Got into Comp Sci for both. Aspiring to be a tech entrepreneur. Want to primarily concentrate on comp sci, but also want to develop business side. For me, Comp Sci + biz combo is really important as an entrepreneur.
Possible jobs I am interested in are APM at Google.
Social scene, school vibe and sports (I am an avid hockey player, looking to play on the intramural level) is also really important. COA is not an issue.
Neither of those schools are good for what you describe. You can take business classes at CMC, but you probably won’t have time to do much business-related stuff besides that. Pittsburgh isn’t exactly an entrepreneurial city either. Mudd doesn’t have intramural hockey.
Agree that you probably won’t have hockey at Mudd. That said, they feed a lot of students to Google. Both are great CS programs in general. Can you go to accepted student visits at both? You will probably have a clearer idea of fit after 24 hours on each campus.
Mudd is much smaller, more holistic and less focused on specific engineering or CS detailed knowledge. They really are quite different environments and curriculums. There are a tremendously larger number of graduate classes to take at CMU, as they offer PhD programs in CS. CMU is more compartmentalized and CS has a less good relationship with say EE or other engineering departmentsat CMU. Mudd is one happy school. You really should visit to determine which fits you better. CMU has more research projects with lots of undergrads participating, on campus. Mudd, you really need to go elsewhere, in the summers, its more of a teaching focused school.
CMU has nice theatre and music to distract you from the overwhelming workload. Mudd may be more happy go lucky, more upbeat, better weather. Mudd has truly difficult grading system with perfectly brilliant students earning Bs regularly.
CMU is a broad schools with more majors to pick from, should you somehow change your mind, but some restrictions on transferring around to other colleges and a quota on ECE majors in Engineering. .
Mudd has a very small number of majors, and they allow you to pick your major
and do not try to force you to select it in high school, as CMU attempt to do.
Mudd, for instance does not offer economics, so all that great business related math is not really well covered at Mudd should that interest you. (Claremont McKenna offers econ, as does Pomona, but you cannot be an economics/math major at Mudd, you would have to transfer, if you decided stats/econometrics interested you.
Mudd and CMU can both lead to PhD programs in CS, but with Mudd, if you do not have As, it can be a problem to get in. U of Cal, most of the campuses, the grad programs recognize Mudd as hard and take students with lower GPAs, but Illinois and UW Seattle may not! CMU may be slightly easier to earn those As, from what we hear, but all depends on your math skills
and what courses you take.
I have heard of faculty at UC San Diego arguing to let in good Mudd grads in chemistry with lower GPAs.
Ask about this GPA issue at Mudd. Its just ridiculously hard to get As there.
For hockey, go to RPI !!
@Coloradomama, one can actually do an ‘off campus major’ at Harvey Mudd, based at one of the other colleges. A minor is required at Mudd in addition. I understand couple of kids do this every year when they decide to branch out.
Sorry, I think there is some misinformation in post #3.
This is really not true. My D2, who is a junior at Mudd, did CS research on campus her first two summers at Mudd, and fall of Junior year (she changed her major to Physics, and started physics research in the fall of junior year, overlapping 2 types of research for a semester before switching entirely to Physics). She has attended three research conferences related to her research, and presented at a couple of them. I will say that during the school year Mudders often don’t research for the first year and half due to the intensity of the core semesters. But Mudd is committed to giving freshman who want a research experience the opportunity to do so after freshman year. My kid has had no trouble at all getting interesting research experience during the year and summers at Mudd. Also, the senior clinic project is pretty unique, where students get to do a real project for an external company or lab.
Every Mudd student needs to do a secondary concentration in a subject that interests them. You could easily do an Econ or related concentration, and take some of those classes at CMC or any other consortium school. Students don’t take a lot of electives freshman year (core time), but you would definitely have the opportunity.
It is not true that only UC’s recognize the difficulty of Mudd. Mudders have very strong grad school opportunities, even with the grade deflation. The Mudd profs are very strong mentors, and provide a lot of help in grad school admissions. There are students from Mudd who get into grad schools like Stanford with GPAs under a 3.5. The only exception to that is med school – and I don’t recommend Mudd to pre-meds for that reason – but that is not your area of interest.
As a Mudd alum with a fairly average-for-Mudd GPA, I had no difficulty with being accepted to all eight Ph.D. graduate programs to which I applied, including such universities as CMU, Stanford, and Harvard.
More importantly, know that Mudd has consistently been one of the top producers of undergraduates who then go on to receive doctorates. They are often number #2 in the nation. See, e.g., http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/. And this has been the case going back to the very earliest classes at Mudd. Such findings strongly suggest that Mudders do not find Mudd’s grade deflation to be a barrier to pursuing graduate degrees.
@PardonMoi
“As a Mudd alum with a fairly average-for-Mudd GPA, I had no difficulty with being accepted to all eight Ph.D. graduate programs to which I applied, including such universities as CMU, Stanford, and Harvard.”
Do you know if this is necessarily true for Masters degree programs? Most elite Masters degree programs will not even consider an applicant without a stellar GPA (at least 3.6/3.7). Could part of the reason why so many Mudders pursue PhDs be because their GPAs are too low to be considered for some Masters programs?
I seriously doubt that. Masters programs aren’t usually funded – I don’t know if many Mudders who even want a master’s. They either go take a well paying job or a funded PhD program. Plus, those grad schools still know Mudd if they are STEM programs. I suppose if you wanted an MBA or law degree it might come up, but few Mudders take that route.
@Brado9
I don’t know what you mean by an “elite” Masters degree program. However, if you’re unsure of getting into the masters program, then apply to the equivalent Ph.D. program, do your two years, pass any qualifying exams, then write a master’s thesis and exit with just a MS instead of the Ph.D. I’ve yet to hear of the Ph.D. program which didn’t allow entrants to change their mind and exit early with just an MS. Problem solved: apply for the Ph.D., take the MS.
And, some Mudd students do gone on and earn MBAs, JDs, and MFAs. Perhaps the majority happened to have better than average GPAs? I don’t know in general. I only personally knew one person who did a JD – he had a pretty so-so GPA (engineering: BS and MS from Mudd). And a friend who did an MBA at Stanford did it maybe 10 years after he had graduated from Mudd and worked in industry for a while. He was a physics major who had a GPA barely above 2.0.
@121212 If you do not mind, could you please post your GPA, SAT, Activities etc. I am also interested in the two schools. I admire you…
@PardonMoi I am very interested in Mudd too. But I heard you have to work very hard in Mudd since the requirement is very high. A lot of students struggle at the first year. Is that true?