Every time that I research colleges for computer science, I run into the same colleges (i.e. Carnegie, MIT, CalTech, Havard (and the other Ivies),etc.). I was wondering if anyone knew of colleges that weren’t as selective, but I still had the opportunities of hands-on experiences. I prefer a medium-sized (5,000-10,000) college that is on the east coast. Thank you.
Others can list their suggestions, but one thing you can do is a search on college navigator for specific states, majors, and size of school. Then you can look at the detail to tell you how many students are in that major along with a lot of other general information. From there you could look at a school’s specific website. Look for how many faculty there are in computer science, class offerings, and how often they are offered. With computer science, you do not need to be at the most competitive schools to get a good education. You can aim for a good, affordable school that fits for you. Good luck!
Not sure how east coast you’re looking for, but Bowling Green State University in Ohio has a great computer science program and they’re less/moderately selective.
How selective are we talking here? 80% acceptance rate or 30% acceptance rate?
Northeastern, RIT, and WPI are both very solid programs at varying degrees of selectivity, but none impossible to get into. Northeastern and RIT have co-op programs and WPI is very practical and undergraduate-focused. I would highly recommend CS at all three.
You don’t need to go to a top-rated school for computer science. Almost any decent, accredited school that offers CS should be perfectly fine. Just avoid places like art schools and some teeny-tiny LACs.
Check out some of the following schools:
Tufts
Northeastern
University of MD - College Park
University of MD - Baltimore County
University of Pittsburgh
Tufts is more selective than the others but also offers better need-based aid.
All 5 are in locations where you should be able to find good CS internship opportunities.
Many medium size (or larger) state universities offer robust CS programs.
Very few are nearly as selective as the Ivies/MIT. Hands-on experience, through coding assignments, will be an integral part of any decent program. Ask about available internship opportunities when you visit colleges (or contact the CS departments about this).
You may want to look at The College of Charleston in Charleston SC. Charleston has a growing tech community . CofC has a strong relationship with the community , including Google, Blackbaud, Boeing, and a lot of start ups. My son has been very happy there . It is public college with approx 11,000 students in an urban setting .
Thank you all for your responses! I’ll take them into consideration. @tk21769 I have been thinking about Tufts. Do you know if I choose to apply ED if I will get the same amount of financial aid if I would have applied the RD route?
^ Tufts claims to meet 100% of demonstrated financial need. I’d like to assume that applies to ED as well as RD applicants and that the same standards for “need” apply in all cases. However, colleges do have a greater incentive to make more competitive offers for RD applicants. Whether Tufts actually does that (how often, or in what amounts) I don’t know.
I don’t think the biggest issue for ED applicants is whether the standards are consistent for ED v. RD within the same school. It’s whether you’re willing to give up the freedom to compare offers between schools. If another “full need” college makes a significantly better offer in the RD round, you may have a bargaining chip. With ED, you don’t.
Our Son had similar criteria. Not Ivy league, but good Comp Sci and ability to change major if desired. He also preferred a small school 5-10K students. He applied to WPI, RPI, Lafayette, Lehigh, Case Western, School of Mines, -all target schools. Carnegie Mellon-reach, Safety included UNC, Santa Clara, Purdue (large school), couple of others I can’t remember.
@chel17 Is your son currently attending one of those colleges, or is he still a high school senior?
I applied to Tufts ED with a good amount of financial need and I received a very generous financial aid package. I can’t guarantee that admissions does the same for everyone, but I think they want to have as high of a yield as possible and if they don’t give the ED students affordable packages then we have no option but to turn them down.
Boston College, Case Western, William and Mary, Lehigh, U Rochester
@Freesia32 Sorry, missed your question earlier. Our son is still a Senior in High School.
You should take a look at RPI. One classmates are going there next year for comp sci.
Maybe Bucknell, but I don’t know too much about their comp sci program.