Hey everybody!
I was wondering how hard it is to get into a major (since the whole system of pre-major exists). I’m quite worried about the risk. Is it very competitive or is it a you-slack-you-out type of competition? Around how many people get in their actual intended major? (Specifically CS in my case) If they don’t, what usually happens?
Thank you in advance!
PS. I don’t see this mention in the website: How long are pre-majors? I read “quarters” somewhere
I’ve looked around and for regular admission it’s like 40% that they accept applicants. Gotta have all the prerequisites done, competitive GPA is like 3.7 and a great personal essay. If you get rejected I’m not entirely sure what happens. I think you can reapply but they recommend you going for a diffeent major? Idk
I’m sorry if I didn’t make it clear enough! I have been admitted to UW and was wondering if I eventually don’t make DA what the chances are in UW to get in the major was hoping for (after pre-science)
Yeah, I’m in pre-science right now and I want to go for psychology, but I know that it is super competitive at UW. Sooo I’ll just assume that I have to work my ass off to keep my GPA up?
@simpliK I think what @phillipiscool123 was saying was that you need to get your pre-requisites for CS and have a competitive enough (college) GPA and write a great personal essay (when applying for the major) to get in. He was not referring to the general UW admissions application. I think.
@student197 You Right!
@philipiscool123 oh I see! my bad 
btw how long is the pre-science program? a year?
@simpliK “pre-science” (or pre-anything) is just a placeholder for “undeclared major”. You’ll be pre-science until you declare a major (which doesn’t have to be a science major at all). After a certain number of credits (~105, until you’re slightly into your junior year), you’ll have to chat with an advisor about declaring a major before you’re able to register for classes.
Hey @speedsolver I have been admitted to UW Seattle campus and my unofficial transcript page says Pre-Engineering. I had applied for Computer Engineering. So I guess I haven’t been accepted as DA. So i was wondering if taking AP exams would help me get into my desired branch with more ease. please advice me if I should take the Ap exams, and if yes, which ones would be helpful? Plus being an intenational student the tuition fee is a bit on the higher side, So, how difficult is it for an internation(asain) student to get a scholarship?
Thank you in advance
AP exams
Honestly, after you get to UW, AP exams don’t matter unless you’re using AP credit to get out of classes. UW CSE prefers seeing you take UW classes (CSE, MATH, ENGL, sciences) to see how you fare against the UW bar rather than using AP/IB/Transfer credits to finish the prereqs. Even if you finish all your prereqs with AP credits, you’ll likely have to retake at least CSE 142/143 and some math/science.
Scholarships for international students
This is kind of hard since most scholarships are for local students, but some probably do exist. You’ll have to search for them. Look into applying for scholarships from international organizations as well, not just from UW. Good luck! Finances can be nasty sometimes.
[/QUOTE]
@speedsolver if we are DA’d into the program, do you recommend taking CSE 142 even if we obtain AP credit for AP Comp Sci?
@iloveescargot Depends. If you have a really solid foundation, I think it’s fine to go straight into CSE 143. I personally retook CSE 142, which helped me learn what type of coding style UW prefers, etc. Take a look at the course sites – cs . uw . edu / 142 and cs . uw . edu / 143 (no spaces).
@speedsolver right now my unofficial transcript says pre science on it so I’m assuming I didn’t get direct admission into cs. Do you think informatics is a good back up major if I don’t make it to cs through regular admission? I’m hoping to be employed as a software engineer/programmer after college.