Hello everyone. I want to stay in state for college, and I’m planning to major in CS. I’m really having a rough time deciding and weighing the pros and cons of each school. For UM I’d have to pay around 10k out of pocket, UCF around 8k, and UF about the same. I want a degree with relative prestige from a recognizable school, like UMiami or UF, where I could be able to make connections (not putting UCF down, but you get the idea,) but I’d also like a rigorous program to ensure that I learn all I need to be successful with simply a B.S. What do you guys think?
UF.
I’ve been a professional computer programmer for 30 years. My son also wants to obtain a BSCS and become a software engineer for a large corporation or federal government entity. He applied to and was accepted at UCF Burnett Honors College (full ride), UF Innovation Academy (full ride), and Florida Polytechnic University (full ride + $20,000 cash beyond full ride).
In our case, we have found substantial differences between UF and UCF, some of them pro’s and some of them con’s. I can’t comment on UMiami so my comments below exclude them.
- Reputation. Generally, most everyone I know gives points to UF for having a better overall academic reputation. Higher rankings in national surveys bear this out: UF is 150+ years old, has a huge network of hardcore gators, dominates in national collegiate sports, and has great professors and students. By contrast, UCF is 50 years old, is seen as rising in prominence but is also viewed as more of a regional university for "Average Joe" commuters. While the acceptance rate for both schools is slightly less than 50% of applicants, the typical ACT score is 27 at UCF vs 29 at UF so, on paper, the average student at UF is academically stronger than the average UCF.
- Education. Having looked at the curricula of both programs through my eyes as an experienced software engineer, I think that UCF's BSCS program graduates are stronger than UF's, for a few reasons: (1) Though the coursework is about the same, UCF administers a very difficult foundation exam at the end of the sophomore year that weeds out about 40% of the weakest students - sending them into other "less hard" majors - and which ensures only high-quality BSCS students in 3000- and 4000-level courses; (2) UCF's BSCS program is ABET accredited whereas UF's is not; (3) if you plan to pursue a Master's degree, UCF offers a 5-year BS/MSCS option that shaves a year off of the typical MSCS; and, (4) Very subjectively --and perhaps unfairly based on a relatively small sample size-- I have worked with a few dozen UCF and UF BSCS grads over the years and have never encountered a single incompetent UCF CS grad (the UCF foundation exam is the reason, I believe) but cannot say the same of several UF graduates. BTW, this is a risk: if you are one of the 40% who wash out on that foundation exam, you'd have been better off at UF where they don't require such an exam and where other majors are probably stronger than UCF's... but if you can pass that exam, you really have a good handle on the core of computer science..
- Environment. UCF has a large complex of modern industrial-looking buildings maintained in pristine condition in the eastern suburbs of Orlando. When you driving across campus, it's so well-maintained that it looks like you're visiting a Disney theme park. UF also has a beautiful, well-maintained campus consisting of a lot of older brick buildings and "traditional" college buildings in the midst of a dumpy college town. Dorms at UCF are much nicer; UF dorms are rated by its own students as among the worst in the nation. Winters in Gainesville are 5-10 degrees colder than Orlando. UF parties and social / Greek life are much better than UCF's, if that matters to you. There's a ton of school pride in the Gators brand whereas the Knights school pride just can't compete.
- Internship Opportunities. Located in a major metropolitan area, UCF has numerous huge corporate and government employers within a few miles of campus. Gainesville is a college town with relatively few local internship opportunities outside of the university itself.
- Money. You'll have to evaluate this. Though my son could walk out with $20,000 from Florida Polytechnic, his goal is to get the best computer science education possible that he can afford to cover entirely on his own without taking out any student loan debt.
In the end, my advice to my son has been to visit each of the schools, do lots of research, decide which factors are most important to him, and then select the school that he feels most comfortable with spending four years of his life attending. The reality is that America needs 500,000 more programmers in the next 20 years, so you cannot possibly make a wrong choice attending any of your chosen fine schools. My son is leaning towards UCF because of the stronger curriculum, but he plans to visit UF one more time just to be sure.
Good luck to you in your decision!
Calling Orlando a “major metropolitan area” is a bit of a stretch, IMO. Sure, its certainly bigger than Gainesville, but smaller than Tampa and St. Pete
@jym626 Orlando’s metropolitan area has a population of about 2.3 Million (Tampa/St. Pete is about 2.1 million). Trust me, the traffic is horrible. 
I live in Atlanta. Dont talk to me about traffic!!
On this whole UF vs. UCF thing…
UF has far more resources available than UCF. This shows up in lots of different ways. For example:
Instructional Expenditures/Total FTE: UF: $14,040; UCF: $5,036
Educational & General Expenditures/Total FTE: UF $44,359; UCF: $13,675
% Full-Time Faculty: UF 83.4%; UCF 64.5%
Full-time Undergrad Student to Faculty Ratio: UF 21 to 1; UCF 31 to 1
UF also has better facilities, libraries, HiPerGator (the state’s most powerful supercomputer), etc. It’s also has a better career resource center and is better recruited.
I can also assure you that UF’s CISE program is rigorous, and it also offers a “Combined” BS/MS program. And while the core curriculum of both programs are very similar, UF has a wider choice of technical and non-technical electives.
While Orlando vs Gainesville is a personal preference, Freshman retention rates are much higher at UF (96% vs 87%) and transfer rates are much lower (3% vs. 7%), So, in general, Gators are much happier with their time in Gainesville than Knights in Orlando.
I can come up with a dozen good reasons to go to UCF over UF; cost, it’s near to home, you love Orlando, etc., but academics is not one of them.
The original question relates to computer science, not to overall universities’ statistics. If you want to talk about academics in computer science - which is what the post asked about - the proof is in the pudding:
- UCF is ABET accredited in computer science whereas UF is not.
- For 33 consecutive years, the UCF programming team has finished in the top-three spots in the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest. In 2014, UCF finished 3rd in the nation out of 8,000 regional teams around the globe (beating the teams from MIT, USC, and Stanford in the process). Source: http://today.ucf.edu/ucf-3rd-nation-21st-world-world-cup-computer-programming/
- In 2015, UCF's programming team has advanced to the ACM World Finals in Morocco (along with Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Iowa State, MIT, Princeton, and Rice). UF didn't make it.
- In 2014, UCF teams took home the first place trophy out of 109 teams in the southeast regional competition (Source: http://icpc.baylor.edu/regionals/finder/southeast-usa-2014/standings). UF placed 12th.
- In 2014, UCF's cyber defense team took 1st place out of 180 teams in cybersecurity, recognizing UCF as the best team in the nation for overall performance at multiple cybersecurity competitions. UCF also won first place in the 2014 Raytheon National Collegiat Cyber Defense competition (Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/orlando/news/2014/04/28/ucf-wins-2014-raytheon-national-collegiate-cyber.html)
- The median starting salary for a major in computer science at UCF is $87,800 versus $76,000 at UF.
The secret? UCF weeds out the weakest 40% of CS students through a tough “foundation exam” at the end of the sophomore year. These exams are tough ( http://www.cs.ucf.edu/registration/exm/ ) and have no parallel at UF so obviously the average upper-division CS students (those who pass the exam) will be significantly stronger than their average UF counterpart.
For most majors outside of computer science, I would agree that UF has more resources; however, when it comes to computer science at the undergraduate level, UCF offers the strongest academic program in the State of Florida.
Congrats to UCF’s teams. :-bd
ABET is irrelevant for CS. The list of schools that don’t have ABET CS programs go from MIT, CMU to UW-Madision, UC-SD and UF.
I can’t find any rankings that have UCF higher than UF for CS (let alone engineering). Most have UF ranked much higher (for whatever that’s worth).
What are you basing your salary info on? Using PayScale, UF’s Median Salary is “Software Engineers” is $77,398, UCF is $69,019. Lots of issues with using Payscale, but there isn’t many other options. How would a school know what’s it’s graduates are earning? You have to get the info from the IRS, which has been working on it, and as typical for the feds, not making any progress. That leaves us with self-reported survey info, like Payscale.
Using LinkedIn, I can tell that UF Alumni, working in IT and Engineering are far more likely to be working out of state (in places like Atlanta, New York, Boston, Seattle and especially San Francisco) than their UCF counterparts. In fact, about 1/2 of UCF IT and Engineering alumni’s live and work in Orlando.
UF starts with a much stronger group of students. The average UCF student’s SAT/ACT/GPA is around the 25% percentile at UF. That’s one reason UF and many other schools don’t seen to have a need for a “tough” foundation exam. Unless you have some evidence that the average UCF CS student is smarter? To be honest, when I read about the exam, I thought it indicated that UCF’s prerequisites (Calc, Physics, etc.) may not be that rigorous.
Clearly UF has more resources for it’s CISE program.
I’m open to the idea that UCF may have a better program. But you’ll have to make it based on the strength of UCF’s teaching faculty. Both schools have about the same number of tenured professors (UF 32, UCF 30), while UCF also has an additional 20 (13 full time/7 part time) non-tenured track instructors (UF only has 2). This teaching faculty supports 595 Juniors/Seniors (3rd, 4th and 5th year students) at UCF, while UF’s program only has 223 Juniors/Seniors (this is all based on 2013 data). Having almost 3X the number of students, is the reason why UCF has so many non-tenured track instructors.
If UCF has a stronger program, it’s due to the teaching faculty, not an advantage in resources or “smarter” CS students.
Actually, MIT does have ABET accreditation in CS, as does the EECS major at Berkeley, but Stanford, CMU, and the L&S CS major at Berkeley do not. However, per se, it is only really relevant to the patent exam, although students in non-ABET-accredited CS majors can take additional physics or chemistry courses to meet the patent exam requirements. Otherwise, ABET accreditation just indicates that the CS major is of decent or better quality, but non-ABET-accredited CS majors can also be of decent or better quality (but also can be of poor quality). ABET accreditation criteria for CS does include some non-CS science courses.
UCF probably weeds out students with the exam for capacity reasons (i.e. it probably cannot handle all of the students who want to major in CS and get C or higher grades in the prerequisite courses). Most other schools that do this use grades or GPA in prerequisite courses as the primary means of admission to the major; UCF is unusual in having a high stakes exam for this purpose.
@ucbalumnus I have seen mention of the patent exam before. Can you explain what this is? Siri didn’'t help! 
http://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/ip/boards/oed/exam/OED_GRB.pdf
Section III.A lists ABET-accredited CS degrees as acceptable prerequisites for the exam. Section III.B.iv and III.B.x lists course work needed by CS majors in non-ABET-accredited programs.
Most CS majors do not become patent lawyers or patent agents, so that is not of importance to them.