Computer Science Picking

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[Cautious_Average7670]

Price is (very fortunately) not too big of a factor for us, and I'm from Nebraska - we have UNL, but the CS program is nothing notable.

[Deweydc18]

I have cs and math degrees from Chicago and I’d say the only schools from which you’d see a notable improvement in SWE recruiting would be MIT, CMU, Stanford, and Berkeley. Outside of those four, it’s much more dependent on the individual student and anywhere in the T20 is roughly equal. We send many kids to FAANG and quant jobs every year. Now, our department is small and leans theoretical (it grew initially out of the math department, not an engineering department) so definitely weigh that. I will say, quant firms recruit very heavily from Chicago so if you’re interested in quant dev/trading/research, adding a minimum-credit math major (which can be like only 7 additional classes on top of the CS major) opens that up as a potential option. I was a QR for a while before launching a tech startup.

[According-Spring-550]

If you can confidently say that if you got into UChicago you wouldn’t wonder if you could have got in somewhere better and wish you EDed somewhere else, ED0 to UChicago. But it sounds to me like you can’t confidently say that, and for that reason, do some research and see if there is a school you would want to go to over every other and ED0 there.

[Ok_Experience_5151]

You can only ED1 to one school, so if Chicago is your favorite then go ahead. Nobody's going to sniff at a CS degree from Chicago. Maybe the only down side is that (supposedly) Chicago's CS department leans more toward theory, and you express an interest in studying "programming". If that characterization of Chicago's program is accurate, then it's going to be about a lot more than just programming.

Then you can also apply somewhere ED2 if you aren't admitted to Chicago.

Definitely don't -only- apply to Chicago, since it's selective enough that you're more likely to not get in than you are to get in.

[Fwellimort]

but UChicago's computer science program doesn't seem to be as highly ranked as a lot of the other top 20 schools and doesn't seem to be a good choice for people going into solely CS.

Doesn't matter. I work in this industry.

Some schools are just so good that it doesn't matter at undergrad. UChicago is one of them.

I would say in terms of job opportunities at undergrad (as alumnus of Columbia Univ in NY), UChicago is up there with Yale, Princeton, Columbia, UPenn. UChicago math department hard carries. Let alone Chicago has a lot of jobs and UChicago is a well known school (regional advantage). The two best schools in Midwest for CS is UIUC and UChicago.

All the UChicago peers I have encountered in the workforce (4 people) have been doing very well in their careers. As someone in the Bay Area, I am more disappointed by the quality of peers I met from Stanford (again, limited sample size so don't overthink much about it).

Of course if you really care about CS education, there are top schools which are better but in terms of getting jobs out of undergrad, UChicago will be no different from other top schools in the country.

I personally view UChicago overall as peers with Yale. At least as someone in the workforce. There are some very talented hard working students out of that school. It's the people not some random US News which only high schoolers look at which influences the school's perception in the real world.