I’d agree wholeheartedly on quantitative analytics. Not on product development though. It’s baked into the ethos of CA, probably to a fault. I think it would depend much more on what it was and how successful it was rather than the institution.
re:93: " Remember, there is status in saying “I turned down MIT” too. “”
I’d love to see that on a resume. Plus it may not be believed.
re #96: “Yes, I don’t want to go into finance/marketing/consulting of any form.”
Neither did I, at your age/stage. It was all physics/EE for me.
As it turns out, I spent a few years as an engineer, and the rest of my working life in finance. Options are good.
92: "I personally am a fan of optionality .." That's all I'm saying..
99: "..MIT grad who goes to code for FAANG and Cal grad who goes to code for FAANG would look the same. "
At that stage, yes. Having both been hired for similar jobs in similar companies, and performed similarly. But how deep in the Cal class do the FAANG guys go to get those people, vs. how deep in the MIT class? I dont know myself, I’m just asking. To me there might be some difference there.
98: "...maybe only Stanford CS has a better reputation."
Don’'t know about CS in Bay area specifically, but for the broader fields of engineering overall, MIT is at least Stanford’s peer. In the past there was some data I recall that showed very few cross admits of Stanford and Berkeley chose Berkeley. I bet a lot of cross-admits between Stanford and MIT choose MIT. Personally I dont care for those "Revealed Preference"rankings, which I believe Parchment uses, but FWIW they show MIT overwhelmingly "wins"vs. Cal. (That’s not a guess, I just looked) Of course that is not specifically for Bay area CS. But whether, at the end of the day, OP winds up doing Bay area CS is pure speculation at this point.
@monydad, what I’d like to see is some evidence that Stanford, MIT, or insert school X here are actually the undergraduate leaders in whatever field we are discussing. I am not saying in any specific field they aren’t. I have just yet to see any evidence based proof that indeed they are. It seems that dogma has a lot of power. I’ll expand on that.
Sticking with CS, when one looks at LinkedIn, the top 5 employers are all basically the same…ish for lots of schools, Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, and a few other big companies. That holds true WAY down the ranks.
My father (MIT BS/MS Engineering) maintains that my uncle’s undergraduate education (BS Podunk U/PhD Stanford Engineering) was “every bit as good as his.” He does still maintain, probably accurately, that his undergraduate network was better. Now that was some time ago that they were students.
My uncle, who taught at Stanford, steered my son away from interest in Stanford for undergrad towards schools that were less reliant on teaching assistants.
Not one, but two Caltech profs steered my son away from their institution. In the words of one, “Caltech is not an undergraduate institution.”
It’s not that he didn’t have the horsepower. He was the Rensselaer Medalist (best science and math student in his HS) at a private college prep school.
So, what I wonder, in the face of this information, and the lack of concrete evidence base to the contrary, is it a self perpetuating popularity contest largely driven by rankings? Do students choose MIT for example for the self perpetuating reason that it’s well…MIT? Does the fact that the majority choose MIT over Cal make MIT de facto “better.”
This is not to say that MIT and Stanford for example are not solid schools. They have been, for some time. It has only been in recent memory that families and individuals have idolized them at their own financial peril.
There’s also plenty of evidence that no matter the field, if you match students high school performance, the undergraduate institution they choose makes little difference in their career success. Yes, there are outliers that we can point to, but they go in both directions. No one would say though that if you want to be the CEO of Apple you should go to Auburn, yet if they did their undergrad at Unicorn School X, we happily attribute that to their later achievement.
I do not ask this rhetorically.
As for the turning down MIT comes with its own status, that was tongue in cheek. If you read the original post and put it in context, you would understand why I said it.
Be well!
The type of evidence and certainty that most people ask for in these types of discussions simply doesn’t exist, but I think that generalizations can be made to some extent. While the top (CS) employers for most schools are virtually the same, the numbers of employees that these companies hire from different schools are not. If you look at the colleges attended by employees of (say) Google, Apple, Facebook there is a bias toward a handful of schools. If the CS school attended did not matter, I would expect to see as many Google employees from every large state flagship (with similar number of graduates) as from Cal (and that’s not the case).
Many advantages gained at several of the top schools, like network, are increasingly important and only help to reinforce the “brand value” of these schools. Here’s an example from my S. During his sophomore year he and his partner presented at a poster session (the final project of a certain CS class). Wandering around in the audience were managers (and a few CEOs) from many on the SV employers and Bay Area VCs. Out of that poster session he was directly contacted by 3 startups and Google based on the topic of his poster. Those contacts resulted in 5 internship offers (3 from Google alone after their matching phase). Looking back (he’s a senior now), he has participated in over 10 CS poster sessions. His LinkedIn contact list rivals that of many industry veterans.
The comment about TA’s I find curious. With my S over my shoulder as I type this post, he says he has never had a class that was “taught” as a TA. He says that TA’s lead discussion sessions and that’s about it. On the other hand, he says that CS rock-stars like Andrew Ng do hold office hours and are happy to engage with students. I do realize that some schools are tagged as “focused on grad school”, but for many (my S included) this is an advantage, as he is listed as a contributor (listed #5, #3, and #2) on three papers published at some leading AI conferences.
What I do agree with is that students should be happy where they land and try to take advantage of every opportunity, they can. OP has a great choice and I’m sure that he’ll be happy where ever he goes (by definition).
However, this may be due to selection bias, since colleges with stronger students are more likely to have more students who can pass the technical interviews at whatever company in question. But since the student (the OP) will be the same in both cases (MIT or UCB), and both colleges have good quality CS education and are many of the dozens or hundreds of colleges that Google recruits at, that is not really a distinguishing factor in the OP’s choice.
That said, Facebook appears to be an outlier in terms of elite-college bias, according to https://www.timeshighereducation.com/student/news/which-colleges-do-facebook-google-and-other-top-employers-recruit .
This model is standard at research universities, but LAC advocates on these forums like to imply that students at research universities will be mostly taught by TAs as primary instructors, and that that is a reason to choose a LAC over a research university.
My child selected Caltech (which in many ways is analogous to MIT) largely because of the small class size, access to professors and the house system. We were told that some of the CS classes at Berkeley were in excess of 600 students, which is nearly 3x the size of Caltech’s entire freshman classes. I also think you can’t just look at lists, like the one that showed which schools had the most students working in the Silicon Valley area, as this is often a function of proximity and/or the number of kids the school graduates. You also need to look at how much support schools give to their students in terms of research opportunities, internships and jobs. Most of all, look at fit–it’s a four-year commitment after all.
@Rivet2000, no, TAs don’t teach lectures. I didn’t mean to insinuate that if it came across that way. They do teach labs and discussion groups though. Having been through that and comparing that to my son’s experience, I’m inferring, rightly or wrongly, that a discussion or lab lead by a graduate student, just barely removed from undergrad themselves, might not be as fulfilling as say ones lead by multi-year NASA alums. That’s not a far fetched example. Every lab and discussion that my son attended was lead by someone that held a PhD. Certainly, that doesn’t guarantee they’ll be great teachers, or that graduate students won’t. They do have experiences though that someone just out of school simply won’t. That said, Andrew Ng doesn’t teach there either. 
Also, I’m not arguing that there aren’t differences in opportunities at different schools. There are certainly are. What I’m trying to push back against is this absurd notion that we can categorically rank undergraduate programs. There’s an idea on CC that Caltech and MIT define the pinnacle and that in what ever order, others trail. The order of anything depends on what the person making the list values.
I’m also pushing back at the claim that MIT is worth $140,000 more than Berkeley, really any school for that matter. The opportunity cost on that money over a career at a conservative interest rate over 40 years (5%) is roughly $1,000,000. At the historical return rate of 7%, that’s over $2,000,000. Those are inflation adjusted numbers. That’s real money. That’s not to say that cost rules over all. It certainly doesn’t. If though it requires stress or leverage, it should be a big part of the discussion.
“OP has a great choice and I’m sure that he’ll be happy where ever he goes (by definition).”
OP is a female, I know shocking!
“On the other hand, he says that CS rock-stars like Andrew Ng do hold office hours and are happy to engage with students.”
Is your point that Stanford is good at CS? What next, Einstein knew something physics? For the sake of discussion we’ll concede that Stanford is good.
"Certainly, that doesn’t guarantee they’ll be great teachers, or that graduate students won’t. "
Ok but here’s the thing, the teacher ranking for Cal Poly, the school you’re referring to, which does not use TAs for lectures is way below that for MIT. And in rate my professor, MIT scores a little higher.
OK, “she’ll”
Sometimes a typo (like a cigar) is just a typo
Along these lines, another possible consideration is the gender ratio and diversity. Some tech programs skew largely male and largely white. For better or for worse, the schools with the higher rankings/reputations tend to have a larger proportion of women. MIT, for example, is right around 50/50 men to women while other schools’ engineering dept. might be 4:1.
Go to Cal - the price difference is not worth it unless money is not an issue or if you hated Cal when you visited.
Just b/c MIT is 50:50 by gender does not mean every major is 50:50.
One of the reasons we pushed our child to go to Caltech over MIT is b/c the faculty at Caltech are much more involved with UG students than at MIT. The only hesitation we had with Caltech is that it is harder than MIT, esp freshman year. And, I say that from experience and lots of information gathering.
I am a girl! ? And from an all-girls high school, so it’d be a huge shock wherever I go. I’ve always known that there’d be more guys than girls in my CS courses and later in life, but I haven’t had many experiences with that kind of environment to make me wary of it.
Are there any anecdotal stories you could supply about cooperation/competition at Cal and MIT?
https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=massachusetts+technology&s=all&id=166683#enrolmt
MIT has a 54:46 male:female ratio. Engineering + CS makes up about 71% of a recent graduating class, with math and physics being the largest other majors.
@penguin20 . . . good for you! Women are more prominent in medicine, but hopefully you’ll bring up your numbers in E/CS.
@rivet2000 , re, your #103 1st P, but UC Berkeley also has a lot more CS and CSEE majors than most of the CA colleges. Additionally, since it’s so close to Silicon, tech companies can do a one-stop shopping there as well as at Stanford. I originally went to IPEDS but switched over to ASEE, because the former is stuck in 2017, in addition to it being a better source for CS & E majors. The reason I included EE is because UCB does combine EE and CS together, correct me if I’m wrong, @ucbalumnus , in addition to there being a lot of chip-related companies in Silicon. Here are some of the CA colleges (plus MIT) with CS, CE (Computer Engineering), EE (Electrical), and CSE (Computer Science/Software Engineering) grads from 2018, except for SJSJ and CPP, which I took from IPEDS because they didn’t include CS in ASEE’s degrees-awarded data:
College by Degree……………CS………….CE…………EE………CSE*………Total
UC San Diego……………………559…………108………212……….56……………935
UC Irvine……………………………647…………57………104………88…….………896
UC Berkeley………………………509……………N/A………326^^…N/A….……….835
SJSJ……………………………………188……………129….……151………123…………….591#
UC Davis………………………………327……………42……… 114………N/A……………483
Stanford………………………………320……………N/A………51………110^…………481
CPSLO………………………………170……………123…………113……….56………………462
MIT……………………………………….23……………N/A…….…143…….251+……………417
UCLA……………………………………215……………N/A………154….……42………………411++
CP Pomona………………………186…………….83……….106….…N/A……………375#
USC…………………………………….242……………N/A…………90………36…….………368
Caltech…………………………………57…….…….N/A….………31………N/A…….………88
- UC Irvine seems to have the most comprehensive CS offerings with Games, 39; pure CS, 527; Data Science, 5 (must be a new major); and Informatics, 76.
**The last category is labeled as CSE is as noted, Computer Science Engineering, or Computer Sofware Engineering, except for Stanford’s total.
^As above, Stanford labeled 110 students as “Engineering BS,” which could be Industrial, but I included them in the fourth category.
^^UC Berkeley labeled 326 students as EE, but they could include EE and CS.
+MIT seems to in the most part, combine hardware with software.
++UCLA has various majors which include: CS&Linguistics, Computational and Systems Bio; minors in Bioinformatics and Digital Humanities; and a Specialization in Computing which most everyone can take. In addition, it is expanding its E department which includes CS.
I had to resort to IPEDS for SJSU because they didn’t include CS majors in with the E’s for ASEE.
This kills me not having tabs recognized in CC’s boards. And please feel free to make corrections.
For What it’s worth, MIT says women make up 46 percent of its UG engineering students: https://engineering.mit.edu/about/facts-and-figures/
At Cal, women make up 29 percent of th eUG engineering students: https://engineering.berkeley.edu/about/facts-and-figures/
So either way I’d be in the minority.
Is there anything different though, in working with male vs female students? Do professors prefer male students or something?
@penguin2 I’m wondering if being awarded Regents at Cal would make a difference in your decision? It certainly will for my D20…
There’s not much money in being awarded Regents at Cal, but getting dibs on class choices would be huge.
You cannot just generalize engineering students at MIT based on the stats you supplied. 46%, may be correct, but within each engineering department you will see differences. I promise that the percentage of women in Mech E is not the same as bio E, Chem E, EE or CS. You need to delve down to see the department.
OP - s there anything different though, in working with male vs female students? Do professors prefer male students or something?
That is question that would be difficult to answer. Yes, of course, there will always be professors who prefer male or female students. To say that profs at a certain college don’t would be difficult. You would hope that in 2020 profs would simply treat everyone the same independent of gender.
MIT mech E: http://news.mit.edu/2017/closing-the-gender-gap-in-mit-mechanical-engineering-0731
Look I’m not homing for MIT, (my kid is at Caltech too) I’m just pointing out that at some schools you have a significantly larger proportion of women, and for my child, that was an important consideration. While the way professors might treat a certain gender can be a factor, there’s also the social aspect–dating and the like!