Computer Science University

[Ozziey]

Hello guys,

I'm currently in my second year of IB. I'm interested in following a career in the tech industry. So, I want to get a bachelors degree in Computer Science but am unsure about university options. I need to get into a good university, with a scholarship cause without one wouldn't be financially feasible. Now, I've done some research, but it seems rather difficult to tell whether a university is good based off a page or two. Could you guys weigh in and give some advice? Please and Thank You.

[Ace of Devils]

Unless you've got incredibly high grades and tons of fantastic extracurriculars, it will be difficult to receive a generous scholarship from the top level of computer science schools. These would include, but are not limited to - Stanford, UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Princeton, Yale, Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth, UPenn, Columbia, Brown, Caltech, Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, Harvey Mudd.

Not trying to be a pessimist or anything, but those are the top universities anywhere in the world. By all means apply to those, but they all have very low acceptance rates. Some of them are need blind, meaning they'll accept you without checking whether you require aid, but if you subsequently request for it they may just refuse to give you anything. Other schools which are also highly regarded, but with a greater chance of scholarship could include:

UCLA, UBC, Toronto, Waterloo, University of Washington (Seattle), and a few more that I cannot recall at the moment. One that very, very often provides generous scholarships AND is incredibly highly regarded for STEM is HKUST (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), who typically give out very generous scholarships to students with IB scores above 36 (I had a friend who was predicted 44 and received a full scholarship, though he ultimately chose to go somewhere else). 

I'd suggest consulting www.ivyachievement.com. It is a university counselling service, meaning they'll probably market heavily and try to convince you to buy their services, but if you dig around the website and perhaps send them an email they may be able to provide great insight on scholarships and universities for Computer Science.