Hello, my son applied EA to Univ of Md, only interested in Computer Science major. 36ACT, 97+ GPA from a technical high school, 800 Math 2 SAT subject. He was admitted to the Honors College as a Letters and Science major, with option of applying once there to CS major, which is limited enrollment. We assumed everyone applying CS major was admitted this way. But we just found out about a friend who was admitted directly into the CS major. Does anyone else have knowledge about this?
Thank you, I do know that information. But my question is whether or not SOME applicants are admitted directly to a Limited Enrollment major, whereas some are not and have to apply later.
https://lep.umd.edu/cs-lep.pdf clearly indicates that there are frosh direct admits, who need to maintain a 2.0 GPA to stay in the CS major. Those trying to transfer into the CS major need a minimum of 2.7 GPA to be able to apply. In addition, C- or higher grades in specific courses are required.
It is not clearly stated whether 2.7 GPA and specific course grade requirements mean admission to the CS major, or if the process is competitive beyond that. You may want to ask the department directly on this matter.
If a friends was directly admitted and your son was not, it appear that the answer is yes.
There is a long thread for UMD decisions and many students reported direct admission into CS.
The Transfer requirements state
“A minimum grade point average of 2.7 in all courses taken at the University of Maryland and all other institutions is required for internal and external transfer students”
Therefore you MUST have a GPA of 2.7 to do an internal transfer
@momof21applicant - I feel like the college application process is always somewhat confusing, but this year it feel off the charts. 
My son was accepted directly into the CS program at UMD and has lower stats than your son. I don’t know if it’s because we’re out of state? Or there’s some other combo of things on his application that they happen to be looking for? Or maybe they threw all the qualified applications in the air and his happened to land face-up? 
Honestly, at this point it all feels incredibly random. I do think the fact that your kid was accepted into Honors shows that they see his academic ability, and based on what I’ve read here, transferring into CS after completing the pre-req’s sounds like it shouldn’t be an issue for him at all.
Whatever path your son decides to pursue, wishing him all the best! It sounds like he’ll be successful whatever he decides.
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Did your son take a computer science course in high school? AP computer science?
Yes, he took AP CS Principles and scored a 5, and now he’s taking AP Computer Science. He’s scored 5 on all his APs.
It’s frustrating because it so doesn’t make sense, and also transferring in from another major requires a significantly higher GPA than the kids who got in with CS majors have to maintain.
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I’d have son call the school
I agree with @bookworm. Your son’s stats are very high. Maybe he can call and ask if there’s any way for them to review his first semester senior year grades/accomplishments to be considered for the CS LEP in the RD round?
I think that each program must look for very different and very specific things. It sounds like your son has taken a lot of AP classes but has not completed AP Comp Sci A yet. Maybe for direct acceptance into CS, they prefer to see completion of that course as a prerequisite?
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Do schools do that? Reevaluate in the RD round? I will discuss with him. Would you just call the Admissions Dept and ask for an admissions counselor?
@momof21applicant - I’m not sure. I’m just a parent, too. I don’t work in admissions so couldn’t say if it’s something they would consider. Your son probably has the name of their admissions counselor in their portal. Maybe he could send a quick email reiterating that UMD is his top choice and how excited he is to be in honors, but he is wondering if it would be possible to be reconsidered for the direct CS admit now that he has a semester of A’s in classes including AP Comp Sci A. I’m not sure how flexible they are, but if he’s not planning to attend UMD at all unless he is directly admitted to his first choice major, it probably can’t hurt at this point to take a stab at it. I hope all works out.
Thank you for the suggestion, I appreciate it!
Been looking more carefully at the website. Appeals are only allowed in cases of admissions denial, and even then only with new information.
CS major is so popular everywhere these days that nearly every school has put up some barrier. Limiting the number of direct admits is common at public universities (private colleges tend to use different tactics). It’s also common that highly qualified applicants aren’t admited directly to CS. Having taken more relevant courses or additional accomplishments won’t make a difference at this point, unfortunately.
I understand it’s frustrating but your son has a lot of company (applied for CS and got L&S). I understand his stats are high and you feel he should be a direct admit. In the end not everyone can be a direct admit and many have to transfer later. The great thing is the gateway requirements are fairly easy and the grade requirements should be a breeze for your son. Your son got into honors and that is great. He might even get some money because of that. I honestly wouldn’t stress about L&S. Just have him complete the gateway courses, apply for transfer and carry on. Some of his AP classes may fullfil part of the gateway requirements too.
Your son sounds like a special student. He’ll do great. He just unfortunately didn’t get a direct admit into CS. He will still get in, he just has to do it a little differently.
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Not “nearly every” school has additional selection gates or limitations* for the CS major. Additional selection gates are most common at schools at the selectivity level of popular state flagships (like University of Maryland), where there are many students are both interested in and academically capable of studying CS. At less selective colleges (e.g. most CSUs in California**), CS is not an additionally selective major, because fewer students feel that they are interested and capable of studying it. Some of the most selective colleges are also very wealthy and can increase capacity to handle the large number of CS majors, but getting into the college itself is very difficult (e.g. Stanford, which allows its CS classes to get very large, but not CMU, which does limit admission to the CS major).
*For example, Swarthmore rations or limits the number CS courses that CS majors can take.
**See https://www2.calstate.edu/attend/impaction-at-the-csu/Documents/ImpactedProgramsMatrix.pdf
But ask the UMD CS department directly whether the gateway requirements (2.7 GPA with C- or better in some specified courses) mean automatic admission to the CS major, or are merely the minimum to apply for competitive admission to the CS major. Unfortunately, that is not clearly stated on the web site.
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