Lucky you! It also helps that cs seems to be where much of the cutting edge action is these days, with AI and ML.
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And that may, in fact, be a trap. Once a student is in college things are much more challenging - for pretty much all majors. If the dedication and desire is not there, college will reveal that.
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Average starting salary over past 5 years as reported in Berkeley survey (not inflation adjusted). CS grads as a whole had notably higher average salaries, much higher ceilings on potential maximum salaries, larger sign-up bonuses + total compensation, and more job offers on average. In short CS, is the hot major at the moment, and students who are looking for high earnings often flock to CS. I say âat the momentâ because CS popularity has drastically changed over time. If there is another 2000s style dot com crash, I expect to see another sharp drop in interest in CS.
CS â $125k (significant portion started at >$200k)
Math â $90k (max = $130k)
Mechanical Engineering â $88k (max = $110k)
Physics â $85k
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One thing I do wonder is if CS will be less popular for the upcoming class just because the tech job market was bad this year. Unfortunately the more middling students I taught that graduated recently have been struggling on the job market.
I donât know how far back enrollment lags market reality, but I do think a tech slowdown is starting now. While some CS specialties remain hot, general CS hiring is beginning to slow.
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A college application is basically a sales pitch to try to get the college to admit the applicant.
Other things that are also sales pitches include applying to graduate or professional school, applying to jobs, applying for research grants, trying to get your idea implemented, etcâŠ
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Same could be said of a resume and cover letter when applying for a job.
Colleges that do this and have CS in the engineering division have secondary admission to prevent the CS major from overflowing the CS department capacity.
While true, the downturn in computing hiring is nowhere near close to what it was in 2000-2004 or so.
In the years following, UCB L&S CS was not a capacity limited major (<100 graduates per year), and students could declare it after passing the prerequisites with a 2.0 GPA.
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Not now, but I wonder what it will look like at the end of 2024. I hopei it, and our economy, is strong, but Iâm not convinced it will be.
Selective colleges that have no limitations on major enrollment generally show little decrease in interest in CS major. Instead CS continues to be among the most popular majors, often the most popular. I doubt that this is going to change much in 2024, unless something drastic changes in the perceived career outlook.
For example, the CS major enrollment at Stanford by year is below. Note that this is number of students who have declared the major, not number of graduates in the major, so it may show more rapid responses to perceived career outlook changes. 2023 set a record in CS major enrollment, increasing by nearly 100 students over 2022.
Stanford CS Major Enrollment
1996 â 109
âŠ
2001 â 250 (peak enrollment prior to dot com crash decrease
âŠ
2006 â 129 (min enrollment after dot com crash)
2007 â 142
2008 â 141 (2008 great recession)
2009 â 189
2010 â 247
2011 â 287
2012 â 360 (CS surpasses Hum Bio to become the most enrolled major for first time)
2013 â 452
2014 â 574
2015 â 661 (CS becomes the most enrolled major ever, beating out History during 1965/Vietnam)
2016 â 663
2017 â 703
2018 â 739
2019 â 745
2020 â 622 (decrease in major declarations during COVID, most other majors also decreased)
2021 â 698
2022 â 776
2023 â 865 (almost quadruple #2 econ and #3 hum bio)
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I hope enrollment stays strong and demand for graduates remains strong as well. Good times all around. The realist in me says employment demands will begin to fall in 2024. Not sure when/if enrollment in CS would follow. Time will tell.
As an upcoming international college applicant, my two cents would be that:
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The US college application is fair in places such as state schools which provide guaranteed admission for in-state applicants with specific grade achievements. This very much mimics the fairness in non US college admission, where universities take the best academic students they can for each major. Applicants to foreign universities have a much better idea, often 100% certainty about where their grades will get them admitted.
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Itâs well advertised that 99% of US Colleges provide hooks to a combination of Athletes, Superstars, Donors, and legacy applicants. Thatâs fair given that âinstitutional priorityâ is well communicated.
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The âholistic argumentâ is the hidden part of the equation, which allows the admissions departments to curate/construct/choose the class they want. That selection process is thoroughly opaque and unpredictable for the most selective schools.
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Active Yield management is the last variable which adds further uncertainty to the process
Personally, I think the following adjustments would increase fairness, save a heep of time, and achieve better results for all applicants and colleges:
- SAT/ACT should be required for the common app submission to provide a leveled comparison (colleges who decided not to look at that information can do that of their own volition)
- Every application through the common app (or alternative) should require the common app essay + 1-x essays specific to each college
- Sports Recruit/Musician/Artist profile/stats/videos should be uploaded / updated through a common app portal
- Financial aid & Merit applications / essays should be attached to the common app, have allow applicants to tick exactly what they are eligible to apply for
- The common app website should include all the stats, SAT/ACT percentages, racial distribution, number of graduates by major etc for each school so that everyone has access to information provided directly by each university, instead of dozens of websites which disclose different stats
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I donât disagree there could be more transparency. But the problem is that if I was a college, fairness is subjective and not the goal at all. My only goal would be to get the mix that I want: interests, gender, athletes, leaders, math people, writers, etc.
Top schools want a cohesive community and interesting kids, as they should. I believe in test scores and GPA but they have great limits. Should consistency and test prep and endless early acceleration trump someone being an absolutely amazing writer or having amazing ECs? What is the logical end to course acceleration?
HYPS end up with more social, well-rounded and still pointy classes than you would think. Itâs not by mistake. It makes sense. Some donât think itâs âfairâ. Fit matters more for kids and schools.
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I wonât disagree except to say I have one of those and I still maintain that the Canadian system is less stressful:
- streaming not beginning until high school (with pathways to be able to switch streams, and since my kids were in high school theyâve started a process of delaying streaming to grade 11)
- standardized curriculum
- no requirement for standardized tests, essays, LORâs, or ECâs for admission
They were admitted to a range of universities of medium-high selectivity for an in demand major.
Was the process stressful? Only so much as admission is never guaranteed, but they were strategic with their applications and were fortunate to get an early offer in January to their âsafetyâ which took the pressure off a bit. In March they received offers to their âmatchâ programs which eliminated all stress. They then only had to wait until May to find out whether they would get into their âreachesâ, which they did.
To be honest the biggest stress, and one that is less of an issue in the US system, was choosing a major and which specific universities to apply to. They started researching options in the fall of grade 11 through to the fall of grade 12 before making their ultimate choice, and I will say that it was a relatively stressful process for them (and us). We even suggested they consider taking a gap year to give them more time to decide which they didnât want to do. But while that was not unique to them, itâs not universally true for all students. It certainly wasnât for their older sibling who had their mind set on one major in grade 11 but had changed it to a slightly different one by the fall of grade 12 when they submitted their applications. They didnât experience a whole lot of angst in the process nor was there much stress in worrying whether or not they would get admitted to their choices.
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My kid did not apply to very many Canadian schools, but both UBC and U of T had a fairly involved process that included many of these elements.
He thought UBC was fairly similar to applying to the UCs, since he had to write essays similar to the UC PIQs, write about his ECs, and get teachers to recommend him. Anecdotally, students on forums say that the essays and ECs do matter for UBC.
U of T had a recorded video essay process that was a bit scary where he had to answer questions given to him on the spot.
No, itâs that some anonymous person whoâs never met them and knows nothing about them is going to pass judgement as to the quality of their character, personality, or institutional fit, on the basis of said essay, and then and use that as a criteria as to whether or not they are âworthyâ of admission.
Itâs almost as bad as requiring LORs from individuals who are frequently equally clueless as to the applicantâs character.
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I have one majoring in EE and one majoring in Physics. The EE kid is more salary driven than the Physics kid (but not enough to pursue CS/SE) which is good because the Physics student is likely to have a significantly lower earnings.
UBC is a different animal and a bit more similar to the US system I will agree. UofT only uses holistic elements for certain majors. If s#2 had applied to UofT for their major there would have been more hoop jumping, but they didnât have the grades for Engineering at UofT and even if they had may not have been willing to jump through the hoops. S#1 didnât apply to UofT either though they certainly had the marks to do so and there would have been no additional requirements for applying for their major, Physics.
Also adding anecdotally that choosing not to attend UofT for undergrad certainly didnât hurt s#1âs prospects as they have recently received admits to both UofT and UBC for grad school which in my opinion are better choices for grad school than undergrad.
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Also, my son did not apply to Waterloo, but for the more competitive majors there such as engineering, there is a detailed supplemental application process that includes ECs and short essays similar to UC PIQs. One reason he didnât add Waterloo to his list was that he didnât want to do any more supplemental essays.
McGill of course didnât require essays. But that is the only Canadian university my kid applied to that didnât require them.
Which other Canadian universities are extremely competitive / rejective in admissions, similar to US universities that are difficult admits? I wonder if part of the reason many Canadian universities donât require essays or supplements is that they donât reject as many applicants (and therefore, donât need to select between a large number of applicants with top grades)? There are less rejective US universities that do not require essays, either.
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