Hi, I was asked to choose between Centre or Ithaca for my college as a Computer Science Major.
I have following requirements
Campus
Curriculum
Research
Community
I saw reddit posts form 5 years commenting that Ithaca is super bad for CS, and students even transferred out of there. I have no information how is it right now, If some one could let me know that would be great.
Seems to me if these are your top choices - you could research. You can visit, or if you can’t, reach out to each school and ask to speak to a student ambassador or two - in the major so they can validate your concerns. You can also set up a zoom with a prof. Have admissions set something up for you - you can ask about learning and career outcomes.
These two are quite different. How did you settle on these ?
“International students should be prepared to contribute approximately $25,000 per year toward the cost of attendance. If that is not possible, applying for the Lincoln Scholars Program is your best path forward.
We recommend that international applicants who need significant financial aid should apply through our Early Action or Regular Decision application plans to allow appropriate time to apply separately for scholarship programs.
When D24 (graduated high school in 2024, is currently college sophomore) was applying to college, we toured Centre College. We visited in February, so it was chilly.
Some thoughts & highlights of our tour and what we thought of the school: Campus:
beautiful campus
close to downtown Danville, KY. You can walk to the downtown area.
close knit campus community. On the tour, our tour guide said hello to a lot of different students we passed…he apparently knew a lot of people.
if you look at their diversity numbers, even though the college is in Kentucky, the college itself is very diverse and there’s students attending from all over the place.
our tour guide was an international student from India, majoring in computer science.
it’s a ‘residential college.’ This means that you live on campus all 4 yr.
a lot of students are athletes, but that’s understandable because it’s a small liberal arts college and it’s a Division 3 school.
the campus also has a really wonderful thriving fine arts program. Everything from music, theater, orchestra, choir, 2D and 3D studio art. You can fulfill your GE credit for fine arts by taking a glass blowing class. The college actually has a really amazing glass blowing studio in its own separate building. There’s also regular traveling Broadway musicals that come to the campus.
it’s about an hour’s drive from the Lexington, KY airport and about an hour and a half’s drive from the Louisville airport.
the college told us that at the start and end of each semester, they arrange for transportation to, I think, the Lexington airport.
Centre does NOT provide shuttle bus to airport at Thanksgiving break, though. However, make friends with your fellow students who are from Kentucky and one of them will invite you home with them for Thanksgiving.
Curriculum:
it’s a liberal arts curriculum. You should spend some time on their website and look up the general ed requirements. Go to Course Catalog | Centre College to find all the details, including computer science major requirements and all that good stuff.
class sizes are small. This means more 1-on-1 time with professors. There’s no grad students here, so it’s really easy to have opportunities to do research with professors.
at the time that D24 applied, Centre required its students to do at least 1 ‘enhanced learning experience’ for college graduation. This means either an internship somewhere, a study abroad experience, or research project. You can do more than 1, of course.
Centre’s academic year has a fall & spring semester and a 3-week “Centre Term” in January. During Centre Term, you basically take 1 class. It’s usually in something unique and really interesting. Some of the options are to do a 3-week ‘Centre Term’ study abroad with a Centre professor overseas. Of course, there’s plenty of on campus options for Centre Term, too. Freshmen are required to do Centre Term on campus.
Research:
See comment above in the Curriculum section.
Community:
we all thought that Danville, KY was a lovely community. Walking around the downtown area felt a little like you were walking on Main Street, USA in Disneyland or Disney World. It’s very charming.
Centre and/or Danville has a shuttle bus that does a loop between campus & Walmart and I think a grocery store on certain days of the week, if memory serves me correctly.
There’s a good Mexican restaurant that’s about a 15-20 min walk from campus.
Downtown Danville also has a small hospital that’s a 15 min walk from campus, so if you got sick and needed medical care, there’s options close by. Make sure you let your parents know that.
the Centre College bookstore is actually in downtown Danville, but it’s close to campus.
downtown Danville has a lot of fun places to eat. There’s a decent ice cream shop just next to campus. Plus a couple of good coffee houses and other local restaurants. So when you get bored of the dining hall food, there will be options close by if you don’t have a car.
the people in Danville we spoke with were REALLY friendly. Like, genuinely very nice, down to earth people. Very welcoming. Even as an international student, you won’t be treated like an outsider there.
as a parent, I thought that the town & community felt very safe.
our tour guide was a junior. He said that he was really glad he chose to attend Centre, felt very welcomed there, had made good friends in his time there. Tour guide also was an RA (helped him off-set housing costs). By the way, he did say that on campus jobs are limited to students who qualify for US federal work study grants. Tour guide also did a ‘study away’ program for a semester in New York City…he loved that. Those count the same as ‘study abroad’ and you can do more than one if you want.
My D24 really loved Centre College. She ended up deciding to attend another LAC. But Centre is a really great school. They also do a great job preparing their students for various types of graduate school…just in case you’re thinking of something like that down the road.
Best wishes on your search. You should totally apply. Their Lincoln Scholars Program scholarship app requires an app submission by 12/1.
