Help with college search for a student with 3.84 uw/1500 SAT for engineering/CS+X [CA resident, 4.1 UC weighted-capped GPA, no price limit]

For changing major, CPSLO has an unusual look-back requirement. Basically, you can only change to a major where your frosh admission score could have gotten you admitted to as a frosh when you applied. So if you were admitted to a highly selective major like ME or CS, you are likely to be eligible to change into most other majors. But if you barely got admitted to a less selective major, then you may find many majors closed to you if you want to change major.

At most other colleges, changing major is generally based on whether you have completed enough course work to be able to complete the major and graduate in a reasonable time, and (if the major is full or overcrowded) your college grades or GPA (although there may be competitive admission with essays in some cases).

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A student who gets into Wisconsin L&S does not face an extremely high barrier to declare CS: BC (2.5) grade in a CS course, and 2.250 GPA in the first three prerequisites (one CS and two math), according to Computer Sciences, B.S. < University of Wisconsin-Madison .

Wisconsin engineering majors do have weed-out GPA requirements. For 2022-2023, ME majors needed a 3.2 technical and 3.0 overall to stay in the major, according to https://engineering.wisc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/First-year_GPA_requirements_for_progression_2022-23-Updated4-28-23.pdf .

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UIUC is much more selective for ME and CS than in general; these are probably two of the most selective majors there. Changing into either of those majors after enrolling requires a 3.75 college GPA just to enter a competitive admission process. A student who is undecided between these two majors may not find UIUC very attractive, because committing to one of them when applying for frosh admission is basically required.

Purdue is also much more selective for either CS or the first-year-engineering program than overall.

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Thanks! I was just getting ready to post that.

@ucbalumnus posted the cutoffs to stay in. Below is a link to Wisconsin grades. You can see that those thresholds are high. The average freshman ME GPA was 3.202. If I’m reading this all correctly, a significant number won’t hit the 3.2 core GPA to stay in.

To be fair, there IS a relatively reliable back door into CS at UCLA via the Mathematics of Computation major. It goes like this:

  1. Apply to any major in the UCLA college of letters and sciences (they don’t admit by major)
  2. During orientation, “declare” the Math of Comp PREmajor (this gives you priority enrollment in CS AND Math classes)
  3. Obtain a 3.5+ GPA in an “engineering workload”. This is defined as 12+ units per quarter, with at least 1 math course and 1 science/engineering course for three consecutive quarters
  4. Apply through the necessary forms
  5. If by some extreme unfortune you are not accepted, the Math of Comp major is very easily optimized into a math-heavy CS major by taking cross-listed CS courses to fill math requirements (e.g. algorithms, machine learning, computability theory)

See:

Recently, more and more people have come to abuse this gaping loophole. I personally don’t approve of it, but I’m putting it out there in case future applicants find it useful.

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The University of Utah is another alternative to ASU with a cooler climate and skiing, also it is a smaller school and cheaper overall with WUE. We really like SLC and it’s an easy flight.

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Thanks for the detailed response. I have look at the impaction numbers for CS and ME and SE engineering at SJSU. For CS his index would be 3480 and like you said last year was 3440 so it is very close and he could just miss the threshold depending on what it is next year.
For the engineering his index would be 4840 or 4900 this is with uw math gpa.
This year Computer engineering and Mech engineering has 4680 and Software engineering had 4800 so I think for MechE or computer engineering he should be safe for them.

I have looked ASU requirements and he meets or is above what is required so he should be good here.

In regards to apply for CS outside of engineering is a good idea and we will consider that.

Good point on the flights and will use non-stop instead of direct.

Yes thanks for explaining the unusual look-back requirement at CPSLO. I think this is what the counsellor meant but did not explain as well as you have done here :).

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UW Madison has CS in Letters & Science. Not in the Engg school. GPA thresholds to declare CS are low. A 2.25 GPA in a small number of required courses: Computer Sciences, B.S. < University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Thanks for the info on UIUC. 3.75 college GPA is indeed very high requirement for changing. Something to definitely consider.

For Purdue yes I know the acceptance rates is lower for engineering and many of the students who go from our school do go for engineering or CS.

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Thanks for the link on Wisconsin GPA requirements. If I am reading this you declare major after first year and the GPA requirement is to choose each of the majors. Also looks like CS requirements are lower than engineering.

I am glad I started the thread it’s good to know all these GPA requirements for declaring major/ changing majors.

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Thanks for the info.

Thanks, we did not look into University of Utah. Will compare ASU, University of Utah and U Colorado boulder and see what is good.

Thanks for the info on an alternative way to try to do CS in UCLA. I wonder if they will close it once they see more and more kids do this. But even if they the math and comp major is a good path also where you can still do many CS based courses.

You should absolutely assume all loopholes at all of the UCs will be closed at some point. On this forum, many questioned whether Berkeley will ever do anything about the LSCS process, and then after many years of handwringing they fast tracked a high demand major policy in no time.

The UCLA path seems low risk but ask yourself how you would be able to make an apples-to-apples comparison should you end up with a scenario where you are deciding between SJSU CS vs. a feasible but medium probability path like the one outlined at UCLA. I think many parents think choosing an “easy” major for admissions purposes is less risky but I think in most cases it simply puts people in a messy bind where they make the major vs. pedigree choice.

Specific to CS, in the recent low-interest rate decade the rising tide lifted all majors. If you look at outcomes for non-CS stem majors a lot of them produced CS-like outcomes but in a changing tech market there could be a flight to safety where employers start focusing on core majors once more.

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Note that likely costs for tuition, room and board are around $29K for Utah (with WUE), $33K for ASU (with Presidential scholarship) and something over $50K for CU Boulder. Boulder attracts a very different type of CA kid who can afford the high cost, whereas Utah and ASU are much more direct alternatives to the UCs with comparable cost but easier to get into (and with PAC 12 sports).

Good point on the cost difference between the three. I have not looked to WUE much as of now but need to figure out what the requirements are if we decide to go this path.

In recent times they’ve been waitlisting very high stat kids from CA or admitting them to exploratory studies. They are very aware of CA kids using them as a back up.

Look to U of Arizona too. Non stop flights to Tucson just a more manageable, traditional campus than asu. Beautiful honors dorm and adjacent gym. You’ll get $20k off tuition. If you visit ASU, it’s 100 mins away. Easy drive.

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Actually, UIUC no longer allows a change into CS.

UIUC does offer a several CS + X majors which look like they might be a good fit for your kid’s interests. The acceptance rate for these is low, but higher than straight CS.

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