Cornell vs UPenn vs. Tufts for computer science

srparent15
Tue, 27 Oct 2020 21:57:54 +0000

My daughter is currently in CS at Cornell. It is currently tied for 5th in the nation for their CS program with UIUC, GA Tech, and I think U-Washington is the other. She works her butt off but loves it.

We are not from the East Coast. A car is absolutely not necessary and as someone else above said, it is a PITA to have one there. All freshmen live in North campus. Housing for freshmen is guaranteed and not an issue. Sophomores usually live in frats, sororities or dorms. Only a few live off campus and that’s because they got a crap lottery spot and either don’t want to live in a lousy dorm, or because their lottery spot is bad won’t get the type of room they want or to live with their friends because of it. This year obviously, thinks have shaken out quite differently.

College town is THE place to live, but it is pricey. Off campus housing is NOT cheap, so if you decide to apply to and get into Cornell and attend, expect to pay a lot in rent. In collegetown for an apartment for next year we will be paying $1,200 a month. Each kid won’t even have their own bathroom. Research pays off when it comes to landlords as I wasn’t going to have her go with a crappy one and there are plenty. So that’s where you may have heard the term slum from. The slumlords! Not the apartments. If you live further out, you will pay less, but not like $500 less. Problem is you will still need to find a way to get to campus and the most popular is the bus, which means you need to be on the bus route, or if you have a car the tradeoff is parking, which can be expensive.

As for academics. I wouldn’t call it a cut throat environment but it can be competitive but there are also a lot of group assignments so you need to be prepared to collaborate and work together. Some students are not good at that which is also problematic. My daughter has friends that are very busy with all their courses and in groups where one person may work ahead because they don’t have much else of a life and then gets annoyed that the other people are busy with their other coursework. These are people that don’t know how to work collaboratively and need to learn or it will bite them later. There is grade deflation. Your transcript will literally have on it the median for the course each semester. That can be intimidating. I cannot imagine what it feels like for a student who is below median. It is not difficult to do well, but do not go in there expecting to get straight A’s. If you do, you’re probably setting yourself up. Most kids get their first C’s ever and then can’t handle it. We told our daughter to expect C’s. She surprised us by not getting any. Maybe that was the motivator. But C’s are ok too. It’s not necessary to get all A’s. Especially in CS. If you want to go to grad school like medical or law school different story, but expect to be challenged like you have never been before. My daughter was surprised by how unprepared a lot of students were and how poorly they do. Our high school really prepared students well.

As for jobs, the kids that work during the year really only do work study. It is very difficult to maintain a job and your studies, especially freshman year. One thing about freshman year, your courses are pretty much planned out with little flexibility for choice. I found this to be annoying. It reminded my of high school somewhat. They tell you whether you can take Physics based on your hs math coursework. If not, then you need to take Chemistry. Both take up an inordinate amount of time. Physics is 6x/week. Then usually a PE, the FWS, a CS or the EGNRI course, Seminar, and Math. If you don’t have many AP’s then usually one more course. I do not know how much time Chemistry takes up but it’s a huge weed out course. Mine did not have to suffer through it.

One other school of thought. You can go through Arts and Sciences for Computer Science and avoid some of that coursework and take slightly easier Math courses because while the math is the same, the curve is more generous because it is taken with the Arts and Science students not the Engineering.

As someone else said. If you’re not 110% on board, do not apply ED. This school is about 80k all in. If your health insurance doesn’t meet certain criteria, add another $3k plus to that number as well as it is mandatory you carry certain health insurance requirements or buy a plan from them.

Your best bet is to speak to a current student as they will give you the best information. Hope that helps. Feel free to message me if you have questions.

Good luck on your search!!