focused CS. I think the bigger problem is that you need more matches, not reaches though. Consider swapping in Harvey Mudd for one of your other reaches if you’re looking for a better fit. That said, Harvey Mudd’s acceptance rate for CS is very low, in the range of 10% or so.

If you’re looking for student focused CS in Boston and are going the industry route (co-op program school), check out Northeastern, which actually developed and maintains a teaching language and program used by many programs. It also has lots of combined majors with that flexibility Northwestern has. Northwestern I believe uses it now even.

@Jpgranier The irrelevance of that link has been pointed out several times to him by at least three posters now.

Here’s the time I confronted him on it, so you can see his reasoning: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/20383138#Comment_20383138

That link has been posted by him 5 more times in the past month, despite being sponsored content for a banned site on CC and having absolutely zero methodology.

7

No it wouldn’t, but several on the list “happen to,” which is what I specified.

The general point of my having posted the article, which discusses computer science programs and outcomes in the context of facilities was to introduce the OP to programs he may not have considered such as HMC (easily one of the top ten in the nation), while perhaps suggesting that schools with 1000+ student lecture classes may not be the best places for the undergraduate study of CS.

Note, the OP can read past my posts if he prefers the contributions of @Jpgranier and @PengsPhils. However, you both appear to be doing the OP a disservice by suggesting that this student, still a junior, limit his college search based upon the exact methodology you, as posters, deem worthy. As that goes, graduate department rankings seem to surface repeatedly on CC, which I personally regard as a generally counter-productive tool for selecting undergraduate schools – and which appear to have been a limiting distraction for @audblock, at least until this point.

8

@merc81

I don’t know why you’re going on this crusade of using a bad source to badly make what is a very good point. Nothing in my post disagrees with yours. In fact, again, we are in agreement. It doesn’t appear that you really read my post.

Like what I said:

I don’t see where I suggest anything different than you and “do the OP a disservice”.

So we’re going to ignore that my post discusses teaching strategy of undergraduate schools, the difference between CS in academics and industry when it comes to CS reputation, and again, directly discusses fit versus reputation?

How is all of that “counterproductive” while your post can simply be read past. Again, why the crusade?

Facilities mentioned in the post have absolutely zero effect on learning in CS or the CS programs themselves. All you need to practice CS really is a single computer for yourself (student owned), an internet connection, and a classroom. From there, the difference is knowledge, whether it be professors teaching or working with their research. How many computers on campus makes no difference.

9

@PengsPhils : I’ve been reluctant to consider your posts because, whether you realize it or not, words like “crusade” and “pointed out” and “badly make” tend to be patently offensive (And how could you not realize this?). Nor have you worked to build consensus on a sub-topic we do tend to agree on in some aspects. Nonetheless, links can add color and description and ideas for actual schools. Your caveats regarding the link under discussion should not come with the assumption that I fully endorse every aspect of it.

That said, if the OP were to ultimately select HMC, for example, that suggestion may have in fact originated with a tangential link. If so, the potential benefits of that would far outweigh any issues related to the link’s methodology.

10

@PengsPhils I’m fairly certain I would get into Pitt; the majority of kids get from my high school apply there and get in and I’m at the top of my class. Not to make it sound like I think Pitt is beneath me, I’d end up being really happy going there but they don’t have a particularly strong CS program so not my first choice. I am obviously aware that the rest of the colleges I listed are considered reaches for pretty much everyone, so I’m far from guaranteed admission. Can you suggest any schools with good CS programs that would be more midrange?

11

@merc81 I agree that getting a consensus on the subtopic would be helpful, but I think your language choices in your posts also create the same offensiveness and combativeness too with implying that helpful posts are doing the OP a disservice, as well as even calling them a “distraction”. That’s not a way to generate a discussion and consensus on the subtopic.

I really do want to sort this out, because personally, I feel that your line of reasoning is what’s doing the disservice to the subtopic. It’s frankly a bit insulting to the topic of CS to imply that list has any relevance, which no matter how you introduce it, creates that implication that many take issue with.

This is becoming much too long of a tangent, so I’m typing up a private message and really do want to see this come to consensus :slight_smile: Hopefully the tangent was useful for the OP in addition to the prior actually relevant posts.

12

@audblock

If you’re interested in tech schools, RPI, WPI, and RIT have varying ranges of programs and admissions standards, but would all be better than Pitt in my opinion. They also will offer those closer professors interactions and smaller class sizes, and would be good for both academia and industry. Note, RIT is a co-op school as well, and RPI has an optional program that’s popular.

Could you answer some of the questions about industry versus academia? Do you plan to go to grad school?

13

@PengsPhils I’m not completely sure, but I think I’m more interested in industry. As far as grad school, that’s something I’ll decide later on when I’ve figured out more of where I’m going/what I want to get out of the field.

14

I think the tech schools above are great options then all things considered for your case, so long as they fit socially as well. They’re certainly a bit nerdier and have imbalanced gender ratios.

UMass Amherst is another school known for its research, but it will offer smaller class sizes or at least more personalized attention than some of the more impacted CA schools. The intro classes will still be quite large, though.

15

@PengsPhils going off of the imbalanced gender ratios, how much is this present in CS majors? I know it’s pretty male dominated, but how imbalanced it is really? I’m a girl, and I’m fine with being the minority, but will I be the only girl or one of a couple in most of my classes?

16

@audblock

In most programs, it is very present unfortunately. You won’t likely be the only girl in a class ever, but in a smaller upper division class, it wouldn’t be uncommon to be one of 3-5. The percentage will be a bit higher in introductory courses, which also includes people taking minors and the class as a general elective.

Harvey Mudd has specifically tried to tackle this, and tries (and succeeds) at getting about a 50/50 CS ratio. Being a girl will actually help your chances there since they get many more male applicants. I would strongly suggest applying if you’d be interested in that environment, as you won’t find much like it anywhere else.

At this point, a lot of departments are trying to work against this, but none have been nearly as effective as Mudd. As you get closer to deciding on schools, it’s something to look into for each department specifically.

The industry as a whole suffers from this. This article is a good summary, but also highlights a lot of the bad sides of the field. Don’t let it discourage you, but it’s something that awareness can help with.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/why-is-silicon-valley-so-awful-to-women/517788/

17

Actually, Carnegie Mellon has close to a 50/50 gender ratio now in the current freshmen.
By the time you apply, it shouldn’t be a problem there.

18

Harvey Mudd is also really supportive of women in computing.

Take a look at women’s colleges such as Smith and Wellesley. At Smith you can cross enroll at UMASS, and I believe Wellesley cross enroll a with MIT.

I know someone who graduated from Tufts computer science. I don’t know what its current culture is but it is something to consider.

19

Couple brief comments for Northwestern:

  1. Northwestern does have co-op for its engineering school. It fact, it's well established and has been around since 1940s. About 1/3 participate (some prefer regular summer internships because they don't want to commit to one or two employers or they don't like the schedule of alternating academic and work terms, some pursue academic research, some plan to go into business consulting, etc).
  2. CS program is undergoing a major expansion. https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2016/06/major-expansion-in-computer-science/
20

For class sizes, you can try online class schedules. Expect CS class sizes to be large due to the popularity of the major. E.g. over 1,000 for CS 61A at UCB and over 700 for CS 106A at Stanford.