I would characterize this differently. There are plenty of people at Utah who are more interested in skiing than working hard. And grading is pretty liberal - D ended up with a 3.94 GPA while taking 22 credits most semesters. But there are also very committed, serious students, for example D’s freshman year roommate won a Rhodes scholarship.
When I compare D’s experience to her twin brother at a T20 college, the main difference I saw was that most people at Utah didn’t have quite the same career aspirations. For example, most of D’s friends wanted to stay in the Mountain West whereas many of S’s friends went to DC or NY after graduation.
I would point to this piece on D’s favorite professor as a good example of how the outdoor and academic lifestyles interact at Utah:
And her friends lived up to this, whether it was teaching kayaking in Alaska for the summer or doing a honors thesis project that involved placing measuring devices on top of mountains all around Utah. After graduation, D and I walked the John Muir Trail, while her brother wanted to lie on a beach instead. But he also thought his classes were easy.
Engineering and CS are challenging everywhere. You can’t take a survey of a whole student body and then say it’s relevant to engineering and CS. FAR more of Purdue students are engineering and CS so it’ll skew in the more challenging direction.
I’d also push back against the premise that it even matters.
I knew a man with a PhD in both math and physics who managed a well known NASA program. He was also teaching at Caltech at the time. He outright said, it doesn’t matter where engineers are educated. What matters is curiosity and drive. I took him at his word, but then found anecdotal evidence closer to home supporting it.
My son has had the fortune to be on two elite engineering teams. In both instances those around him were educated all over the planet, including state schools not highly regarded on CC.
Interesting question. The survey is of all students so represents one component of vibe at Utah vs Purdue. OTOH, the mix of majors is different. We can compare to Wisconsin and uva and uc-Santa Barbara to get universities with broader, less stem dominant universities. WISC=44% classes easy, uva-42%, ucsb-56%, utah-61% easy. Utah is in a much higher percentile where students are not intellectually challenged by classes. That is a component of vibe that might matter to a student with a 36. Some top students would prefer to be surrounded by laid back, not working hard students. Other top students want to be surrounded by other students working hard. It is possible to succeed at both, but they are different. The op can decide based on their preference.
More relevant would be if they surveyed those in the OP’s intended major (CS). Surveying entire schools for something that varies by subject gives results that are not definitive (this is also the case for post graduation outcomes).
This just isn’t a very applicable view for engineering and CS. They are hard everywhere. There just isn’t a way to dumb down the material. The thing that distinguishes the most rigorous programs, and there’s no evidence that the approach produces better engineers, is pace. Caltech is the furthest outlier in this regard.
There is higher attrition at the less selective programs, but those who make it through, do well, and make the most of their opportunities can be found thriving in desirable positions everywhere.
FAR more importantly, Utah has a whole degree program in the area the OP wants, Game Design. USNWR, for those who care about that stuff, ranks Utah #3 and MIT #7. Purdue doesn’t offer it.
Ease of getting an A is not the same as “not intellectually challenging”. Utah doesn’t grade on a curve or limit the percentage of As awarded. The honors classes give mostly As (there are no A+ grades). Yes that means for some people it is possible to get away with not working hard, but there are plenty of smart, hard working people there too.
There were many comments about the superiority of in state / full ride options over paying substantially higher for another school. These comments are all very true if you decide to remain a programmer.
However, selective schools offer distinct opportunities to consider:
The students and faculty you spend 4 years with will be very different, which can impact your future if you decide to become an academic, found a startup, go to graduate/business school
The difficulty of the program and the availability of advanced courses will be different across schools
Certain firms focus on recruiting math/CS majors from specific schools and pay substantial starting salaires. This maybe an extreme case, but starting 1st salaries at Janes Street (Quant Hedge Fund) is currently USD550k/Annum
The purpose was simply to illustrate the difference between majoring in CS from different schools on the OP’s list. It’s also common place for 18 year old to have a career interest that changes over 4 years
My generic advice is that a CS degree is more fungible than the more specific, narrower programs.
Back in 1998 or so (I know, ancient history) a bunch of U’s announced to great fanfare their new majors in “E-commerce”. Great news. Kids who were interested in the new and burgeoning field of E-commerce no longer had to slog through a degree in CS and then add in a few econ, psych, statistics courses.
Except by late 2001/2002 industry was shedding e-commerce jobs and laying off droves of professionals who specialized in e-commerce. I had been part of a team to ramp up a global e-commerce initiative- and then had the dubious pleasure of downsizing most of the people my team had worked to hard to hire. The kids graduating into this mess with e-commerce majors were stuck in a death spiral which was not their fault… companies were NOT hiring what they brought to the table, AND they were competing for jobs with people who had a few years of work experience under their belt already…
There are a lot of talented people working in Game Design who did not major in Game Design. I’d follow their lead…