3 ms·

Many years ago, when I used to hire programmers, someone told me that a CS degree from an Ivy league was less of a reliable predictor of engineering talent than

Many years ago, when I used to hire programmers, someone told me that a CS degree from an Ivy league was less of a reliable predictor of engineering talent than a CS degree from a University of California school (Cal, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB etc.) The logic of this was that the engineering schools of UCs had a serious "weed out" process. If you went to an Ivy and made your major CS, because it was fashionable, you got through no matter what. I don't have anecdotes to verify this-- much less data-- but I thought it was an interesting observation.

hga 12y ago
Some of this has to be biased by the fact that there's no Ivy League school with a top CS program, unless you count Stanford, whereas UCB is, perhaps anonymously, one of the 4 (the other two being CMU and MIT). Hmmm, my vague and out of date memory is that public universities are well represented in 2nd tier CS programs, and I can't remember any Ivies in that list. But that's old, iffy and perhaps obsolete info. One very obsolete thing is equipment: the wealthier schools used to have a big advantage in being able to supply computer time to their students.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  > there's no Ivy League school with a top CS program How do you define "top CS program"? I can't find a ranking that doesn't have Cornell or Princeton in the top 10. Defining "top program" as top 5 seems a bit odd (even then Cornell occasionally makes the list)
  - hga 12y ago
    Last time I checked (last decade, I suppose), "everyone" agreed Stanford, UC Berkeley, CMU and MIT had the world's best CS programs, with a big gap before the next "tier". I'm willing to believe, maybe back then, but especially today, that some Ivy's are ranked high in the 2nd tier.
    - seanflyon 12y ago
      I can't find anyone but you who defines "a top CS program" as the top 4 schools, but you are right that the top 4 are better tan the 5th and 6th.

hga 12y ago

Some of this has to be biased by the fact that there's no Ivy League school with a top CS program, unless you count Stanford, whereas UCB is, perhaps anonymously, one of the 4 (the other two being CMU and MIT). Hmmm, my vague and out of date memory is that public universities are well represented in 2nd tier CS programs, and I can't remember any Ivies in that list. But that's old, iffy and perhaps obsolete info. One very obsolete thing is equipment: the wealthier schools used to have a big advantage in being able to supply computer time to their students.

seanflyon 12y ago
> there's no Ivy League school with a top CS program How do you define "top CS program"? I can't find a ranking that doesn't have Cornell or Princeton in the top 10. Defining "top program" as top 5 seems a bit odd (even then Cornell occasionally makes the list)
- hga 12y ago
  Last time I checked (last decade, I suppose), "everyone" agreed Stanford, UC Berkeley, CMU and MIT had the world's best CS programs, with a big gap before the next "tier". I'm willing to believe, maybe back then, but especially today, that some Ivy's are ranked high in the 2nd tier.
  - seanflyon 12y ago
    I can't find anyone but you who defines "a top CS program" as the top 4 schools, but you are right that the top 4 are better tan the 5th and 6th.