<p>Rank these schools from #1 to #10 for a computer science undergrad.</p>
<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
University of California--Berkeley
University of Washington
University of Illinois--Urbana-Champaign
University of Texas--Austin
Cornell University
Princeton University
California Institute of Technology
Georgia Institute of Technology</p>
<p>That’s basically the top ten, there’s no point in ranking them. All will provide an excellent education and all have excellent reputations. There are subjective differences that might matter to you on an individual basis.</p>
<p>As said above, there’s no point in ranking the education you’ll get at any of those schools. What would be more important to each individual would be personal preferences such as location, size of the school, financial aid, etc. By the way, you might want to try getting accepted to one of these schools before you think about ranking them.</p>
<p>^I disagree. There ARE substantial differences in CS programs.</p>
<p>The only similarity between all those CS programs is that you will get a <em>good education</em> (in the most abstract sense).</p>
<p>There are varying degrees of research opportunity, workload, breadth of courses, CS student culture, special programs available to students, etc… </p>
<p>For example, I’ve heard that Stanford’s workload is less than UC Berkeley’s, which is less than MIT’s, and looking at its catalog, Caltech has fewer CS faculty and slightly less breadth compared to, say, Berkeley or Stanford.</p>
<p>However, I agree that you should try getting in first, and that other factors like quality of life play a much larger role in one’s decision.</p>
<p>^ I don’t think anyone said that there aren’t differences; rather, those differences are of a subjective nature that make general ranking worse than useless.</p>
<p>^How are ALL those differences subjective? (Some certainly are)</p>
<p>It is generally agreed that more research opportunities for undergrads = better.
More breadth of course offerings = better.
More special programs = better.</p>
<p>The only subjective things I listed are workload (some like more, most like less), and CS student culture.</p>
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<p>A given student may be interested in course offerings and research opportunities mainly in particular areas; a school with “more” overall may not be the best in the particular areas of the student’s interest. However, an entering freshman may not have a particular subarea in mind, so good offerings and opportunities in many areas would be desirable for such a student.</p>
<p>This problem is undecidable.</p>