Williams, Pomona, UC Berkeley, U Mich, Cornell, USC all for CS

http://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2007/toyear/2018/index?all
https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/engineering-doctorate

https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13323/ (see table 2)

Thanks Rintu for your remarks. My son is likely to get Regents! Results out tomorrow at Berkeley. Who knows but as he got so many other confirmed Regents (5 or 6) from the UCs, whose results have been released… I feel that he will be lucky with Berkeley as well. But Regents does not work out to a full tuition/accommodation… for us… I am not sure. We will know tomorrow, hopefully all will be explained… From the initial letter, it looks like they contribute towards tuition and other preferential treatment but not housing costs… unless one applies for additional financial aid.
Michigan … Is it close enough or Cal beats Michigan hands down ( we know about the good weather of coures) but in terms of the CS academic rigor. Cal is closer to Silicon Valley of course. But does that really matter. We are from Cal.
Does having Regents mean anything when applying to grad school for ex. Woujld it be more prestigious than named scholarship in U Mich which includes paid summer research opportunities and cost of trip to Europe for extra studies/internship.

Thanks so much Monydad. Would some of the LACs and the smaller universities have lower numbers just because they have fewer students. I may have some questions … forgive me for being a little slow on the University. I know so little about being a cs major! I have forgotten all my math from so many years ago! But I will study it all.

I meant to say…a little slow in understanding the pros and cons of these University rankings.

My daughter is a Regents at UCB. She has guaranteed housing x 4 years, but its not paid for. Housing and meal plan are very different from tuition because there are so many types of housing with different price tags attached. Someone from another prestigious college told me that the Regents Stamp of top 1 - 2% of academically admitted students from Cal carries quite a bit of weight/prestige equivalent to HYPS graduate.

Monydad I agree Stem is more stressful than others. CS particularly can be stressful in certain schools where there are unfair advantages. I heard from a couple of UC parents. that there are international students that have already completed a degree or taken many of the courses overseas before they came to the US. They are now enrolling in the same courses for a second time or are much better prepared than a new student learning the material for the first time. They shine and outshine the US students unfairly. In the larger and more prestigious schools like Berkeley they might get the plum opportunities. I have to investigate this further on the UC Berkeley page. May be there is enough to go around.

prepped parent. My son will be making up his own mind and he will not be reading this!! So this is for my information only!!! Do you think Regents and CS at Cal which means no housing … thanks for confirming,… would be better than all paid, and trip to Europe covered and paid summer internships etc more from U Mich. Only 15-20 students were offered this merit scholarship out of 60,000 applicants. I think he might be the only CS student. Now Michigan may have other generous scholarships I dont know. Like Regents he never applied, they just called him for an interview for the scholarship. He really does not care about brand name too much … more about the experience and what he is going to learn. He is kind of a low key kid. In this discussion I am trying to weigh in the difference in academics versus the cost. If Regents is hands down so much more prestigious. it is definitely nice for me as a mother. My son is closer to home. But if it is not so much better — then having a different experience in another part o the country and lower cost might make it worthwhile.

worthwhile to consider UMich.

Once again I truly appreciate everyone’s input. My son has how own spreadsheet, at least I can suggest some items to consider and hopefully he will consider more factors when creating his final thoughts. He has yet to go for the UC Berkeley weekend. I think between USC and UMich. He liked U Mich more. but he also was thinking of Pomona. Once he visits Pomona I think he can decide about the merits of the limited but great choices that Pomona offers. He liked the relationship between Williams/MIT and Dartmouth also. One Williams kid finished their CS degree at MIT. So you can get a taste of both environments… the very big and the very small.

"has his own spreadsheet… sorry about the typos.

re #43:
"Would some of the LACs and the smaller universities have lower numbers just because they have fewer students. "

Of course. I only posted #40 & #41 in reference to comments made in #39.
People can read data and decide for themselves whether a given school is or is not “strong enough”, for their purposes.

It is an excellent link. Thank you very much Monydad. Lots to read and I will share this with my son. While he will be the person to decide, fortunately we can have conversations but as long as I am sharing ideas and not weighing in on him, he is a good listener!

I have never heard of a relationship between Williams/MIT/Dartmouth. Wellesley has the MIT relationship where they can take courses and pursue combined engineering/CS, and there are several schools within the 12 school study away semester exchange, including Dartmouth and Amherst, but not Williams. Might be worthwhile noting the specifics of that one student- are you sure they didn’t transfer from Williams to MIT?

Yes… sorry… They did transfer.

But I think Williams arranged it for him.

They have the lines of dialogue open for it to happen. I heard that when I visited Dartmouth that they do get kids from Williams. Whether it is for a term or a permanent transfer I am not sure.

Yesterday more results came out. He also got into a bunch of Ivies. He will be working his spreadsheet and I appreciate everyone’s comments both private and public. Thank you all for taking the time.

@Trishka Can only speak for USC. Kid at Viterbi (MechE) now and I expected to be underwhelmed, but have instead been very impressed. Viterbi seems to get special attention. Kids are very engaged but also very “regular college” kids, which was important to my student. It’s a cooperative environment. Lot’s of the engineering students seem to hang out with each other - but also have friends outside the U. CS in particular has a very decent girl/boy ratio. Viterbi in general is 40% female, which is about the highest in the country. My kid was offered two exceptionally plum internships her sophmore summer, which apparently is rare.

I have to say going in as a sceptic and expecting way more sizzle than steak, I’ve been impressed. It is a lot of work to get the GPA though. Fwiw.

(She picked USC over UMich, but mostly cause she’s a Cali kid and Ann Arbor just seemed too… midwestern! lol. Currently doing a semester in London.)