Top universities in the US for computer science

Harvard University's computer science department is part of the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (founded in 1847, with computer science courses available from 1984).  

Famous technology magnates to have studied at Harvard include Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (both of whom famously ‘dropped out’ to pursue their careers in tech). 

Like MIT, the University of California, Berkeley combines its computer science school with electrical engineering.  

The Turing Award, known as the ‘Nobel Prize in computing’ has been awarded to 11 alumni and 10 past and present faculty members of Berkeley, including Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse. 

Stanford University’s setting near the famous Silicon Valley in California makes it unique among these top universities in the US, with many of the world’s largest high-tech corporations right on its doorstep.  

Stanford’s computer science department was founded in 1965 and is part of the university’s School of Engineering.

Carnegie Mellon University is based in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It earns an impressive score in the academic reputation indicator for computer science.  

Its School of Computer Science is based at the Gates and Hillman Centers, a US$98 million complex which opened in 2009 and has achieved LEED Gold certification for its high levels of sustainability. 

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)'s computer science department, combined with electrical engineering, is the largest department at the institution.  

The university is well-known for its innovative research in this area, with its computer science faculty and researchers having made fundamental contributions to cybernetics, artificial intelligence, computer languages, machine learning, robotics, and cryptography. MIT earns its highest score in the employer reputation indicator this year.