Neither Washington nor UCSD is a good choice if you are interested in CS but do not have direct admission to the CS major, since it is very hard to change into the CS major after enrolling.
Barnard may be ideal for some students who want the small class sizes and community of a LAC, but easy access to the expanded course offerings of a larger university (Columbia).
For typical high school students, it lacks immediate utility to have heard of Williams. Few would meet the criteria for admission.
By basic description, UCB is a big public university. However, some of the attributes you seek will be best matched in such an environment.
Update to all of my personal consultants: Tufts is now an option! Thoughts???
Congratulations! I definitely feel that Tufts is right up there with Williams and Berkeley, and is worth very seriously considering. It is of course somewhere in the middle in size.
Also let me know if you want to know more about Medford / Somerville. I used to live relatively close to Tufts.
I think that you should consider Williams over UC Berkeley.
One of the posters above provided a wonderful list of pros & cons of each school.
If you were my kid and you were asking me which school to attend and $$ was not an issue AND you were at ALL considering med school or health sciences field for grad school, I would be telling you to go to Williams instead of UCB.
@spicyskinny, I’m probably this board’s longest running Williams booster, but I always end my litany of praises with a caveat. Williams’ insular mountain environment isn’t for everyone. Visit and trust your gut reaction. As I’ve said many times on this board, in my observation, the students who are happiest at Williams are there because of its size and location, not in spite of it.
My son had a wonderful four years at Williams and has continued to benefit from the payback in the form of career and graduate school advising, job placement, letters of recommendation and most importantly warm memories and a cadre of life long friends. He took advantage the access to outdoorsy activities, took a couple of tutorials and looked forward to Winter Study every year. He greatly benefited from Williams’ first year “entry” residence system in which a group of freshmen live together bolstered by resident advisors, on hand to provide advice serious and mundane. This makes for an instant social group.
Most students manage to get to Boston or New York once or twice a term, either as part of an academic event or social affair. Many travel abroad during junior year or Winter Study.
I’m a graduate of the University of Michigan. And while the mega-sized university wasn’t the best fit for the person I was at the time, over the years I’ve benefited widely from UMich’s global reputation. My son on the other hand has had to endure a lot of blank stares from the 99.9% of the world population who have never heard of Williams. This no longer bothers him because the adcoms of top graduate schools and many colleagues in his field know and respect Williams. But if it’s an issue for you, be prepared.
Williams has a very good computer science department. Of course it’s not on the scale of that of a major university, but its graduates do well in job placement. Williams also has excellent medical school advising and admissions track record.
Your comment about the expectation that you would study medicine reminds me of a Williams classmate of my son’s: Their father and brothers are doctors, surgeons. They did all the pre-med course load then at the last minute applied and were accepted to a top law school. Last heard, career satisfaction ensued.
The lesson is it’s okay to be undecided about your ultimate career. At a school like Williams, you will be encouraged to experiment in different disciplines (actually forced by distribution requirements). About 40% double-major often in disparate areas. As you progress through academic exposure, networking, advising and summer internships, your career path will become clear. Slow down and enjoy the opportunity.
I’d like to say a word about Williams Oxford style tutorials. The tutorial is open to 10 students, 5 sets of 2, who meet with the professor every week. On alternating weeks Student 1 presents a paper for discussion by Student 2 and the professor. The following week Student 2 presents. Although the format is best suited to verbal focused disciplines, they are offered in every major, including computer science and quantitative fields like math, though not in every area, every year. My son took a painting tutorial in which the students presented and discussed their original artwork, including portraits of each other.
I know you’re still conflicted on what you want to pursue, but thought I’d help flesh out some of the engineering side of things.
From what you’ve described — building out the parts of the site people interact with, thinking about design/UX, focusing on the look and feel — it seems like (of the various software engineering options out there) you’d likely be most interested in front-end engineering. FE engineers are mostly working with JavaScript or TypeScript, HTML, CSS, and almost always with some sort of JS framework (usually React).
Although undergraduate programs aren’t usually focused on those particular aspects of developing software — they might have a few electives on topics around Human Computer Interaction, or React; most of your learning about good FE engineering practices would probably come from outside-of-class work — having a CS major would still be helpful if that’s a field you want to go into, and especially if you’re interested in working at companies like Google. First, the topics you study will be relevant, and will help you learn how to think like an engineer. Second, the work you do studying algorithms and data structures can come in handy when interviewing, especially at the FAANGs (Facebook/Amazon/Apple/Netflix/Google) or similar companies. Third, you’ll be in an engineering culture and summer internship pipeline that’ll help when looking for opportunities.
Here are three example frontend jobs, so you can get a feel for what that kind of job entails:
I’m not sure if these will appeal to you or not, but (as an FE myself) I think they’re pretty representative of that type of work.
I’m really glad to hear you’ll be going to the on-campus events at the various schools. When you’re at the admitted students days, I’d strongly recommend spending lots of time specifically around the CS departments, asking questions of the professors and connecting with other admitted students. Just like feeling out the vibe of the overall campus, it can be helpful to get a sense for the vibe of the department, to know whether these are people who get excited about the kinds of things you get excited about.
Visiting both is great! You will know after that I bet. Go with the one that fits best! Spend an extra day at both if you are able to, getting to know the are around the school. You have two outstanding options: neither will be a bad decision! Congratulations!!
Let’s also compare the CDS for both schools (Common Data Set).
UCB → Common Data Set | Office of Planning and Analysis
Degrees conferred in the 2020-2021 school year…
11% - computer & information sciences
11% - engineering
11% - biological/life sciences
total # of undergrad degrees awarded in that time period: 9325.
Therefore, each of the above majors in the 20-21 school year had about 1025 graduates get a BS/BA from UCB. Multiply that x 4 (i.e., for freshmen, sophomores, juniors, & seniors) and that’s about how many total undergrads are probably majoring in each of those majors ** right now **. So over 4000 students per major.
Total # of undergrad class sections with >100 students: 315
Not saying any of this to scare you…just drawing out some facts, figures, and numbers in case this helps you make any decisions.
That total student load will also impact your availability to get required classes. Sometimes at a school like UCB, it can take more than 4 years to graduate because you literally can’t get into the classes you need for your major.
Ok, so let’s look at the same data from Williams College: Common Data Set – Institutional Research
Total undergrads 20-21: 1917.
Total bachelor degrees awarded in that school year: 541
8.3% - computer & information sciences (64 students)
0% - engineering
8.1% - biological/life sciences (62 students)
School-wide student-to-faculty ratio: 6-to-1
Total # of undergrad class sections with >100 students: 1
I’m including the #s for engineering because often times, engineering students will have to take an introductory course or 2 for computer science. AND engineering students at UCB will also likely need to take the same calculus & physics classes as the engineering students. Therefore, competition for decent grades will be high.
I’ve actually looked into HCI before, and both Tufts and UW, which I have gotten into, have majors in it. UW is my state school, and I’ve already been admitted to the business program but could double major in HCDE. At Tufts, I would have more flexibility with classes and majors, but I heard the school isn’t that good. I think if I wanted to go the tech route, Berkeley would be the best option.
This is commonly claimed on these forums, but never on the school specific forum. The capacity limitation for some majors addresses this concern, in exchange for the possibility of not getting into the major in secondary admission (e.g. the L&S CS 3.3 GPA) or higher selectivity for some majors at admission.
Now, it is certainly possible that some electives (particularly out of major) can be hard to get, or that avoiding 8am courses is difficult*. But delaying graduation by choice for these reasons is different.
*Pre-meds will find that organic chemistry and general biology are traditionally offered at 8am at UCB.
Ok y’all, I know the reason I’m still considering premed is because of social and parental pressure. I’ve been raised to be a doctor, and everyone kind of expects it from me. I also just want the validation and prestige of it and feel like I will never grow out of this mentality. My dad also makes me feel like any career that’s not in medicine is worthless.
Agree with you but adding that some also complain about class access at LACs so I’d suggest looking into that at any school being considered. I’ve yet to hear a specific example that a student could not graduate in four years because of class registration issues, but I don’t doubt it happens occasionally.
Something I don’t like about Williams is the limited number of majors. Like the majors at Tufts interest and excite me a lot more than those at Williams.
Tufts is another excellent school. Perhaps it’s your perfect “middle ground” between Williams and UCB. Follow your heart! No bad choices here. Congratulations!
I think my heart wants Berkeley… but my parents hate on it so much, and all of their arguments are valid.
It might further relevant discussion if you were to name some of the majors at Tufts that especially appeal to you.
Human Factors Engineering, Science, Technology and Society, Biotechnology, Cogntive and Brain Sciences, Entrepreneurship for Social Impact
I’m interested in neuroscience/cognitive science and technology basically.
Those seem like all of the worst reasons to do pre-med. If medicine is not your interest (as indicated by spending a lot of time on pre-med extracurriculars that medical schools expect), and you have the required academic strength (as in high college GPA and MCAT), it is unlikely that any medical school will admit you (and even if you have both, you are still likely to get shut out).