UVA vs VT for CS
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Anonymous
In my experience with tech, no one really cares about academic backgrounds beyond initial hire. It is infrequently mentioned. The conversations focus on what the individual can do. |
Anonymous
| Choose the school that is the best fit. |
Anonymous
If the parent is footing the bill and still providing the health insurance, they're allowed to have some influence. |
Anonymous
+1 |
Anonymous
Some classes offered by the commerce school have limited enrollment so you are not allowed to sign up if you are not in the school. To OP, congrats! We faced the same decision making 4 years ago and spent quite a lot of time researching on this forum. There are pros and cons for each, in the end, our DC opted for UVA. Their honors program, proximity to home, undecided about the major made UVA a better choice. Looking back, VT is probably a better match. I feel DC's curriculum is too theoretical (even though DC's class is the last one to have their old curriculum), and too many distributional requirements. Like many posters have said, it's a brutal year for CS graduates to find a job. Most jobs do not care about the distributional requirements (other than in the form of GPA) but do require online assessments first. For CS jobs, as long as you can pass the online assessments and then progress to actual interviews, it doesn't matter which school you go to. Hope it helps. |
Anonymous
| Attend admitted student day/event at each school, if student able to go. It could come down to where your kid sees themselves living and studying. Good luck! |
Anonymous
| Im curious on the stats that got a kid into all 3. Mine got into UMD and rejected at UVA and Vt with a 4.6 GPA, top 1% of class, national merit, multiple CS leadership EC, athlete and 12AP classes. But as for where to go, between those its UMD and UVA. UMD is the "real" CS program but people from UVA do just as well do to connections. UVA is uppity as all hell though so question whether your CS kid will like the country club vibe. VT is more sporty but the CS program is just mid range. If they love VT, they will still do well post grad but they will not have the curriculum advatange UMD has - UMD is just more cutting edge. |
Anonymous
Actually, a lot do. It's no. 5 in the nation for public universities. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/top-public. And it's no 24 for best in the nation overall |
Anonymous
| My son got into Maryland and VT for CS. Out of state for both. He graduated from VT and is now at Google. Maryland is ranked higher for CS, has more research for CS, and has a new building. I'm not sure any of that matters too much for undergraduates. I think VT is solid for undergraduate CS (top 30 or so last I looked) and "good enough". My son was well prepared when he graduated. I liked that CS at VT is within the engineering school. My son much preferred the VT campus and vibe. College Park felt like a place where you would have to worry about petty crime. However, I understand that some people would prefer to be closer to a big city. My sense is that Maryland CS is overcrowded and a "you're a number and on your own" program, more than is the case at VT. I would suggest the kid go to the school where they think they would be happiest based on the location, campus and school vibe. And, of course, the best option financially. |
Anonymous
Mine got into all 3 CS programs. 1520 3.98/4.8 normal ecs, sports, DCPS |
Anonymous
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GPA 4.4+, SAT 1560, not sure how many AP classes (but stem classes: physic C, Multivariable Calculus, some post CS AP courses...)
leadership EC, MIT summer camp with coding. Dream school CMU CS(brutally rejected), UMichigan waitlisted. Accepted by UMD CS with merit, UVA CS school of Engineering, VT, Purdue CS, UWashington, Winscon-Madison CS DS chose UVA beyond my expectations... Well, so far he liked it very much by selecting some business, e-commerce courses, maybe data science courses in the future except the CS focus.
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Anonymous
VT is #47 Do you think there's big difference between #24 and #47 state schools LOL |
Anonymous
What are you looking at. Both links have UVA higher in CS. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings https://csrankings.org/#/fromyear/2023/toyear/2024/index?all&us |
Anonymous
Yep It will be in the T20 very shortly. People are turning away from paying $85-90k/year for tuition to privates. And we will hit $100k/year soon. More and more are turning to state flagships. Add in all the horrible press at the Ivies over Jewish genocide and overly snowflake whiny agendas instead of preparing competent leaders and even the largest traditional donors are turning their backs on those T10s. My son has gotten into UVA and am Ivy and we will get zero aid. Reading the tea leaves makes the $370k Ivy vs $140k state school with ROI calculators showing the same return an obvious choice. Not only that many big companies are saying they will not hire from ivies anymore. |
Anonymous
Yawn. This commercial is getting tired. |