How To Get Into an Elite Comp-Sci Program 297
alphadogg writes "With early applications to elite colleges at an all-time high, the nation's highest-rated undergraduate computer science programs are bracing for an uptick in applications between now and January. High school seniors are facing stiffer-than-ever competition when applying to the nation's top computer science programs this fall. But admissions officers and professors at elite tech schools can offer tips aimed at helping your child get accepted come spring."
Re:Missing the point. (Score:5, Interesting)
I will admit that there are a few companies that specifically seek out and recruit from elite schools, but they will see through anyone that doesn't have talent. So, at best, going to an elite school really only provides someone a slight edge. And they will only take 'the best of the best', so unless someone is sure they are in the top 10% already, good luck with that degree really amounting to more than from a community college.
As long as someone can click on the box 'I have a degree', that's all HR will care about. The manager might be impressed by an elite degree, he might be intimidated by it, or he might turn it away because of expected salary costs. These things can work against you also.
I remember talking with a VP of programming about 10 years ago, wondering why someone with a masters in marine biology would want to be a computer programer. He didn't even interview the kid. But then again, the VP had his PhD in neural networks, and was working for a financial company and was fired after two years because he had terrible people skills. A lot of good his degree did him, he was one of the worst managers I'd ever seen. The company I worked with hired a financial wizard from some elite school with a very impressive background, and just fired him 6 months ago for the his lack of people skills and terrible work ethic.
If someone has the money to blow, there is nothing wrong with an elite school. But I sure as hell wouldn't spend a lot of money I didn't have in the hopes of making up for it later.
Not Sure (Score:5, Interesting)
I completed my BS in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University ( consistently ranked #2 or #3 in CS), and I'm currently in the master's program there. How did I get in? I'm not sure. I've never felt like I was smart enough to be at this school, and I think this is a common conception among students here. We all feel like the admissions staff made some kind of mistake. I think it all comes down to showing that you are really passionate about computers, and have taken initiative to do stuff on your own. What did I do in high school? Mostly, I just screwed around, but I did do a lot of programming projects on my own: video games, web apps, robots. That's what we talked about most during my interview. Not my grades, or my SAT scores (though they were pretty good.)
At 17, how are you supposed to know? (Score:4, Interesting)
Looking back to when I was in high school, I had no idea what I wanted out of college or what I really wanted to do with my life. By my last year in high school, I had been an unpaid summer intern at a software company and taken AP Computer Science, but even then, I really wasn't sure. I _thought_ I wanted to study Computer Science, but I had no idea how hard the theory courses would be or if I had any hope of becoming a competent programmer. When I was in high school, I thought that after a semester or two of college CS courses, I might change my major after deciding it wasn't what I had hoped for. In the end, everything turned out well and I did get a CS degree, but that doesn't happen to everyone.
As a highschooler, I also was misinformed about the quality of education I would receive at different schools. The misconception is that only at an ivy league school or other similarly ranked private school will I get a solid education. I applied to several top-level CS schools but ultimately went to an in-state highly ranked public school since it was much cheaper. There are plenty of good public schools that offer strong CS programs -- MIT, Stanford, et. al. are good, but there are many others that also meet a high quality threshold. I came out of undergrad as a strong programmer with a solid understanding of the theory of computation, in part because of my schooling, but also because I was willing to learn. Internships also helped -- these were especially helpful in gaining employment.
Make sure the school hasn't gone nuts (Score:5, Interesting)
I had the unfortunate experience of going through Stanford for a MSCS just before the "AI Winter". The "expert systems" (remember "expert systems [wikipedia.org]"? ) profs were running the department. It was becoming clear that expert systems weren't going anywhere, and the faculty was in denial about that. They'd set up a 5-year "knowledge engineer" program, with a combination of computer science theory, philosophy, and psychological interviewing technique to write rules for expert systems (Where are those people now?) I had one exam where a question was "Does a rock have intentions"?
It took over a decade for the CS department to recover. After I graduated, the CS department was moved from Arts and Sciences, where it had been mostly autonomous, to Engineering, where it had adult supervision. It wasn't until the DARPA Grand Challenge forced Stanford to bring in machine learning people from CMU that the department really started moving forward again. Now they're making real progress.
(This is not well known, but Tony Tether, the director of DARPA, used the Grand Challenge to kick some ass in academic AI. The schools receiving funding from DARPA were told that if the private sector did better than they did, DARPA was turning off their grant money in AI. That's why the big schools put entire CS departments on the Grand Challenge.)
Re:Here's a tip (Score:4, Interesting)
SATs are a filter. They don't get you in. If you get a 1600 (or whatever the max is these days) you're now on par with 10,000 other kids who also got a 1600.
Yes 2400 is the max these days... I've been involved with admissions with my school (one of the top-10 depending on the list) and certainly SAT is used as a coarse filter (once above a certain level, the actual score is mostly irrelevant)... Also note that 2400 doesn't necessarily mean "perfect", every year the test is scaled so it may be that missing 1 question is still 2400. Also with the "free-form" math, and essay, it isn't they same test as in the old days... Also, most selective schools also require the "subject" SAT tests (used to be called SAT II, and if compsci, probably at least math 2 and one of the science tests).
Schools are generally more interested in grades/GPA than SAT scores, but even those are conditional (e.g., what courses you took vs GPA is more important than actual numerical GPA, say IB, Honors, or AP classes vs standard classes or underwater basket weaving).
The valedictorian at my highschool, 5.0 GPA (AP scale), 1600 SAT, smartest guy I know, got rejected from MIT. He ended up going to U Penn, now works at Google. Another girl got into MIT with lower GPA and SAT, but she had like 400 extracurriculars and was involved in everything. Just goes to show it's not all grades that count.
It's a little more subtle than just 400 extracurriculars. Typical "selective" schools tend to look for long-running extracurriculars, not just bulk (which tend to either be "fake" because nobody can spend 100 hours a day on extracurriculars, or if not actually fake, not representative of actual participation). Just pick a few extracurriculars and do them for > 3-4 years (starting in middle school), and show some commitment (lead developer for an open source project, lead chair in a band instrument, president of the chess team, even treasurer of NHS, attending math olympics, physics bowl, programming competition events or whatever).
Getting someone letter of recommendation from someone involved in the extracurricular is a really good idea so that they don't know it was some sort of "trophy" extracurricular (where you are a member to list it on your application, but don't really do anything). The generic guidance counselor "this is a smart kid" recommendation isn't really that impressive to a selective school because almost everyone gets one of those. Of course if your counselor knows you really well or can compare you to some other folks that ended up going to the school you are applying to, perhaps the counselor can write a better recommendation.
Just saying...
FWIW, there appears to be a better correlation to ultimate success on the schools that you apply to (not get in), than the school you acutally end up graduating from. So if you are the type that is ambitious enough to apply to a selective school, and you actually do it (rather than treat this whole admissions thing as a "thought experiment"), you might be enough of a do-er (or at least enough self esteem) that will make your more likely to be successful in the future, regardless of the school you attend (or drop out of).
And as a total aside, you have the best chance of getting into any program as a so-called "legacy" admit. Just make it past the filter levels and go to the same school as a parent, uncle, aunt or sibling. A "legacy" admit can get you into nearly any school you have the "pedigree" for... :^(
Re:Are you sure about that? (Score:4, Interesting)
I honestly don't see how surgeons and engineers have much difference between them when it comes to dealing with people. Remember, surgeons aren't general practitioners; they don't spend all their time meeting with patients, chit-chatting with them about their lives and health problems, how their kids are, etc. Surgeons are specialists, and get paid when they're in an operating room working on an unconscious patient; the only people they have to "deal with" are the surgical staff they work with: a few nurses, an anesthesiologist, etc. Engineers don't spend all their time by themselves, they have to talk with other engineers, talk with their manager, sit in meetings with the other engineers, etc. Granted, they have a lot of individual working time, but there's a certain amount of teamwork there too, plus dealing with management. And unlike the surgeon, who has a nice office with a door where he can have quiet if he needs it, the engineer doesn't have that luxury; he has a shitty "open work area" with half-height cubicle walls that he has to share with a bunch of other workers, including several loud-mouths that love to come by and chit-chat with his coworkers, and the work area is so loud that it's impossible to think unless you wear headphones. But then when you wear headphones, other jerks constantly come up behind you to ask you inane questions and tap you on the shoulder, nearly giving you a heart attack when you're deep in concentration. I'll bet the surgeon doesn't have to worry about that when he's got his hands inside someone's body cavity and is fiercely concentrating on making the incision at exactly the right place so the patient doesn't die; his support staff knows exactly how to talk to him or respond to him to avoid interrupting his concentration.
If surgeons break even with engineers after only a measly 5 years, how far ahead in earnings do you think the surgeon will be after 30 years of work? The surgeon will have saved millions, while the engineer will have been unemployed for a decade or more because companies can get younger engineers cheaper, or just send the work offshore, so the engineer will have to make do with a retail job.
As for fun, the surgeon gets to spend his career saving peoples' lives. The engineer gets to spend his short career (before he's too old to work, at 40) working on idiotic projects that some dumbass in upper management dreams up to copy some other, more successful company, but then these projects are shit-canned before they're complete. The engineer will be lucky if any of his projects ever actually get used by end-users.