CSE Direct Admit

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Washington
1

Just wanted some thoughts from former CSE direct admits about the opportunities, experiences, etc. as a direct admit. Also in comparison to other top CS programs (Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, Cornell).

2

It’s really good and tied with the rest (not Cornell though)

3

Here is some information from CSE DA meeting on 4/8/2016 that may help.

Indeed the most common question of day was “why should I choose UW over UC-Berkely, CMU or X?” Most students had some alternates.

  • Prof. Levy, CSE department chair, offered the following: Just based on the quality of education (for undergraduates in particular), there is no reason for students to look elsewhere for a good CS program, especially in-state students. He admitted that for certain students MIT CS program may better fit - emphasis is on “certain” students. He said that the UW CSE program is very comparable to other top programs. But from a branding perspective Stanford, CMU, UC-Berkeley and MIT are stronger (these were not his exact words, but my interpretation). Several parents indicated that they were going through this discussion (UW vs X) with their children.
  • UW CSE is offering some novel courses - for example, they are going to soon offer a Virtual Reality class using Microsoft Hololens as the platform.
  • The UW CSE department is relatively small and they carefully regulate access to major courses to ensure quality of classes. The popular CSE major courses (300 and 400 level courses) don’t have over 80 students per class while the rest are smaller. For example, UC-Berkeley CS major classes are much larger. Intro CS courses (CS 142/143) are over 300.
  • In some schools, particularly in the UC system, completing in 4 yrs challenge. I heard this from a parent. At UW CSE department this is not an issue.
  • Limited number of qualified BS/BA students can get a master’s degree with an additonal year of school work.
  • Undergraduate TAs - CSE employs a fair number of TAs. According to one student getting TA opportunities in not easy in many schools (they have more grad students?).
  • DAs get access to department resources, advisors, and courses immediately. Per students, once you are in major, access to professors is easy and they are very helpful. The intro CS courses CSE 142/143 is a different story, they are considered as weed out classes.
  • The department has about 30% women (much higher than national average).
  • The department make no distinction between CS and CE - easy to switch between the two, but they have different pre-requsite. The former is offered by College of Sciences while the latter is by the Engineering School.
  • Prof. Levy also emphasized on research opportunities available for undergraduates. We heard the same from current DA students in informal discussions. Data Science/Machine Learning is growing research area in the department. Prof. Levy also noted that most undergrads wouldn’t be ready to do real research until they have done several CS courses and that freshman temper their expectations and focus on doing well in the foundational courses.
  • Jobs/internships - many students intern (and eventually get employed by) with one of following companies: Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Google. All of them have strong presence and connection with the department. Of courses, there are other local companies like Zillow, etc that hire students.
  • Got the following info from one of advisors. This year over 4000 applications indicated CS or CE as their first choice. Around 200 (5%) were offered DA and they expect a yield of ~70. The department plans to grow to 300-320 students (graduating class size) over the next few years. Currently they have little over 200. The average ACT score for DAs is around 34 and av. GPA is ~3.96. This years there were more DA offers to out-of-state students than in previous years.
  • UW CSE has special legislature funding to grow its program. I am not sure of the details.

Overall, getting into CSE program at UW is super-competitive in the regular cycle (after students are admitted to UW). They accept less than 30% during their regular cycle, and it is totally a number’s game (GPA driven) with several weed out classes (Math and CS 142/143, Physics or Chem ) to wade through. The instructional quality (according to students) at these intro class are not great. But if you are DA and in-state, grades doesn’t matter much( you in the dept already)

Overall, it is hard to pass up CSE DA opportunity, particularly for in-state students.