If you apply anywhere undeclared don’t assume it’s an easy transfer into a competitive major like CS. You could be shut-out. It’s a numbers game and there are a lot of applicants.
Yea, I can imagine it’s really tough to go to a school without being able to take your major. I’ll keep that in mind, do you have any safety suggestions?
I just did a quick search and I have no proof that these number are correct but they’re reasonable. Gives you an ideal how competitive CS is at various schools.
As for safeties, Idk…the Cali higher ed system is out of my realm. It seems crazy to me how competitive even Cali state schools have become. We live in PA. We have 3 flagships. If you’re a state resident and have decent stats you’ll get in to at least one. I’m sure there are “safeties” for UC’s or CSU’s but it seems like you might have to apply to 5-10 just to find out.
Is Cali part of the WUE? Maybe Arizona or Oregon schools? One of my favorite schools that flies under the radar is NC State. Pretty campus and lots of tech in the Raleigh area. Capped at 18% of OOS students but they never hit that, at least as of last year.
University Overall Admissions Rate CS Admissions Rate
Carnegie Mellon University 22% 5%
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 62% 15%
University of California at Berkeley 17% 8.5%
University of Washington 46% 28%
University of Texas - Austin 36% 15%
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Wow that’s insane – thank you for the heads up, I will keep looking for more colleges then!
Cost constraints?
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Thankfully not at the moment!
Does “not at the moment” mean that your parents will give you the cost constraints in April of 12th grade, and you then find out that all of your admissions are too expensive, so that your only choice is to start at a community college?
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We are fortunate enough to not have any cost constraints! Obviously if I have to choose between 2 schools cost would be a factor but there are no constraints.
What colleges are your safeties?
With no cost constraints, there should be plenty of colleges that can be automatic admission safeties for you (e.g. the Arizona publics).
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Santa Clara University is a big safety for me – my school has the best possible ties with SCU since we used to be the same campus, and SCU is really good for CS internships + it feeds into Apple. I also have guaranteed admission to a UC (probably UCR or Merced).
If you mean the top 9% thing, then recently, UCM has been the UC that has space available to take students who qualify but did not get into any other UC they applied to.
Remember also that the top 9% for ELC is not based on your high school class rank. It is based on whether your UC-recalculated weighted-capped GPA is higher than the top 9% threshold GPA from UC-recalculated weighted-capped GPAs from a recent previous class at your high school. It is probably highly correlated to your high school class rank, but it is possible to be in the top 9% in one measure but not the other.
SCU does consider level of applicant’s interest in admissions, so if you look like an overqualified applicant who is unlikely to matriculate, you may be waitlisted or rejected.
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I have a 4.33 capped and something like a 4.4 - 4.5 for UC GPA at the moment, which I believe is in the top 9%. For SCU, that is definitely true, but due to my school’s super close ties with SCU, they historically do admit top applicants. Also, I think SCU is an amazing school, and I will try my best to show this interest in my essays and by attending conferences.