<p>I will be a high school senior this fall, and I am planning a trip this summer to visit some schools on the east coast, and especially the Boston area, and I was wondering if anyone on this forum had any suggestions for schools to visit. I am planning to major in CS, and I want a school both where there are lots of advanced CS classes I can take, and where I can also have room to explore subjects outside CS (perhaps political science, economics, or math). I have already arranged visits with Case Western, Carnegie Mellon, and Cornell, and I am also considering visiting Harvard and Brown. I was also looking at MIT and Tufts, but it looked like they didn’t have so much room to explore topics outside CS. Is this accurate?</p>
<p>PS: I got a 35 on my ACT and am in the top 5% of my class, just so you can ballpark me.</p>
<p>PPS: For the purposes of this thread, could we please omit any financial concerns, I will consider that later.</p>
<p>Note: MIT uses “subject” for what most schools call a “course”; most subjects are 12 MIT units (it appears that 1 credit hour unit at most schools is equivalent to 3 MIT units).</p>
<p>So it looks like, out of about 32-33 subjects one has to take, 17 are General Institute Requirements (8 humanities, arts, and social studies, 9 math and science; 3 overlap with major requirements), 11-12 are major requirements, and 4 are free electives.</p>
<p>Presumably, you can use the free electives and part of your General Institute Requirements to explore other areas of your choosing.</p>
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<p>There is no point in visiting or applying to a school which has no chance of being affordable. Check the net price calculators for each school. If they show that need-based aid is insufficient, check for large enough merit scholarships. If there is still no way to afford the school with either need-based aid or merit scholarships, don’t bother visiting or applying to it.</p>
<p>MIT is hardly “just” a CS college. It has an extremely strong economics department, and indeed a business schools. And if this isn’t enough MIT students can take cross register at Harvard and Wellesley.</p>
<p>Do visit Brown. The computer science is a gem. My daughter did a math/cs major. They have a few tracks within the dept. She was able to take a grad class or two in her Sr. year. They also have a 5 year master’s option. Access to research is abundant. She had 2 university grants for summer projects, did independent studies with profs, worked on a high profile group project that was presented at a major conference (so authorship.) You can explore many other interests because of the open curriculum. Econ is the most popular major and is a strong department. Brown has one of the strongest Applied Math depts in the country.</p>
<p>At graduation, many many were going right to MS and Google, in particular. Also some into research positions in govt and elsewhere. Good grad school admissions. Mine was accepted to top CS PhD track program with funding.</p>
<p>I live in Illinois, so the University of Illinois is pretty much my baseline for CS and all-around academic strength; I probably won’t look much at schools lower than them.</p>
<p>@BeanTownGirl: I didn’t look too closely at Tufts, but it seems that my concerns were unwarranted, thanks!</p>
<p>Have you run the net price calculator on UIUC to make sure that you can afford it? UIUC is known for poor financial aid even for in-state students.</p>