I have heard that both of these schools are good at CS. I need a couple more target schools, so which school is more selective to get into in terms of both job recruitment after, college life, and the strength of the program?
I’d rate them as pretty much the same academically. I’d choose based on whether you want to live in rural New York or urban California.
How did you pick out UCLA and Cornell as the “good CS” schools? If you ask people for good CS schools, UCLA doesn’t usually come to their mind. Cornell is near the top, but not quite. Usually people rank UCB, CMU, MIT, Stanford as the top CS programs.
UCLA is a very good school for CS. I’d lump it with schools like Berkeley, Texas, Michigan, Washington, Georgia Tech, Illinois.
http://www.shanghairanking.com/Shanghairanking-Subject-Rankings/computer-science-engineering.html
The only problem I might have with UCLA is big classes.
If you’re in CA, go to UCLA. If you’re out of state, don’t go to either. The debt could cripple you. With CS, it really doesn’t make a difference where you go to school, because it’s an employable degree.