Hi, I am new to this forum cite and have been really impressed in what it has to offer.
Facts about me:
-1750 SAT
-3.9 Weighted GPA
-Intended Major: Computer Science/Cyber Security (Possible Minor in Psychology)
I am having trouble deciding between two Colleges; University of Connecticut (Uconn) and Roger Williams University (RWU). After scholarships and financial aid, they would both pretty much the same.
So, I guess my real question is, does College Prestige really matter? I can see how prestige may make a difference for Medical or Law programs, but would it for a computer related field, for example? As some of you may know, Uconn is a lot tougher to get into than RWU, with about a 600 SAT Score gap between the two. For my sake, would it be better to perform average at a school like Uconn, or above average at a school like RWU (For things like future internships and professional jobs).
-Thanks
Put aside what your grades might be…start by answering questions. Where did you feel more comfortable when visiting? Do you want a small school or large school? Does one offer a minor that interests you? If you decide to change your major can you do so without having to transfer? Do you want a school with sporting events/ games to attend? Is this a commuter school or do people stick around on weekends? What are the stats on internships/ job placement? My daughter is at UCONN. There is always something to do. The student union is always running activities and there are hundreds of clubs/ organizations. The one thing we have learned…from her and her friends…you cannot make a small school bigger…but a big school like UConn, can be made to feel smaller in some ways, once you find where you fit in, whether through a club, or meeting others in your major. Her best friend went to a small commuter school. She tried to meet people at clubs…but only 5 kids would come to a meeting. Generally at a bigger school you’re getting 20+ kids involved in any group/ club. Better odds of finding someone you will click with. All of that being said…if costs were equal and my daughter liked 2 schools equally…I would advise she go to the school with “prestige”. First and foremost…go where you believe you will be happy!
A harder school with a smarter student body will push you to excel which is what you need for a good career in CS. Prestige won’t matter much but your actual skills will. So I’d recommend UConn in this case
Some research papers suggest that choosing a more prestigious (or more selective) college makes no significant difference in career earnings for most students (http://www.nber.org/papers/w17159). Malcolm Gladwell has argued that students should not necessarily choose the most prestigious schools that admit them, but instead should choose the ones where they are most likely to stand out (http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwells-david-and-goliath-2013-10).
Top firms like Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook want (and get) top students from top schools. However, there are many career opportunities at less famous firms all over the country. You might want to investigate outcomes of recently-graduated CS majors at both UConn and Roger Williams. Check out internship opportunities, too. If you cannot find information on the college web sites, the admissions, CS departments, or posters on school-specific CC forums may be able to help.
Prestige on its own doesn’t matter so much when it comes to CS because you’ll be judged based on provable skills. If the applicant from LSU can solve the interview problems better than the applicant from CMU, they’ll get the job. However, I disagree with Gladwell’s premise for two reasons:
- Google does not recruit at LSU, whereas it does at CMU. Your chance of getting to the interview stage or getting your skills noticed are much higher. For a big company that gets thousands of applications, with a limited amount of resources, will focus on the applicants from top schools first since they’re more likely to have top coders.
- Being in the bottom third of your class at CMU or MIT will push you to excel. Being the top of your class at LSU will not. So you’re unlikely to grow because there is no reason to do so. Sure, it might boost your self-esteem, but the disadvantage of being the smartest one is that there’s no one to learn from.
Be less concerned about the prestige than about the quality of the program in your intended or possible majors.
For example, RWU’s CS department appears to have a fairly small set of advanced CS courses. There are no courses in networks, databases, security/cryptography, or graphics, for example.
Another thing to consider is whether your intended major has restricted admissions (e.g. needing a high GPA to enter the major), due to being filled to capacity. This seems to be fairly common at popular state flagships. Try searching “[school] change major [major]” and “[school] declare major [major]”.
The top employers in the IT and tech industry would appear to have a special preference to Stanford and Berkeley graduates, and to some extent, MIT and Harvard graduates. But, I think, it’s because those schools have a large alumni base at those companies. So, I think “connections” play a big role for those who are seeking to win a spot at any of those top/big players in the IT/tech industry, such as Google, Facebook, Twitter, Microsorf and the like.
Another advantage of attending a top CS school is that – these schools have a much better support system for launching startups. There seems to have a culture of entrepreneurship that’s pervading in their atmosphere. There is a readily available seed money fotpt projects which are promising. In other words, the students at these schools will be exposed to another avenue of generating fortune, other than working for companies that offers lucrative renumeration packages.
Now, if you’re not interested in working at any of those top companies, or becoming an entrepreneur, then I suppose going to a prestigious school like Stanford or Berkeley wouldn’t all that be important.
Sadly, neither of your given options is considered prestigious in the IT and tech world. But, in fairness, even schools like Dartmouth, UChicago, Vanderbilt, WushU or Pomona and Amherst (to name a few) are not prestigious in the IT/tech world. They are not as regarded or even as oftenly mentioned as CMU, MIT, Cornell, Michigan, Caltech or Harvey Mudd.
So, your concern about the prestige factor between those two given schools isn’t really all that applicable, that despite UConn being the more selective school than RWU.
What I can therefore suggest you’d do now is check on those schools’ career placement data and try to look which between them has been able to send more grads to better IT/tech companies (you should also check the starting salary rate), and which one has got more successful startups, including information about how those schools support their students who are interested to pursue the entrepreneurial route.
As someone who runs tech startups, I can tell you that yes, it does matter early in your career, BUT there is such a vacuum of great programming talent, once you establish your skills, dependability and work ethic it will matter a lot less.
I have mentioned this before here, but on my current team we have talent from top schools like CMU and others, but we have 3 senior guys I consider geniuses, and they are all products of different SUNY schools.
Coders are unusual, in that one great one truly is worth 10 mediocre ones. Once you can code you’ll work everywhere, and guys will call you who worked with you years before and remember how good you are. The important thing is your commitment to your craft – like an athlete, you must always be training to be the best.