Princeton, Yale, MIT or Stanford for CS

wildcat77
Thu, 04 Apr 2013 03:43:15 +0000

A long time ago, I was an EECS major at MIT and a CS grad student at Yale, so I can compare those CS programs. I also know a fair number of Stanford grads. My sense was that undergraduate CS at MIT was somewhat more rigorous and intense, compared to Yale’s undergraduate CS program, but Yale’s was still very solid. If you want to be immersed in techiness, where most of the other students live and breath science and engineering, then MIT would be the place. MIT’s undergraduate research program (UROP) is pretty cool. If you want to be surrounded by a wide range of non-techies, then of course MIT would not be that place. Although I wouldn’t claim that MIT’s arts are as strong as Yale’s, I do think that they are stronger than most people realize, so it’s worth researching what is available that relates to your son’s interests, rather than assume that they are weak. I think that the CS depts in all of the schools you mentioned will provide plenty of opportunities and challenges in the classroom and in the lab that will provide an excellent preparation for work or graduate school. Personally, I’d make the decision based on which school provides the environment and culture that is a best fit for your son, where he feels he’ll flourish.