Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A bit of a secret tip from an insider. If you want really strong CS but want some space for liberal arts, go to Brown CS. While Princeton and Cornell have an edge over Brown for graduate study in CS, Brown has an edge over other Ivies in undergrad CS. So I would advocate a strategy of Brown over big state schools like Texas for undergrad CS. Just a sleeper choice not apparent to many outside of CS.

Brown is not a sleeper choice! It's insanely difficult to be accepted there.

Anonymous wrote:A bit of a secret tip from an insider. If you want really strong CS but want some space for liberal arts, go to Brown CS. While Princeton and Cornell have an edge over Brown for graduate study in CS, Brown has an edge over other Ivies in undergrad CS. So I would advocate a strategy of Brown over big state schools like Texas for undergrad CS. Just a sleeper choice not apparent to many outside of CS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Thank you. This is very helpful.
My DC teaches himself languages and coding all the time so I know he is going to love comp Sci as a major.
Is your son’s T15 school a school where he had to declare major before applying?

If a kid likes to code, that’s a sign the kid would be good at management information science and ordinary software developer jobs.

I think that the kids who’d actually enjoy a top computer science program are more the kids who do Sudoku, Rubik’s cubes and other logic puzzles for fun.

High-level academic computer science is more closely related to a philosophy department logic course than it is to developing a phone app.

So, just the fact that your son likes learning anything on his own is a great sign, but figuring whether the coding itself is a good sign depends on what the projects are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Thank you. This is very helpful.
My DC teaches himself languages and coding all the time so I know he is going to love comp Sci as a major.
Is your son’s T15 school a school where he had to declare major before applying?

If a kid likes to code, that’s a sign the kid would be good at management information science and ordinary software developer jobs.

I think that the kids who’d actually enjoy a top computer science program are more the kids who do Sudoku, Rubik’s cubes and other logic puzzles for fun.

High-level academic computer science is more closely related to a philosophy department logic course than it is to developing a phone app.

So, just the fact that your son likes learning anything on his own is a great sign, but figuring whether the coding itself is a good sign depends on what the projects are.

Anonymous wrote:
Thank you. This is very helpful.
My DC teaches himself languages and coding all the time so I know he is going to love comp Sci as a major.
Is your son’s T15 school a school where he had to declare major before applying?

Anonymous wrote:Here is my take on this.  Most CS jobs do NOT require a CS degree to do the job.  Most developers in the DMV are just coders.  It might make a difference elsewhere but not in the DMV as far as I can tell.  Landing a CS job is also more about who you know than what you know.  I can hire someone with a CS degree from GMU and that person can do just as good a job as someone with a CS degree from UMD or UVA.  In fact, I had to turn down a CS major candidate for an internship at my company for someone studying liberal arts and minor in CS from Goucher (I didn't even know Goucher is a college until I looked it up).  He was chosen over the UMD candidate because my boss knows his parents.  It is what it is but who you know matter a whole lot more. YMMV.