CS vs. EECS

I could not find anywhere statistics for CS and EECS: acceptance rate, m/f ratio, accepted students stats. If anyone would like to share, I would greatly appreciate it.

Anyone? What is the difference between two? How strong is CS?

CS is in L&S and admit rate is what the admit rate of the University is, for EECS the admit rate is 5 %. EECS is the toughest to get in to at CAL.

L&S CS and EECS share the same classes. EECS requirements are more technical (requires two physics classes, an additional math class, and an additional EE class for the lower division requirements, not sure about the upper division requirements). EECS is tough to get into, but once you’re in, as long as you don’t get kicked out of school, you’re in.

CS on the other hand, is just a formality that you put on paper when you apply. In L&S you are undeclared. You have a set of requirements you have to fulfill with a minimum GPA that you have to reach. Some people don’t get into the major. Also, CS majors have less priority than EECS even though they have the same classes.

As for how strong, well, rankings are pretty dumb in my opinion, but UC Berkeley’s CS department is #1 tied with MIT, Stanford, and CMU… so, I’d say it’s strong.

I couldn’t find info about accepted students stats for some reason, but I do have these numbers:

In 2015, 727 females and 1805 males applied to L&S, marking their majors as CS. 236 of the females were admitted, 136 of which SIRed. For the males, 452 were accepted, and 308 SIRed. This translates to a 32.46% acceptance rate for females, and a 25.04% acceptance rate for males. Also, 57.63% yield for females and 68.14% yield for males. The end ratio (actually attending students) is 1.18 males to 1 female.

For the EECS side, 1258 females and 5353 males applied. 125 females and 416 males were accepted. 39 females SIRed, and 215 males SIRed. This translates to a 9.94% acceptance rate for females, and 7.77% acceptance rate for males. Also, 31.20% yield rate for females, and 51.68% yield rate for males. The end ratio is 1.66 males to 1 female.

I pulled this information from CalAnswers.

Thank you @quidditchcat Exactly what I have been looking for.

http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Policies/enrollment.shtml described enrollment priority for CS courses. In general L&S CS majors do not have lesser priority than EECS majors.

The main issue with L&S CS is that it is now capacity-controlled, so that students need a 3.30 GPA in the specified prerequisites to declare the major, according to http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/csugrad/#petitioning .

@ucbalumnus
From that, it doesn’t seem to be the case that EECS majors get priority over CS majors.
I forgot to mention that for lower division classes, EECS majors will have precedence over CS majors, for example in the new course EE16A. This is because EECS majors MUST take that class, as it’s foundational for EE upper division classes, but CS majors often aren’t interested in EE and only have one required EE class. Also, for CS, they don’t know that a student is CS until he/she is declared. So the student could be taking the classes “just for fun”.

@quidditchcat If the student is not interested in taking classes just for fun, will he be able to enroll into CS classes to follow EECS major before he can declare major at L&S CS?

I’m not sure if I understand your question. Do you mean courses designated to the major (i.e. upper division courses)? If so, it’s certainly possible, but it’s pretty hard.

@quidditchcat Any idea of the statistics for EECS acceptances this year? Also, any data or estimates on last year’s waitlist/accepted to EECS data? Thanks so much!

@quidditchcat

Do you need to be a student at Berkeley to gain access to Cal Answers?