My son applied to UCSB in Computer Science. He listed Computer Engineering as alternate major. Along the way, he applied to College of Creative Studies (CCS) for Computing, as he is a non-traditional applicant who overcame some major medical barriers. After being rejected from the College of Engineering on 3/21/17 along with (reportedly) 94% of his fellow CS applicants, and 3 weeks of radio silence from CCS, he emailed to inquire. In reply, he received some explanation.
It turns out that in order to be properly considered for CCS, you first have to be admitted to UCSB. In CoE, for the vast majority of applicants in impacted majors, rejection is inevitable. Moreover–and this is key–CoE considers only the first choice major. The second choice is wasted unless it is in the College of Letters and Sciences.
So despite his having prepared an outstanding portfolio for CCS Computing, my son’s chances were torpedoed by the rejection from CoE. If you want to keep your CCS hopes alive, apply to a non-impacted major in L&S as backup to a CoE major. It would have been nice to know that at the start.
I wonder, though, if CCS computing will actually consider a student who was not accepted to CS in Engineering? This is a case where specific instructions from CCS would have been good.
Sorry to hear about the difficulties your son ran into applying to CS this year. The process is broken.
@rocket88, we got conflicting information on that point. I agree, the information is ambiguous. A forum member who was kind enough to share inside knowledge indicated that CCS sometimes overrides CoE rejections, in exceptional cases, in certain majors. According to the email my son received from the CCS office, that is not the case for CCS Computing, especially after the first-wave deadline in January. Hence my advice.
The process is indeed broken, along with the funding mechanisms that should support an educated future workforce for California’s technology industry. Here is my modest proposal to fix it:
