Here are some tips for selecting schools, based on an analysis comparing each school to all others across dozens of factors:
Schools Concentrating On Software Engineers For Applications
- Focus: For schools with a focus on this career area, look at Northern Virginia Community College, Christopher Newport University, New River Community College, and Piedmont Virginia Community College.
Fastest Response From Schools
- Request Info: For the fastest information for prospective students, look at the Spotlight schools on this page.
Student Body
- Part-Time: For schools emphasizing part-time studies, consider Virginia State, Marymount, and George Mason.
- Female: For schools particularly welcoming to female students, consider Sweet Briar College and Hollins.
- Diverse: For a diverse student body, consider Virginia State, Hampton, Ferrum, and Longwood.
- Adult Learners: For lots of adult learners, consider Piedmont Virginia Community College, New River Community College, Northern Virginia Community College, and George Mason.
School Setting
- Out of State: For geographic diversity, take note of Washington and Lee University, Hampton, Sweet Briar College, and Hollins.
- Dorms: For a residential campus environment, take note of Ferrum, Hampden - Sydney, Virginia Military Institute, and Sweet Briar College.
Excellence
- SAT: For students with high SAT scores, look at Washington and Lee University, Christopher Newport University, George Mason, and Virginia Military Institute.
- % Accepted: For selective institutions, look at Washington and Lee University, Virginia Military Institute, and Hampden - Sydney.
- Class Size: For small class sizes, look at Washington and Lee University, Sweet Briar College, Hampden - Sydney, and Emory and Henry.
Student/Alumnus Reviews of Schools for This Career and State
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Radford University • Radford, VA
Studying Computer Science (completion in 2005)
• 8/8/2011
"It allowed me to get a job before graduation, so I can't be too disappointed. I've had steady work since then as well."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | One of the biggest concerns when selecting a college is, "Will I be able to get a job when I graduate?" And I was absolutely able to, so I'd recommend Radford to anyone. |
| Program Reputation | 7 | I think the reputation is getting better than it had been. I work with a lot of people from Radford and never hear anything bad about it. |
| Program Quality | 8 | I felt like Radford taught me the basics of what I needed to become a programmer. I would definitely recommend it to others. |
| Instruction | 8 | I entered a job in which my basis is Java programming. Radford's major language program was Java, so the instruction proved very relevant. |
| How Difficult | 9 | Sometimes the program seemed very challenging, mostly the math classes. I spent a lot of time in the later classes trying to develop software. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | It was pretty hands on, as we did a lot of programming in the labs. Most of my work was done in the lab. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 5 | Class schedule flexibility could have been better. I remember having a lot of early classes and would have liked more afternoon classes. |
| Academic Facilities | 6 | We had plenty of computer labs and places to study. Class space was sufficient and I never had any trouble contacting professors. |
| Social Life | 6 | Radford had a very good social network. It's not a huge school so everything is pretty close. This allowed me to meet a lot of people. |
| Placement Services | 5 | I actually had a job before I left, but without assistance from the school. I've heard they do decently with helping place graduates. |
| Alumni Network | 5 | I receive emails every now and then about the alumni network. I work with a lot of people that went to school at Radford. |
Longwood University • Farmville, VA
Studying Computer Science (completion in 2010)
• 11/17/2011
"I honestly liked Longwood. It's a great school if you're into the small town kind of thing, and it offers a pretty good array of majors considering it only has a total enrollment of about 4800 students. It's a bit of a lifestyle change for anyone who's used to the city or suburbs, but I'm glad I went."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | It's a bit hard to say right now. One of the professors retired right after I graduated and I don't know much about his replacement. Another professor has gone on a pretty extended leave of absence, so the program seems a bit scattered at the moment. On the whole I would recommend it, but you have to put in a lot of time to really get a lot out of the program. The professors are great, and you can learn a lot in their offices after hours, but if you only intend to go to class and do the coursework you might be slightly disappointed. |
| Program Reputation | 4 | I don't think anyone really knows much of anything about Longwood, but it is one of the highest scoring schools on the Computer Science MFAT test. One of our professors was also invited to help write the MFAT for 2012, which I think gives us a little bit more notoriety among people in academia. |
| Program Quality | 7 | Most of my professors were very knowledgeable and helpful, with long office hours and good lectures. There were one or two classes where I didn't think that we covered as much as we probably could, but the rest were very comprehensive. My only real complaint is that the administration seems intent on under-funding the CS department and we had to build our lab with surplus hardware. |
| Instruction | 8 | The curriculum was great from a theoretical perspective, but I do wish there were a few more programming language choices (I believe it was only C/C++, Java and Python at the time). There was lots of practical instruction in the language-specific classes, and internships were pushed pretty hard, so I got plenty of hands-on experience to prepare me for the professional world. |
| How Difficult | 6 | I personally found the curriculum to be challenging enough, but not overly difficult at all. The workload was entirely reasonable, with most classes giving small homework assignments daily and larger projects about every 3-4 weeks or so. Most of the theoretical coursework was a bit higher on the difficulty curve, but was presented in a very approachable way. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | I would say we leaned more toward book learning in general, but the CS department does a good job of providing hands-on work. Much of my time during my junior and senior years was spent in the computer lab, but my non-major classes were largely just reading assignments and lectures. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 6 | There are a decent number of online classes, particularly over the summer and winter, but not a whole lot during the regular semesters. The majority of classes take place between 8AM and 3PM, with evening offerings confined to specific majors. There weren't really any weekend classes. |
| Academic Facilities | 3 | The CS department felt horribly underfunded while I was there. There is a separate computer lab for CS students, but it's off-campus in the bottom of a house that was donated to the school. We did not have our own library, nor did we have a specific section within the general library. |
| Social Life | 6 | Greek life is fairly big on campus, but I wasn't interested in that. There were, however, lots of great people in my department and lots of very interesting professors to hang around with. I also had a fairly good selection of clubs to choose from, and there were of course school-wide events regularly. |
| Placement Services | I didn't really take advantage of these services, but they were also not particularly well advertised. From what I heard, they were fairly mediocre, but I couldn't really comment on the specifics. | |
| Alumni Network | 3 | I rarely interacted with any alumni whatsoever, and the job fairs usually had a fairly minimal number of participants. There's very little money put back into the school by the alumni, so the administration practically begs you for it. I got the impression that there isn't really much of an Alumni Association at all. |
Roanoke College • Salem, VA
Studying Psychology (completion in 1997)
• 11/20/2011
"In retrospect, I would have preferred attending an engineering school. Liberal arts has been a positive influence on my career growth."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | no | Attend a public school with a strong engineering program. Consider a minor or second major in liberal arts. |
| Program Reputation | 7 | Virginia Tech has a better reputation as an engineering school. Radford University is better known for psychology. |
| Program Quality | 4 | A Master's degree or higher is required to secure employment in the field of Psychology. The psychology program at the time was only B.A., and I would have preferred a B.S. degree. |
| Instruction | 5 | Roanoke is a small liberal arts college, and the psychology department is small. Faculty were not usually involved in lead edge research in the field. |
| How Difficult | 5 | The program was heavy on reading and reviewing primary and secondary texts without much opportunity for practical investigation. Success was sometimes more tied to personalities than academic performance. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | As a small liberal arts college, Roanoke faculty tend to publish books rather than research articles. Professors who want to focus on research usually do so at there own direction. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 1 | Roanoke had very few offerings outside the regular semester schedule. Summer offerings and online offerings were particularly weak. |
| Academic Facilities | 5 | Roanoke's library had an inter-library loan service that was absolutely necessary to complete academic work in psychology. No tutors or study group support were offered through the psychology department. |
| Social Life | 6 | Roanoke has a strong focus on student and Greek organizations. There were never sufficient activities for students on weekends outside of Greek organizations. |
| Placement Services | I never sought career services. I have not heard many reports of students using this service. | |
| Alumni Network | 5 | Roanoke has alumni chapters in a few cities around the world. Otherwise, alumni services are primarily through the campus offices and are not relevant to alumni living away from Salem. |
Virginia Commonwealth University • Richmond, VA
Studying Computer Science (completion in )
• 11/29/2011
"I didn't go to this school to get a GREAT degree. I went to get ANY degree. Now I am using my employer's program and my own initiative to improve my education, and my (soon to be earned) PhD will be from a very good school."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | Overall, I think the education was useful and sufficient. Experience is still the best teacher. All the theory is here and I would hire a student from this school. |
| Program Reputation | 6 | The program is still fairly non-technical. More to the point, the program is becoming a utilitarian arm of the biomedical college, as most of the current faculty is interested in bio-med research. |
| Program Quality | 7 | I am ranking two schools separately: VCU, where I received my B.S. in Computer Science, and ODU, where I received my M.S. in Modeling and Simulation. I would rank VCU as a 7; good program, great breadth, but I wish it was a little more technical. ODU was a 3, as its program had recently been redesigned and was faulty in many ways. |
| Instruction | 8 | The faculty at VCU was multicultural, and language was sometimes a barrier. The faculty was largely very knowledgeable and approachable. A few were intolerant of class questions and/or unable to complete their own exam questions for the class. |
| How Difficult | 6 | VCU was not very difficult as far as the workload (relatively average). It was also lacking in a lot of academic value. I took a class in software design, which didn't require me to submit, revise or implement a consistent design. It even allowed us to start with one design, present that design to the class and then implement something completely different. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | The instruction wasn't very practical. There were few implementation cases in most classes. Quite a lot was done exclusively from books. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 7 | There were no summer offerings of interest to me, nor online options. I did take classes throughout the day and a few in the late evening (never after 7pm). The schedules generally allowed me to either work 3 of 5 weekdays (if all classes were on Monday and Thursday, for example) or in the evenings (when all my classes were during the day). I don't think it would have been possible to take courses only in the night. |
| Academic Facilities | 8 | They had an excellent computer lab, which was shared by the engineering students. They also had wireless connectivity in almost every building. The library was nice, but not great. I didn't attempt to find tutors or study group support. |
| Social Life | I didn't try to participate in any of the social activities. I was married and had children (in my early twenties), so I had a social life outside of school, which took priority. | |
| Placement Services | 8 | I was able to find employment through a contact at the school, but not in the job placement center. To be fair, the center did give me a TON of references and I had several interviews and two job offers, but neither of these came through in the end. |
| Alumni Network | I have never participated in the alumni program. As a senior student, I used the school's resources to find an employer, but I have had no contact with them since then. |
Virginia Tech • Blacksburg, VA
Studying Computer Science (completion in 2011)
• 2/1/2012
"In the end I feel that I received a great education, which prepared me for my career. I graduated with a job."
Ratings are on a 1-10 scale
| Characteristic | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Would Recommend? | yes | The quality of education bundled with the career services offered create many opportunities for people interested in computer science. It's especially good if you wish to work in the northern Virginia/Maryland/D.C. area. |
| Program Reputation | 10 | It is ranked 5th in the United States. During interviews, there was never any doubt about the quality of the education. |
| Program Quality | 10 | It was a challenging program that is well known in the states of Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. It has a great history of getting graduates jobs. |
| Instruction | 8 | Things that were taught are actually used in my career. It has a wide range of topics that really give you an idea of the different career fields out there. |
| How Difficult | 8 | There was a third year class that was very difficult and caused many people delays in graduation. Higher level courses include a number of large team projects. |
| Hands-On vs. Bookish | All classes had a textbook with required reading. Most of the classes also had a hands on programming portion when applicable. | |
| Schedule Flexibility | 3 | Most classes were offered only at one time a week. Very few night options. No weekend options. Reduced summer options. |
| Academic Facilities | 7 | Teaching assistants were available in every class offered. Fairly accessible professors. |
| Social Life | 10 | Very high school spirit, especially during football season. Overall high levels of connection with fellow students. |
| Placement Services | 10 | The college provides a very good interview scheduling program with a very large number of companies. Large companies such as Microsoft, Google, and Amazon came to the campus. |
| Alumni Network | As I graduated less than a year ago, I have not had much experience with the Alumni network. There was not a lot of contact while in school. |
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