Test Scores:
ACT: Composite 29, Math 34, Reading 29, Science 28, CR 26
SAT: 2000 (Math: 710, Reading: 600 and Writing: 690)
SAT Math 2C Subject Test: 740
SAT Physics Subject Test: 710
AP Tests:
AP Calc AB: 5
AP Calc BC: 5
APCS: 4
AP United States History: 4
Extracurricular Activities:
100+ service hours
Member of hs robotics team for 3 yrs, programming dept. Co-Lead
Band and Boy Scouts 1 year
Awards:
National Honors Society
AP Scholar with distinction
Principals Honor Roll
California Scholarship Foundation Member
Life Boy Scout
CA Boy’s State
Essays: Maybe 8/10, I’m not the best writer. .
Additional Info:
APCS TA.
Majors:
1st: CS and engineering
Senior Year Classes:
Ap physics c: mechanics
Ap Statistics
Ap Psychology
AP Macroeconomics
Normal English/Religion
You will get into UW, but you won’t get direct departmental admission into CS. The percentage of direct freshman admits is extremely low, and the department states up-front that in-state applicants are strongly favored for those spots. To get direct freshman admission to CS as a CA student, you would have to have MIT/Caltech-level stats, and even then the actual # of OOS direct-admits may, in fact, be zero.
You will almost certainly have the option to enter UW undeclared and vie for a spot in the CS department, which is the usual path for most aspiring CS students. Be aware that only about 30% of internal applicants get into the department, so you have to get a high GPA and, in particular, do well in the required lower-division classes (which are a bit “weeder”-ish). UW did just get a large grant to build additional facilities and double the size of the CS department, which will help this situation somewhat; but I don’t know whether capacity will increase in time to benefit this year’s entering class.
UW is a great CS school and a great place to go to college in general, but definitely weigh the cost of OOS tuition and the prospect of a somewhat stressful, competitive admissions process for your desired major once you’re there. I’m not saying it couldn’t be the right choice for you, but it’s very important to know what you’re getting into.
The new CSE building should be completed around the middle of sophomore year for this year’s entering class, according to recent press reports, which is around the time they would be applying for regular admission to the major.
A few OOS direct admits posted on these boards last year, and they definitely had outstanding academic profiles, as mentioned above.
3.6ish uw GPA/29 ACT from OOS may be a close call for admission (uw GPA and ACT averages for all enrolled freshmen last year were around 3.78/29; averages for admits are higher than for enrolled; and averages for OOS admits are a little higher than overall averages), but the course rigor and excellent calc APs and math ACT/subject test scores should help this applicant.
Thanks, @UWfromCA - maybe I was too glib about “you will get in”, in my haste to get to the “direct admit to CS isn’t happening” part. Nothing is ever a sure bet in college admissions - looks to me like OP is in range for UW, but I wasn’t clear that stats for OOS were higher than in-state (unlike CA state schools, where it trends the other way).
Thanks for the info about the building timeline. It still feels to me like a tenuous thing to count on - it’s so common for those sort of projections to get delayed, and any delay would negate the benefit of the expansion for the 2017 entering class.
By way of context, my D is also a CA applicant to UW, hoping for direct freshman admit to HCDE, which on the one hand is at least as competitive as CS, but on the other hand does not explicitly state a preference for in-state the way CS does. I think it’s a long shot, and it’s a drag that we won’t know until within two weeks of the commitment deadline. I don’t know if any of the departments even bother to contact the applicants they do not select for direct admit. Informatics, my D’s second choice major, explicitly (and rather coldly, if you ask me, lol) states “Students who are not admitted will not receive an email.”
My D really loves UW, but my sense, having visited and talked with a number of UW students, is that it’s really questionable whether it makes sense to pay OOS tuition for a chance to fight one’s way into a highly competitive major, if the path to the same major at other good schools is unobstructed. A direct freshman admit offer would be very compelling. Without it, well… maybe with Honors and some merit aid… but we would have to think very hard about it. This thread, from a CA student who transferred back to the UC system, gave me a lot of food for thought: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-washington/1851540-uw-pros-cons.html#latest
A student considering Washington or another engineering school with a similar major admissions system should ideally have academic stats in the top half (if not top quarter) of enrolled students.
Published reports state that the middle 50% SAT and ACT ranges for freshmen enrolled in the College of Engineering in 2016 were:
SAT Math: 620-740
SAT Reading: 550-680
ACT Math: 28-34
ACT Composite: 27-33
For additional information about admission to each major, see:
Sorry to be repetitive, @UWfromCA - just realized you and I had a similar conversation already on a different thread. And I didn’t want to hijack @chip78651 's thread. It’s just an interesting situation at UW. I actually really like their philosophy of giving students time to explore and “sort” into their majors (as opposed to the Cal Poly model of locking kids into what they decided to apply to as 17-year-old applicants). It just naturally evolves that the school, like many universities, has a few programs they they’re particularly known for. Then, a disproportionate percentage of entering students aspire to those majors, and the competition reaches an unhealthy level, creates an overflow effect into adjacent majors, and so on.