Please rank the following universities based on their computer science program.
Georgia Tech and UT Austin
Rice
Thank you, can you also give an explanation if you have the time?
Texas and Georgia Tech are widely considered top 10 programs. Rice is in an elite private university. These schools attract the best CS students and have nationally known researchers. They attract recruiters from across the country (especially Texas and GT).
Texas A&M is a top Texas public and attracts good students, professors, and recruiting, though it’s not in the same league as the above. UT Dallas is a regional up-coming school with a very good CS program. At Amazon (I did an internship there), there was significant recruiting from UT Dallas (almost the same number of students as from UT Austin). I know many people from these schools who work in my company.
I’ve never heard of anyone from UH Downtown. From the name, it sounds like a regional commuter campus.
UT Dallas is known for their scholarship program as well. If money is an issue and you get a significant merit scholarship from UT Dallas, I’d strongly recommend the school over A&M and maybe even UT. For CS, it shouldn’t hold you back at all from a top graduate school or job (given that you do very well).
Thanks for the input and replying so quickly, what about the honors program for each college? Is there a significant difference between honors at Texas A&M and honors at UT Dallas?
I’m not familiar with the honors programs.
I agree with @frontpage but might move UTD over TAMU. From reading posts from students it seems that TAMU has more “weed out classes” and UTD is more “nurturing”. UTD is a very unique school in that it was started as graduate research school by the founders of Texas Instruments and only recently has included undergrads. UTD and TAMU are wildly different schools, if you are considering them I urge you to visit both!
I showed my techie husband this post and he agreed that he’d either list UTD slightly higher than TAMU or put them equal. He’s worked in the tech world for 20+ years and says he’s never run into someone from UH.
Now if you factor COA (including likely merit if you are a high stats kid) into “best computer program” UTD would raise significantly:-)
@LotOfQuestions from your list I’m guessing that you are in state for Texas?
Thank you for replying, this is very useful information. And yes I am in state for Texas.
If COA is not a major factor, is UT Austin a much better school than UT Dallas for computer science?
@LotOfQuestions
The UTD’s Fast Track program is something you might look into
https://engineering.utdallas.edu/academics/undergraduate-majors/fast-track/
Here’s some info on their honors program:
http://honors.utdallas.edu/cv/
When we toured we found that one of the big perks of of the honors program was the use of the Collegium V Honors lounge. It’s very centrally located, offers free printing and has a library of textbooks.
Thank you. Do you know if there is a best time to tour the university? Is there any specific advantage to any time period?
If cost is not a factor and you can get into the CS program, I would recommend UT Austin over UT Dallas. It’s a better CS program and more widely known. The top CS programs have gotten much more competitive (to get in) these days. I’d say UT Austin CS would be worth some debt, simply because the professors are that well renowned and starting salaries are that high. “Much better” is subjective; I’d not say that.
The best time to tour is when school is in session.