I’m an upper-middle-class, in-state student for UC’s. According to my large suburban public high school’s Naviance, every kid in the last few years with my stats has gotten into UC Davis comfortably.
I’m wondering what schools would be worth paying OOS/private tuition for.
I am fortunate to be in a position where I do not have to apply for FA either way, however, money is still money, and 50k-60k extra per year for OOS/private tuition is nothing to shrug off no matter how wealthy you are. My career goals after college (as of now) are to get a Software eng. job in the Bay Area.
With this in mind, would you attend any of these schools with their larger sticker price over UC Davis for Computer Science, and if so, why?
USC
UT Austin Turing
UT Austin CS
Rice
GA Tech
Duke
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
I have very good stats, EC’s etc, so I’m not too worried about my chances. Please do not turn this into a chance me thread; I have safeties, etc in place, and I am aware of Davis’s “tuft’s syndrome.”
Also, would your perspective change if it was UC San Diego for CS compared to these schools?
You do not have to make a decision at this point in choosing UCD over other schools until you get your admission decisions back. You have plenty of time to do research while you are formulating your college list.
CS is a very marketable degree so you should consider the course curriculum for each school and are the specific areas of interest that you would like to study that one campus might offer more courses than another etc…
Which campus(es) do you feel you would thrive academically/financially and socially?
Apply to as many schools as you like right now and in the Spring when you have to make your decision, you might find your wants and needs may have changed.
Since apparently you can afford the costs, you might want to add to your list: University of Michigan; Univ. of Washington; Univ. of Illinois, Purdue; Carnegie Mellon in addition to the UC’s. These schools also are known to have good computer science programs.
Be careful, CS at UCD and many other UCs can be more competitive to get into than the school overall. Consider adding some of the less selective UCs (UCSC, UCR, UCM) to your UC application list. SJSU is another school to consider, but CS is far more competitive to get admitted to than most other majors there.
It would be hard for distant colleges to compete with the local convenience for smaller employers that may not have the needs or resources to do a lot of travel recruiting. Some of those other colleges may have their own local or other advantages with other employers (e.g. Harvard and Princeton for Wall Street employers).
Of course, if you are applying to HYP, then you may as well apply to UCB and Stanford as well (or instead).
Thank you for the replies. I would like to re-emphasize that I have safety schools on my list, which include SJSU and less selective UC’s.
@UCBUSCalum I have visited and researched a lot those schools, and the ones I have on this list are schools that I feel I would “fit” well in. I would also like to clarify that these schools are not necessarily a college list. For example, I did not include UCB here because they obviously have better CS job prospects etc. in the Bay Area than Davis.
@Gumbymom “Which campus(es) do you feel you would thrive academically/financially and socially?”
Hopefully my previous answer clarifies this.
My question was simply to understand why should you pay Private/OOS tuition for a “better” CS school over UC Davis.
Again, I would truly appreciate if anyone could answer my core question:
With this in mind, would you attend any of these schools with their larger sticker price over UC Davis for Computer Science, and if so, why?
If you have an unlimited budget, then you might want to get out of California and consider some of the OOS schools on your list. Like I stated above, CS is a very marketable major so where you go for Undergrad will not determine your job opportunities. Work experience is more important than your name on the diploma, so if UCD meets all your requirements then your decision should be an easy one.
My daughter attended Davis. She didn’t major in CS, but had a number of friends that did. The thing about Davis, that most students don’t understand is that the students at Davis are encouraged to work in a collaborative model. They study and work together and help each other out. (You definitely will not find that at most schools, especially not at UCSD, a very competitive school).
Her CS friends, during senior year, practiced mock interviewing. They all found jobs immediately after applying.
If you get a chance to visit, you will notice that the students facial expressions look “happy” at Davis. When my daughter visited her friends at Berkeley, she remarked that the students always seemed to look “stressed”. That’s just a perception, but body language tells you a lot. It helps that there are 40K bikes at Davis that help to release endorphins.
(My other daughter, went OOS to SUNY Buffalo and majored in EECS. She is in SoCal and is constantly head-hunted by CS firms.) If you’re majoring in CS, you will be marketable. You will like the pay.
If you want to study CS, don’t spend your money on Duke, Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. Berkeley and UCLA are far better schools for CS than any of these. The only Ivy that you should consider for CS is Cornell.
The places which are peers with Berkeley and UCLA in CS are those on @UCBUSCalum’s list, U Washington, and U Michigan. If you want to apply to CS schools with the acceptance rates of Harvard, Stanford, and MIT are far better at CS than Harvard.
@MWolf I definitely agree, and that’s why I did not put obvious top-tier CS schools on here. That is kind of the essence of the question – is Davis at a comparable tier with all of these schools, especially if you are in-state for UC? With your answer, it sounds like it is. Thank you for that insight.
Not a fan of paying OOS rates for a generic major like CS.
But definitely consider Michigan. Highly-ranked, and Ann Arbor is the quintessential college town. Would cost a whole lot more than Davis, but likely be a whole lot more fun.
Apparently, cost is not too much of a concern for you. If you enjoy a high degree of school spirit and the college experience, definitely consider a school in a big sports conference such as the PAC 12 (Stanford, UCB, UCLA or USC in CA, Univ. of Wash); Big Ten (Univ. of Mich, Illinois, Purdue), Big 12 (Rice, Univ. of Texas), ACC (Georgia Tech, Duke), etc.
S, after freshman year, transferred from a UC to USC. Coworker’s D chose Univ. of Wisconsin (Big 10) over a UC. S’s friend, CA residence, is choosing Purdue computer science over UC San Diego computer science for this coming Fall freshman year. With the big time sports, it is like day and night. If the UC’s were UCB or UCLA, both with a high degree of school spirit, maybe going to another school would not have happened.
I’m going to disagree that “Berkeley and UCLA are far better schools for CS than any of these.” Unless there’s a special CS track or specialty in one of the schools, CS is CS. People coming out of any of these schools with a CS degree are going to be indistinguishable from each other. If I had to pick among the schools mentioned, I’d pick Yale. That’s mostly because I love Yale’s campus, and a CS degree from Yale is just as good as a CS degree from any of the other schools.
I lived (still live here) and worked in the Bay Area for years as a programmer. There are loads of software developers from UC Davis in the Bay Area.
A great reason to apply to private colleges in general for CS would be that you might find a few at which class sizes are limited to about two dozen students, which would create a dramatically different experience for you compared to what you might encounter at most public universities (as well as at many large private universities). From your listed group of private colleges, Princeton might offer you the greatest contrast in classroom experience to that of UCD, and could be worth its cost premium on this as well as other bases.
Just reviewed the Turing Scholars web-page. 60% receive scholarships (average of 2 scholarships per person). Honors dorm option for all Turing Scholars. But, Turing Scholars requires an Honors Thesis which is a substantial amount of work. Great for those who may want to pursue a PhD, but may be a bit too much work than one who just wants to get into the workforce as soon as possible.
Turing Scholars receive a very significant amount of individualized attention from professors.
Out of curiosity, why are so many people competing for OOS/private schools for CS when SJSU clearly has good prospects? It is baffling to me, as my competitive public HS classmate bend over backwards to get into ivies for CS
Princeton’s class schedule indicates that its intro level CS courses have about 200 students, while upper level ones can have up to 80 or so. I.e. many more than “two dozen”.