<p>I got accepted at McGill University. I was also admitted to Waterloo's Honors CS Program, and the University Of Toronto. I know that those two schools have a stronger CS department and a better reputation in that field, but financially, McGill is a way better option ($3.6k/year in tuition compared to >$25k/year).</p>
<p>Now I KNOW that McGill has a good overall reputation, but is it common for Comp Sci undergrads from McGill to end up in the top CS Grad schools? I'm talking MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, Cornell. Would it be worth spending the extra ~$20-25k a year to go to one of my other options?</p>
<p>McGill’s CS, while not as good as U of T’s, Waterloo’s, or UBC’s, is still pretty good. As long as you have a high GPA and do some research, you should be a competitive applicant for top grad schools.</p>
<p>My classmates in CS or math/cs had no problems getting into MIT and Stanford (MIT was very popular among my peers for some reason). Really, I don’t know why people worry about this. McGill’s programs are rigorous, if you keep up your grades and are proactive in getting involved in research, McGill will not be a hindrance in any way in getting into the grad school of your choice.</p>
<p>I should add that, adjusting for size, I wouldn’t say McGill’s not as good as UofT or Waterloo in CS. It’s not as big, so there’s less variety, and at the grad level it would make a difference depending on the specific subfield, but at the undergrad it’s not a big deal.</p>
<p>Yes, the CS program is good! You can take the honours version which will give you special classes for Data Structures & Algorithms that are tougher than usual and some more math.</p>
<p>I did the vanilla CS major - no complaints, the profs are quite good, there’s lots of room for publications, summer research, NSERC grants, etc. Also pretty decent industry recruiting of CS students as well.</p>
<p>Edit:</p>
<p>To end up at those grad schools, get a high GPA, do some grad level courses (totally possible and encouraged at McGill) and do some summer research + ace GRE (or CS GRE as well).</p>