Which colleges should I be looking at?

College Search & Selection
1

Hi all,

I’ve been lurking for a while but this is my first post. Having read thru numerous posts, most advised waiting until your junior year before worrying about college. So now I am a rising junior who will start school in about 4 weeks and I’m wanting to zero in on some top computer science colleges to start considering.

Current stats: 4.0uw GPA 4.5w GPA
33 ACT(8th grade) will take again
PSAT 1450(10th grade)
Class rank 1 of 604 Public HS Florida

8th grade HS credit: Algebra 1 honors, Geometry honors, English 1 honors, Earth/Space honors, Physical science honors

9th grade courses: APHG, English 2 honors, Biology honors, STEM 1(Into to Engineering design), Spanish 2, Algebra 2 honors, Leadership(only freshman admitted/teacher approval only)

10th grade courses: AP World, Spanish 3 honors, Chemistry honors, Pre-Calculus honors, STEM 2(Principles of engineering), AP English, AP Computer Science A, Leadership

11th grade courses: AP US, AP Calculus BC, AP Spanish, AP Lit, Physics honors, STEM 3(Digital electronics), Leadership

12th grade courses: AP micro/macro, AP Physics, STEM 4(EDD), HOPE(graduation requirement) and not sure AP Stats, Linear Algebra or Multivariable Calculus

Awards:

STEM Alliance Scholar 9th grade
Gold Medal Florida Science Olympiad 9th grade(Captain)
TSA Nationals Qualifier Quiz Bowl 9th grade
TSA Nationals Qualifier Quiz Bowl and Computer Coding 10th grade
Honor society
DUKE TIP
Certified Gifted

EC’s/Clubs

Volleyball JV 9th/Varsity 10th Team Captain
Football Varsity 9th/10th Recruited
Class Vice President 10th grade
Class President 11th grade
TSA(Technology Student Association)
FCA
Longhorn Leadership
Approximately 200 volunteer hours(Tutoring, Church, fundraising and coordinating school events)

Florida resident. Parents make < $60,000 but pretty high assets I have a Florida prepaid scholarship to help pay if OOS. Also $4500 in scholarships so far. I am looking for a top CS school but I plan to also play football in college. I would have to consider not playing if it meant getting into a top program. I plan to get my bachelor’s degree and then enter the work force so no cost for Graduate to consider. I have run the NPC for some top schools and would come out to around $9600 per year which would mostly be covered by the FPP so that’s not a factor. If I choose to attend some public schools such as UF I would enter with about 60 credits and should also be qualified for Bright Futures.

I have been able to attend quite a few colleges to get an idea of feel/fit: UF, UCF, FAU, FIT, UNLV, Duke, Cornell, Dartmouth, Princeton, UPENN, Yale, MIT and Harvard. I feel Princeton and Dartmouth to be more of what I’m looking for in undergrad teaching, size and area so far. I am unsure at this point whether I’m leaning towards theory or AI.

2

You should look at Georgia Tech, Rice, UT Austin (might have chance to work with NASA CSR here) Michigan, Northeastern, Harvey Mudd, and Illinois (Urbana Champaign). A lot of public schools have scholarships including full rides or full tuition. If you do well on the PSAT this year that can open up a lot of free rides and partial scholarships as well (Northeastern gives 30k). Southern schools (like GA Tech and UT Austin) are going to be great for football, scholarships for football and academics and (at some anyways) CS. If you are worried about not getting enough financial aid you should check out raise.me. You can earn guaranteed minimum scholarships/aid at schools for grades, scores and extracurriculars.

3

@smoak18 has some good suggestions above, but I’m not sure if it will be applicable given how good of an option financially and fit wise you seem to have with UF, where it would be a very safe match. I don’t know of a better public option that will beat that in academics and price overall, since many public schools don’t offer amazing FA to OOS students.

If I were you, I would focus on private’s and run lots of NPC’s to pick a possible list. Apply to a good volume of top CS private schools and hope for the best financial aid possible - the more the better there. You can also try to negotiate FA with competing schools.

Regardless, you’ve got a great situation for sure. Don’t be afraid to put out some hail mary apps to top CS schools, which you seem to be doing somewhat based on your listed schools.

Seconding Harvey Mudd, Rice, and Northeastern (though it doesn’t have a varsity football team). The public’s listed are great options but are unlikely to be affordable even if you get in. Double check for scholarships from those, but I don’t think those offer any huge ones.

Stanford is always a huge reach, but I would put in an app there if you have time, over some of the ivy’s listed there. Yale/Harvard are good schools but not as good for an undergraduate going into industry for CS. Brown also seems oddly missing, which I would say is one of the top options for CS within the ivy’s, particularly for an undergraduate.

If you aren’t planning to go to graduate school, theory won’t be that useful in the end. I’m also guessing you know CS is much bigger than theory or AI but just double checking cause of the wording there. AI would probably be a good move right now for someone entering the workforce between those two, but your concentration is very likely to change over time given that you won’t graduate for 6 more years, so I wouldn’t worry about that too much.

Good luck!

4

@smoak18 I’ll check those out

@PengsPhils Just to clarify, I have been able to visit the schools above in regards to football not necessarily with CS in mind. The reason I was looking at TCS as a subset was because I am very strong in math and AI seems to be another interesting subset. You might indeed be correct that my concentration may change over time. I do hope however that I can graduate 4 years from now at certain schools where I can enter with about 60 credits at say UF. A good friend of my father has “promised” me a position at Oracle as a SD if I graduate from a top CS school but I’ll take that with a grain of salt and not bank on it.
As a side note I do hope to visit Stanford, CAL, UCLA and USC next summer as well so I’ll get a feel for them as well. If I understand correctly Stanford would be the only one to offer FA of the 4 unless it’s for football.

5

Frankly, if you can get into a top CS school and do well, I think you’ll have better offers than Oracle.

USC should offer you FA, though it’s relatively stingy.

Even with tons of credits coming in, graduating in 2 years for CS will be close to impossible due to the sequencing of classes and the workload you could expect at these schools. Nor would I recommend that in general if it’s affordable to stay. 3 years is more realistic if you’re really keen on graduating early.

6

CS doesn’t get better than Carnegie-Mellon, which also has a D3 football team. My son’s friend will be attending in the fall and got in because of the football. It’s definitely a reach, but if you’re a good player it will definitely give you a hook.

7

@PengsPhils Thank you for that and I will adjust my goal to a minimum of 3 years. As for Oracle I don’t really know too much about the company but what appealed to me was the ability to be able to work from home and live anywhere instead of having to be in California say. He lives in nowhere Maine and has plenty of free time and leeway with his job.
If I may ask you 2 questions. First is regarding the UF. I know it is the best college in the state but I’m not too familiar with their CS program. They are ranked somewhere in the 40’s I believe but seem to be a bit higher in CS undergrad ranking. Do you know anything about the program? Also you mentioned that I should consider Brown as well. Again I’m not familiar with their program vs other top schools. What makes them a better option in the Ivy league as opposed to say Cornell or Princeton?

@NJWrestlingmom Carnegie Mellon is 1 of the schools recruiting me and I am interested in attending. I haven’t had the opportunity to visit but outside of CS I haven’t seen many good things in regards to location, male to female ratios, dorms, and vibe overall. I would be very interested in knowing how your son’s friend feels after having been there.

8

You should look at Rollins College and Emory. Although they may be a bit small for you.

9

@Luska19 interesting, because I’ve heard nothing but great things about the Pittsburgh area! He was originally was looking at Pitt, before being recruited by Carnegie and loved the area. He very nearly chose U of Rochester until he did his campus visit to CMU, met the players and did an overnight. I do have another friend whose son just graduated from CMU, and was a 4 year football player. They had nothing but positives to say about the school and the football coaches. Personally, it wasn’t on my son’s radar so I have no first hand knowledge.

10

@Luska19 I should also mention CMU ended up being his cheapest option as well!

11

@Luska19

Oracle is considered a bit of a dated tech firm, a bit more on the corporate/bureaucratic side compared to say a Google / Amazon, but still obviously a great option. Many tech jobs will offer to work remotely or from home, so I wouldn’t be too concerned with that either.

I can’t speak to the specifics of UF’s program, but I grew up in Florida and can speak to the reputation beyond the state, in CS, etc. It’s certainly not a research powerhouse, but that won’t be too relevant for you since you’re planning to go into industry. One thing to note is that UF CS grads tend to stay local and in the south rather than going to California or another big city like Seattle/NYC/Boston/Chicago. I have worked and spent time in many of these cities and can’t recall ever running into a UF CS grad, but the company I worked at in FL was about half UF. So consider that with your future plans, as UF’s strength is particularly regional.

Brown’s CS program is very undergraduate focused as well as software development focused. If you read the essay below, it details how it’s unique, and lists some other schools using it. Full disclosure, I go to Northeastern and have a bit of bias there obviously, but I have shown this to coworkers and students at other schools time and time again, and most expressed a wish that their school had used it.

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/matthias/Thoughts/Growing_a_Programmer.html

While some Ivies are good in this regard, many are much more research focused and you may find that it means the curriculum doesn’t prepare you as well for the industry. In CS, Ivy reputation doesn’t mean that much either, so I usually don’t recommend ivy’s for CS, particularly for someone going into industry. Brown and Cornell (more practically focused) are ones I see as exceptions and Penn for someone looking to work in CS on Wall St.

CMU seems like the perfect option here, as they have a huge name in CS, will get you anywhere you want to go, and have the D3 football team you’d be looking for. I can’t speak directly to the student experience, but I know quite a few CMU grads and haven’t ever heard complaints about their time there.

12

^^^all great insight…just one small minor point.

These are BIG cities, so it’s not surprising that you’ve not run into any. However over 1/2 of UF’s alumni engineers work outside of the state. Time for fun with LinkedIn!

The top 10 employers for UF Alumni Engineers.

  1. UF (not surprising when you consider all of the grad students, who would be listed in LinkedIn).
  2. Intel Corporation
  3. Microsoft
  4. Lockheed Martin
  5. Amazon
  6. IBM
  7. Harris Corp
  8. Google
  9. Northrop Grumman
  10. Qualcomm

The 2nd most popular area to live in for Gator Engineers, is the San Francisco area, ahead of Orlando, Tampa/St. Pete and the Miami/Fort Lauderdale areas.

To put it into perspective, UC San Diego has 17,084 engineering alumni in LinkedIn, with 3,843 living in the San Fran area and 578 living in the greater Seattle area. UF has 19,344 engineering alumni in LinkedIn, with 1,590 living in the San Fran area and 869 living in the greater Seattle area. More Gator engineers can be found working at Intel, Microsoft, Amazon and IBM (more UC-SD Alumni work at Google).

Many CS majors will stay in the region, but UF is nationally recruited, so you will have the option of pursuing something out of the state/region.

Here’s a link to last Fall’s career fair. You can search through the list and get an idea of the companies that recruit at UF.
https://ufl-csm.symplicity.com/events/students.php

13

@PengsPhils Very insightful thank you. Seems like a great program and WPI is another consideration.

@Gator88NE How does the UF CS undergrad program stack up vs other top schools?

14

@Gator88NE

Engineering and CS are not synonymous, particularly for UF’s case in my experience. Amazon does not even hire CS from UF as listed in its own career fair despite the number of people indeed there according to Linkedin. Most of those companies in that list are not listed for software jobs except for Intel, Lockheed, and Harris.

I’m not saying just running them into the city - I’m talking the CS industry. I worked at one of those big companies at the likes of the above - nearly half of my 20-30 person team was CMU, and none from UF. While UF’s numbers are decently represented, it’s not at the level of the top CS schools like CMU, Stanford, etc. Linkedin says CMU has 10x the software engineers at Google, for example. That’s before even considering the size difference of both programs.

Usually that distinction isn’t relevant, as comparing most schools to top CS options will yield similar results, but OP is specifically asking to compare to top options, which he does seem to have a chance at. Overall though you’re right, I very much did misjudge on how many UF developers go outside of the region.

If you look here, you’ll find pretty good data on the top silicon valley feeders (which more or less correlates to CS reputation these days) by schools under “The 25 Most Likely New-Grad Job Placements In 2017 Tech”. A lot of schools mentioned in this thread are on it, but UF isn’t (in fact, UCF is listed before it but likely is due to size which I don’t think is accounted for. Still, UF has a size advantage over most listed). Unsure if they are just off the edge, but that gives some better comparative scope.

Schools Included, in order: Stanford, CMU, Georgia Tech, USC, UT-Austin, UIUC, Cornell, MIT, UMichigan, Northeastern, UCF

https://hiringsolved.com/blog/hiringsolved-identifies-top-skills-backgrounds-make-2017s-wanted-tech-employee/

15

@Luska19 WPI is probably a great safety for you minus the financial part - it all depends on their aid. It’s a great school though - was my second choice likely myself.

16

@PengsPhils Great information, thanks. I will be certified in Java but I’m a little confused by the link. For top 10 skills they list Python as 1 and Java 2 with C+++ not even listed but just below in the chart showing which skills are best indicators of success for job placement Python again is 1 but C+++ is listed as 2 so why the discrepancy? Should I seek to become proficient in Python or what would you recommend going forward?

17

@PengsPhils Agreed, I think it’s more Computer Engineering, than CS, that’s being recruited. :slight_smile:

18

@Luska19

I wouldn’t pay attention to that part of the link too much. All it’s tracking is the popularity of languages in industry - you can find jobs in many of those languages, and that list will maybe ever so slightly correlate to the number of jobs out there for them. C++ may exhibit that pattern because while it is still a useful language in some cases, it’s a much older one that adds complexity that most projects don’t need these days. Many colleges still use it though. No one would use C++ regularly to build a website, but it’s used where efficiency is very important like in graphics and anything that runs close to the OS. I actually worked it in exclusively in my last job by chance, but don’t plan on working with it soon again.

As you take CS courses in college, you’ll learn that the language doesn’t really matter in the end. As discussed in that link to the Northeastern/Brown program, it’s not about the most fashionable programming language of the time but instead about the general CS concepts that apply to all languages. A good programmer learns the core concepts and how languages work and uses them to quickly learn any language. Consider it getting a fish vs learning to fish.

19

@PengsPhils The fishing analogy paints a clear picture, thanks. Sorry to ask so many questions but what is your opinion or do you know much about RPI? They have been one of the strongest in terms of recruiting persistence.

20

bump