Anonymous wrote:Rice is great and will get student a job in Texas

CMU will get student a job anywhere in the US.

Pittsburgh is amazing, CMU is amazing.

Let your student decide they are the one going.

So, you are not at all familiar with Rice?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no difference between Rice and GMU for CS. My company just hired two young people who will be graduating from Rice next months and three young people who will be graduating from GMU in May for our AWS/Azure cloud professional service. They all get the same salary at 100k/yr, except one person from GMU who got paid 125K because he is certified both in AWS and Microsoft Azure.

That is a really weird single anecdote to base your comparison on.

It is true. Around the DMV, at least in my field of work, the AWS/Azure certifications are worth more to employers for someone from GMU with these certs than someone graduated from Rice but without the cert.

OP here, GMU as in George Mason University? DC didn’t apply to GMU, oh well.

Anonymous wrote:Rice is great and will get student a job in Texas

CMU will get student a job anywhere in the US.

Pittsburgh is amazing, CMU is amazing.

Let your student decide they are the one going.

Is this the first vote for CMU so far?

Anonymous wrote:There is no difference between Rice and GMU for CS. My company just hired two young people who will be graduating from Rice next months and three young people who will be graduating from GMU in May for our AWS/Azure cloud professional service. They all get the same salary at 100k/yr, except one person from GMU who got paid 125K because he is certified both in AWS and Microsoft Azure.

I’m going to be honest here. The upper half of a CS class from a highly ranked program are less likely to want to go to professional services as first choice out of college unless it is MBB consulting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is no difference between Rice and GMU for CS. My company just hired two young people who will be graduating from Rice next months and three young people who will be graduating from GMU in May for our AWS/Azure cloud professional service. They all get the same salary at 100k/yr, except one person from GMU who got paid 125K because he is certified both in AWS and Microsoft Azure.

That is a really weird single anecdote to base your comparison on.

It is true. Around the DMV, at least in my field of work, the AWS/Azure certifications are worth more to employers for someone from GMU with these certs than someone graduated from Rice but without the cert.

Anonymous wrote:There is no difference between Rice and GMU for CS. My company just hired two young people who will be graduating from Rice next months and three young people who will be graduating from GMU in May for our AWS/Azure cloud professional service. They all get the same salary at 100k/yr, except one person from GMU who got paid 125K because he is certified both in AWS and Microsoft Azure.

That is a really weird single anecdote to base your comparison on.

Rice is great and will get student a job in Texas

CMU will get student a job anywhere in the US.

Pittsburgh is amazing, CMU is amazing.

Let your student decide they are the one going.

There is no difference between Rice and GMU for CS. My company just hired two young people who will be graduating from Rice next months and three young people who will be graduating from GMU in May for our AWS/Azure cloud professional service. They all get the same salary at 100k/yr, except one person from GMU who got paid 125K because he is certified both in AWS and Microsoft Azure.

If CMU SCS, then go to CMU.

Go visit both and then let him decide. I don’t think you can go wrong with either one

Another vote for Rice. My kids were looking for schools with happy kids, based on any info we could find, including the grateful grad index. Rice seems to do well. JHU and CMU seems much lower. Lots of other school in between. Congratulations!

Anonymous wrote:Depends on your kid. CMU is intense but the best for CS. Some kids would love it but others would hate it. I have one who thrives in that type of environment and one who would wither.

+1. Does you kid want to have a great all-around college experience, make lots of supportive friends in a caring environment, but still be challenged? That would be Rice. Or is your kid obsessed with CS and programming and would skip ahead 4 years to making money and working at a tech company if they could? That's more CMU.

Also Pittsburgh is very up-and-coming with lots of young people moving there.

OP here, thanks for all the wonderful feedback, the Stanford comment included Unfortunately, DC didn't apply to Stanford as he is not interested in going too far out there. May consider grad school if that is in his cards.

Both Rice and CMU were reaches given how competitive this year is and he is grateful to have gotten in. Hence doesn't want to take this lightly and wants to be thorough in the decision making process. He has pretty much ruled out everything else and is trying to decide b/t these two.

I’d vote Rice because if you remove CS, I think it has the better rep vs CMU (arguably JHU might but I consistently hear the grad experience is far superior to the undergrad experience at JHU). And you really never know what interests your child might discover when in college - even if they stick with CS, what if they develop a passion in another area and want to minor/double major. Which college gives the best flexibility?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, seems that Rice is overwhelming favorite. I would imagine kids at Rice are all super smart and driven. Is the academic environment just less cutthroat (as compared to JHU, where folks seem to think it is more harsh)?

I have a kid at Rice (not CS, sorry), and yes. Kids work really hard, but they're putting the pressure on themselves, not competing with each other.

I went to Rice. And that seems about right. Kids work hard and are competitive but not with each other. But as others have said, a lot depends on the kid. I’ve got a family member at CMU and he loves it. Could not be happier. Look at course catalog and list of professors as well.