Which school would you go to and why? (List)

[csmajor]

Hello,

I am a senior in high school and I have applied and been accepted to almost all of the following schools (still awaiting answers from a couple). I am majoring in CS and after I would like to study cyber security in graduate school. That being said, which school(s) would have the best CS program for me?

 

Indiana University

Iowa State University

Purdue University

University of Maryland (College Park)

Depaul University (Chicago)

Pittsburgh University

University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)

 

Thanks!

Daniel

[iNow]

I'm not familiar with their CS programs, but they're all good schools. More broadly, I'd consider the school that is in the same state where you live so you can leave with lower debt when graduating.

 

In many cases and as a general rule, the lower debt later will be far more important/beneficial to your future success than any tiny differences in quality or process.

[csmajor]

I have been pondering that greatly...I've heard horror stories of student debt and I agree with you...glad to hear this. Thanks for your response iNow.

[mathematic]

Since these are all good schools, your choice will have little bearing on getting into a good graduate program.

[csmajor]

Good to know. Thanks for the response, mathematic.

[Sato]

In terms of the stature of their CS programs, I'm only familiar with the University of Michigan's. I was just there last weekend for MHacks, their biannual university hackathon, which is the largest hackathon I think there is. Since popularizing such events a few years ago (after which other schools soon followed), they appear to have received lots of funding, namely for their CS and engineering departments, and have so built great new facilities and established their CS/tech programs. One cool aspect of it is their [relatively] new maker center, which gives undergrads funding, work space, and supplies to work on projects, which, if I recall correctly, are later usually entered into competitions and sometimes turned into start up companies. Another thing, which you may not care much for however, is the researchers there, like Dragomir Radev, who is the founder of the NACLO (which you can probably take this coming January 29th), and a giant in the field of computational linguistics and natural language processing.

 

I did not apply, but several students from my school did, and I believe 6 or 8 are presently deferred, so it may be somewhat difficult to get accepted into.

 

I do hear it is expensive though, so if you can get a significantly better deal in either scholarships or financial aid at another school I'd recommend taking it.