u/Ocluist wrote (the comment Michael replied to):
Even if fewer in number, I’d imagine most Stanford students have more impressive internships than Waterloo. You’re talking about the single most competitive CS program in the world to attend, these aren’t “typical” college kids.
u/michaelnovati replied ·
Stanford is a bit unique because a ton of people do startups IN SCHOOL themselves and they are physically IN silicon valley bumping into tech people left right and center. They have all kins of talks from tech CEOs in person, on campus programs, VCs fund students to scout talent, it's like INSANE.
I've been to Waterloo a ton of times recruiting for Meta.
But Waterloo grads tend to get 2-3 FAANG internships in there. It's 5 year degree an they alternate 4 months school, 4 month internship, so the first ones tend to be lower companies and then they work their way up to FAANG. The top people have 4-5 FAANG internships.
So you hire someone as a "new grad" who has worked at Meta, Amazon, Google, Palantir etc...
I would personally lean Stanford grad, it's a special ecosystem. But Waterloo is up there.
Waterloo is kind of a quiet secret and companies get a lot of solid talent from there, but they don't want anyone else to know because it's absurdly competitive amongst companies - they compete for the best people and put a lot of money into the COOP program sponsorships and such and the COOP department has all kinds of strict rules about engaging with students. So fewer people that focus on it the btter.