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Applying to college

MikeDawg said:
Lol how are you about to say that comp sci is a toss up?

Berkeley isn't in the stanford/mit/cmu undergrad triad, but it is as close as you can get. Also, Troy Bolton went to berkeley.
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I mean, he should go wherever he wants, but undergraduate programs at Princeton are essentially universally stronger than Berkeley. If he wanted to go to Berkeley (or anywhere else) for grad school, Princeton will help him get there. But yes, Berkeley probably has stronger graduate programs in comp sci than Princeton.

And the argument xyz went to School A holds little water. I could just as easily counter with an argument saying xyz successful person went to Princeton and we would never get anywhere.

Edit: I just looked up who Troy Bolton is. The above still stands, but is just less relevant.
 
dave franco's character in 21 jump street also was going to berkeley!

but to actually add something of substance instead of just telling ppl to cum 2 cal, here's my insight on cal vs. ivies in terms of undergraduate experience: in berkeley there are A LOT of ppl, especially in the cs and engineering departments. this means that you do not get as much personalized attention and interaction with professors and TAs as you would at a smaller school normally, but that isn't to say it isn't available. you just have to make the effort yourself to talk to people whose work you're interested in and they are more than happy to help/talk. this also means that there isn't much hand-holding in the classes and it kind of forces you to learn to use the resources around you whether that's looking at online documentation or talking to peers or instructors. depending on your style of learning this can be a good or a bad thing, imo it is pretty helpful in terms of simulating real world project experience where the onus is on you to make your shit work because you become self-sufficient. obviously there will be people to help you along the way but the support system I would venture is weaker than say Princeton just cuz there are so many ppl here it's impossible to give the same ratio of attention per student.

with that said I'm sure both programs are sexcellent and you won't regret the choice either way. but networking is gr8 in silicon valley/sf for eecs
 
I think that it is important to note that, in Engineering majors especially, a big school has a lot of merit as far as employment goes. At UIUC, for example, there are more than a dozen career fairs every year... And that is just for CS/sometimes other Engineering kids. The same, I assume, holds true for places like Berkeley. Having SO many super qualified students at a super prestigous department is a goldmine for recruiters... THEY have to get on a waiting list to get a booth at career fairs because of how high-demand these kids are.

Another factor is that CS is the largest focus at these schools. Sure, these are big places with lots of kids, but the CS departments are taken VERY well care of and are the primary focus as far as funding/etc goes for flagship CS schools.

This just isn't true (almost absurd CS-specific recruiting and a solid focus on improving CS above all else) about a school like Princeton. There will certainly be plenty of opportunities, but there will also certainly be far less resources.

Yes, there are huge class sizes for these oversized departments (think 500 people per lecture for earlier classes), but that doesn't mean that individual attention is lost by any means. Going to meet with a professor individually is as easy as walking up to their office on whatever day of the week and hanging out. The real applicable information is usually broken up into smaller lab sections/discussions anyway.Getting individual attention, in my opinion, is never a hard thing to do. Given that most Engineering professors are making shit given what they could be making with 4 less years of schooling and a decade less of experience, they do have to love their job and care about the students.

Sure, princeton is renowned as an "undergrad" school, but that doesn't mean that the other schools put any less of an emphasis on their own undergrad programs (especially in a major like this where the smaller minority go to grad school as opposed to moving straight to the field).

US news aside, go to professors, recruitors, etc., and they will tell you that there are very evident "cut-offs" amongst undergrad departments, and Princeton is not apart of the upper eschelon.
 
Just out of curiosity, which CS firms wouldn't recruit from Princeton? I'm at an Ivy with a weaker CS dept than Princeton and we still have people being recruited out the wazoo from Silicon Valley startups and places like Google, etc, so I would be surprised to hear that any firms would turn away Princeton CS grads.
 
I'm excited to say I'm going back to school at Metropolitan State University in St. Paul (got accepted and transferred credits pretty easily). It's a low-cost school so it doesn't carry any reputation like higher end schools do but I'm proud to say that I'm not going to be in any debt upon graduating since I'm paying for it out of pocket. My major is going to be in Urban English Education which works well with my goal of teaching abroad down the road. I'm pumped to do the school thing to say the least.
 
Australia question:
Do Australian universities have advanced standing programs? (Meaning, can you enter at year 3 if you were studying a similar degree elsewhere?)
If so, how important is the GPA from your previous university course?

Would be super grateful if people can answer my question.
 
MikeDawg said:
I think that it is important to note that, in Engineering majors especially, a big school has a lot of merit as far as employment goes. At UIUC, for example, there are more than a dozen career fairs every year... And that is just for CS/sometimes other Engineering kids. The same, I assume, holds true for places like Berkeley. Having SO many super qualified students at a super prestigous department is a goldmine for recruiters... THEY have to get on a waiting list to get a booth at career fairs because of how high-demand these kids are.
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This is big, UIUC's CS program isn't the best in the world (usanews lists it at #5), but it is significantly bigger than programs that beat it out. I'm in my first year so I haven't paid that much attention, but from what I've seen, career fairs are EXTREMELY common for CS here.
 
There are other factors to consider too: here at UVA our CS department isn't super highly regarded (around #30 iirc) and we usually have only ~150 people per year in the CS majors, but we get recruited pretty hard largely because of our proximity to the job hub that is DC.
 
verbatim said:
This is big, UIUC's CS program isn't the best in the world (usanews lists it at #5), but it is significantly bigger than programs that beat it out. I'm in my first year so I haven't paid that much attention, but from what I've seen, career fairs are EXTREMELY common for CS here.
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That's a pretty cool list. Makes me want to go Berkeley after I graduate for MSc or PhD even more if possible.

Btw, is there an international version? Interested to see where my college ranks.
 
Not for usanews no. There are international versions (lots of good Chinese and British schools) but most of them (plus this one actually) are for undergrad programs. Phd's are a different ballpark
 
verbatim said:
Not for usanews no. There are international versions (lots of good Chinese and British schools) but most of them (plus this one actually) are for undergrad programs. Phd's are a different ballpark
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Oh no I meant undergrad actually. Just wondering where my college is ranked there
 
Snobalt said:
Thanks for all the advice! After reading this, I'm now heavily leaning towards Brandeis/Columbia.

For the record, I only applied to small schools b/c I felt that larger schools were not my cup of tea. I wanted to do engineering at Tufts but got rejected, so now I'm left with liberal arts engineering. Moreover, Brandeis' version of the 3-2 program requires me to do research at some point, and the school's proximity to Boston opens up a lot of internship opportunities, so getting good research done there shouldn't be too difficult. There's also 260 clubs at Brandeis, so I should be able to find one connected to engineering. And, of course, Columbia is a great engineering school (and an outstanding school in general), and I'm fairly sure that engineering is what I want to do with my life.
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I know so many kids who transfer from Trinity.
 
Is there anyone who goes to UMass Amherst? I hear it has a good comp sci/AI program and I'm going in for an integrated BS/MS rn. Hopefully that scholarship money'll be put ot good use =0, I still don't understand how only 1 out of 20 colleges can accept me with a 2290 SAT but,that's college apps for you I guess.
 
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Shrug said:
Um does anyone go to Williams / know someone who does? I find it fantastic, is there anyone who knows sonething helpful in terms of getting in?
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It's small and also considered very elite and they therefore get to be pretty picky about who they want. If I remember talking to an admissions person way back when correctly (I was interested for a little bit before realizing just how in the middle of nowhere it is), they care a ton about having motivated, engaged students, much more so than test scores or GPAs - though there is definitely a baseline you've got to pass.

It makes sense, I guess. With only 2,000 students and next to nothing in the area, they want to make sure you can keep yourself busy and help keep others busy too. Show how you'd add to campus life.
 
MikeDawg said:
Another factor is that CS is the largest focus at these schools. Sure, these are big places with lots of kids, but the CS departments are taken VERY well care of andUS news aside, go to professors, recruitors, etc., and they will tell you that there are very evident "cut-offs" amongst undergrad departments, and Princeton is not apart of the upper eschelon.
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You do realise that CS and engineering are among the flattest fields and that the some of the most "prestigious" tech firms recruit and do interviews on campus for schools far less respected than UIUC and Princeton, right?
 
is UMass Amherst a cool place to live in/expect a good job from after 4 years? Just asking in case anyone knows!
 
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