ibraGYM's blog

How to choose university?
By ibraGYM, history, 2 years ago, In English

Hi I am in 11th grade. I like programming and I want to choose good university for sport programmers. (Preferably in America or other countries but not CIS).

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2 years ago, # |
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Search online for college rankings in computing

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    ok

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      It depends on your grades and the department you want to choose, like software or AI, and I'm sorry I'm not American, I don't know much about American universities

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2 years ago, # |
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CIS?

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2 years ago, # |
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sir, you can go to university of botswana

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2 years ago, # |
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You can look at the ICPC finals and find universities that consistently participate there.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    ема легенда рфмш мне ответил)

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2 years ago, # |
  Vote: I like it +3 Vote: I do not like it

Lviv Politechnical University

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2 years ago, # |
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If you are from Kazakhstan, I think it is a good choice for you to come to China. Chinese is friendly to Kazakhs. You can try Tsinghua University, Peking University, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Xidian University (this university is located in northwest China, closer to Kazakhstan), Hangzhou Dianzi University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Zhejiang University. These are very good schools in the field of computing in China, you can try to understand, the difficulty of applying should not be very large. Hope that helps.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    I don't think there are lots of good Chinese universities with bachelors in English (Tsinghua and Peking are exceptions)

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2 years ago, # |
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As someone who had gone through the whole US uni application process without having any international competition medals, it's quite hard. Obviously, if you won like an IOI medal, the chances getting into a "prestigious" university would be much easier (probably just have to write like an above average essays and you should get in), but for most people like me, it's almost a roulette as it is not guaranteed to get in to top universities even with the highest grades, impressive extracurriculars (but not IOI level), and great essays. My advice would be to research a handful of US universities with solid CS major and a good ICPC team, and for the applications, try your best to write very enticing personal essays as this seems to matter a lot next to ECs. The trend nowadays seems to be applying to multiple, even 20 universities as acceptance rates have dropped significantly in the recent years. I would personally not apply that many universities though because each application costs about 70~80 USD. In the US, I think MIT, CMU are obviously good for both CS major and ICPC teams, and I don't really know much about the rest (Like you could say that Swarthmore college has a great ICPC team based on the NAC rankings but it could just be Geothermal carrying and etc.). Hope this helps guide you your uni process.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    Re: Swarthmore, I wouldn't describe our situation as me carrying (I was lucky enough to end up at Swarthmore at the same time as two other experienced competitive programmers; both my teammates are gold on CF and are able to cover some of my weaker areas), but I believe that my team includes the only three people who've come to Swarthmore with substantial competitive programming background in some time, and as far as I'm aware, we're the first Swarthmore team to qualify for WF since 1997. As all three of us are now out of eligibility, we probably won't field a team that's competitive for WF qualification next year (unless there are some incoming first-years with programming contest backgrounds who I'm not aware of).

    OP, off the top of my head, MIT, Waterloo, Georgia Tech, and UCF tend to be the most consistent schools in North America in fielding strong ICPC teams. UCF in particular might be an option worth considering--it's somewhat less selective than MIT and Georgia Tech, but they've built a very strong culture around ICPC, and as far as I'm aware their team has more institutional support than any other ICPC team in North America. Most teams in NA are largely self-trained; UCF has the most successful formal coaching program I'm aware of.

    Other than those four, many of the large public universities that are strong in CS tend to field competitive teams (e.g. UT Austin, several of the UCs, UIUC, U. of Washington, U. of Wisconsin), and it may be easier to earn admission to one of them than to some of the elite private universities.

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      UCF in particular might be an option worth considering

      I believe @Bungmint is not from the US. Since UCF is a public school, this comes with a big downside for international students. Almost all public universities (at least when I was applying) do not award need-based aid to international students. Considering how expensive US universities are, and how few merit-based scholarships are available nowadays, a public university is pretty much a non-starter for an international student.

      Besides that big caveat, I completely agree with your points.

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2 years ago, # |
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<advertisment> Have you considered universities in Germany? </advertisment>

  • Universities in Germany don't have big differences in quality, some are larger and some smaller, but they are all funded essentially in the same way. So you can pick whichever place you like.
  • I'm pretty sure there is no application fee even for foreign applicants. There might be some moderate tuition fees for foreign students, I'm not entirely sure about that.
  • Apart from managing German bureaucracy, the entry requirements should be very moderate (if you have a high school diploma satisfying certain requirements, universities basically are forced to admit you). But not everybody who starts also finishes the degree (exams are hard).
  • To do a bachelor's degree, you will likely also need some medium-level German language skills. Kartoffelpuffer!
  • Studying in Germany is often considered less social than in other countries (you meet other students in University, but you usually don't live together). It's Germany, after all.
  • When you complete your degree, you should be able to stay in Germany without limitation (Germany is currently looking for young and qualified people pretty eagerly!).
  • There are good ICPC teams in multiple places, in particular in Munich (TUM), Saarbrücken, Karlsruhe (KIT) and Erlangen (FAU).

PS: Don't think too much about university rankings. They influence the prestigiousness of the institution, but not necessarily the quality of education (I'm saying that after having studied at a worldwide top 5 university according to most rankings).

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    I think you need to have a C1 Zertifikat from a language institute like Goethe Institut for most of the universities which requires a hard dedication and also a 200-ish euro just to take the test. It is kinda funny how some German friends in my school had to get the certificates for TUM because they didn't go to a Gymnasium. If OP is actually cracked at German, then he should defo consider it because the tuition is almost nonexistent and I heard from one of my friends who happens to major CS, that the quality of education is great.

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      Oh, it's even C1 that is required. Then I believe the language requirement combined with initial bureaucracy (e.g. sending certified copies) are by far the biggest obstacles. Apologies for both, I wish our language was simpler and our bureaucracy more user-friendly...

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    Universities in Germany don't have big differences in quality

    There is a big difference in quality between UAS and Uni.

    When you complete your degree, you should be able to stay in Germany without limitation

    For 18 months only

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      Here I would be more optimistic. If you get an IT job (and that's virtually a certainty with a bachelors degree, even more so with codeforces experience), there should be no obstacles to staying without time limit. And after six years (3-4 of these would be spent on the degree itself), you can usually obtain citizenship. Plus, I would expect these rules to become more liberal in the near future. One of my best friends fled from Afghanistan to Germany six years ago and is now receiving his citizenship, so I can confirm that it indeed works in the end. The big obstacles is only German bureaucracy, especially while outside of Germany.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    what can you say about private Germany universities that provide education in english(like Jacobs university Bremen)?

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      2 years ago, # ^ |
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      I can only say that Bremen is a pretty open and welcoming city, and rents are cheaper than in many other places (such as Hamburg, Berlin, Munich). No idea about the Uni there, sorry.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    This (official) page is actually quite good, look here for more info: https://www.study-in-germany.de/en/

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2 years ago, # |
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ITMO and SPbU is the best university for sport programming in Russia.

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2 years ago, # |
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2 years ago, # |
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Consider Poland. The universities are free, have very good teaching quality and ICPC teams, and friendly atmosphere. Poland is also cheaper in general, and also doesn't smell awfully like some worldwide famous cities do. The best unis (in random order) are University of Warsaw, University of Wroclaw and Jagiellonian University in Cracow. Unless you want to go into business rather than engineering in which case you might be better off trying something more 'prestigious'. I went to Cambridge, and I am almost certainly poorer educated than my colleagues from Polish universities.

Do NOT worry about rankings too much, unless you want to go to academia. The rankings are mostly derived from prestige and academic publications, which aren't really affecting teaching quality that much.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    I went to Cambridge, and I am almost certainly poorer educated than my colleagues from Polish universities.

    Can you elaborate more on the teaching at Cambridge? I'm curious.

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    2 years ago, # ^ |
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    Consider that these universities do not offer undergraduate courses in English (only in Polish). There is an English-language computer science program on Warsaw University of Technology (and possibly in some other places too).

    Also, the universities usually aren't free for foreigners from outside the EU.

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2 years ago, # |
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In India to do engineering (From IITs), u have to write the most prestigious and hardest undergrad qualification exam in the world i.e IIT JEE ADVANCED

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2 years ago, # |
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cringe.

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