Barriers can be in different format. If a college is non-selective to begin with, it obviously wouldn’t have any barrier (to any major). For the highly selective privates (even the best resourced), many of them practice different types of limitation, either place restrictions on courese (e.g. Swarthmore, HMC) or make admissions even more difficult for some obvious CS aspirants. Those that haven’t had to do so are all discussing measures internally, almost without exception.
All of the CSUs are selective, but most are not that selective (the least selective require a 2.5 recalculated HS GPA with a specified college prep course pattern for in-state frosh applicants). However, many of the least selective have higher competitive admission thresholds for some majors. For example, all of those which offer nursing (basic) have higher competitive admission thresholds for nursing or pre-nursing (with secondary admission to major later).
You are correct, absolutely that question should be posed to the CS department.
Anecdotally it seems that students are reporting that when they complete the gateway requirements they are currently allowed to transfer automatically.
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It does seem (anecdotally at least) that transferring into the CS major at UMD is relatively straightforward, assuming success in the prerequisite classes. They even state this on their website:
"How many majors is Computer Science limited to?
There is no limit to the total number of Compter Science majors under the LEP. All students who successfully complete the gateway requirements will be admitted to the major."
(I’m trying to ignore that they spelled “Computer” wrong…) LOL
That being said, I understand the concern that that policy may change in the future. My kid got accepted to another university but not directly for their competitive CS program - he was placed in a pre-CS program that sounds similar to the L&S placements at UMD. My son has decided to take that school out of the running, as he doesn’t want to take the chance of getting settled there and then not being able to get a slot in his desired major later.
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Call the local Admissions Rep and ask. I would also reach out to the dept head.
As anecdotal evidence only, my son and two friends from same HS applied to UMd for CS and only one of them was admitted directly. My son and other friend got L&S. We are having a difficult decision choosing between UMd where he has to work his way into CS and another university where he is direct admitted to CS and received 15K/yr merit money. I don’t think we’ll get any money from UMd. We are OOS for both schools and the “gross” price between the two is the same. So does he go the more expensive school and hope he will be admitted into CS or chose the safer/cheaper school which has a good CS program but not supposedly stellar CS like UMd. Good luck with everything.
What is the other school? What difference would a prospective employer see between a UMD CS degree and college B’s CS degree? How important is the price difference to your family?
I don’t want to mention the other school publicly but it’s a large state university in neighboring state. Difference over four years b/w that school and UMd is $60k over 4yrs. So yes there is a good question how much more would he make in his first job to justify $60k more. My family could make the other school work without much in loans at all. Plus I’m biased to the other school b/c it’s much closer, LOL.
That would be a red flag. CS can be a cutthroat competitive degree at many of these more prestigious universities. It’s common to artificially limit enrollment to make it more competitive that it really is. UT-Austin is notorious for this. They have a set number of students they allow in as freshmen, then the rest have to compete for a small number of spots later. That poses another problem for the university, because that affects their graduation rate if students stay and try to compete. The university gets around it by just screwing their freshmen now and making it so hyper-competitive, it’s not worth it. They simply go somewhere else…no one has to transfer out if they never go.
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Thank you for that information. I hope my son will have someone sit down and give him the facts of life about this, not just coming “from Mom” (who doesn’t know anything 
). If this is still his choice over his other prospect, I’ll respect that, as long as he fully appreciates the situation.
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Hi ! My son is facing same situation this year. He applied for CS in UMD and has got into L&S with requirement of fulfilling gateway requirements. @momof21applicant , since your son must have gone through gateway requirements till now, Can u pls guide, is it easy to get through the 2.7 GPA requirement and is it automatic admission to CS once you complete the gateway requirements ?