MIT vs Carnegie Mellon for Computer Science

Greekfire
Sat, 22 Jan 2011 19:42:59 +0000

ricegal is pretty spot-on. But I’d say the differences in CS program strength are so slight at this level that anyone admitted to both should be deciding based on the culture of the two schools. (And yeah, prestige; any TV show with an intensely geeky character is going to send that kid off to MIT or Caltech; those are the name-brand STEM schools that every American recognizes).

I’m a prospective CS major and applied to CMU but not MIT. For me, it was because I’m fairly interested in creative writing and design, and it was important to me to have programs and people on campus that were focused on those activities (it’s easier to imagine geeking out about poetry with random CMU kids than MIT kids). I also looked into the HCI program at CMU and grew quite fond of it.