How is CU Boulder CS program?

All input appreciated, thanks for the insights. Better to go in with eyes open than not!

Update: son accepted today to UCCS for Computer Science. Already sent SIR to Cal State Long Beach to maintain option, though probably will not attend either one.

Recently accepted to Honors program at local CC. This is a strong pathway to several University of California campuses in 2-3 years. Also, zero tuition first year, small classes with smart kids and priority registration. That sounds like the right call. Many thanks for the input here.

Good luck! Nice to have him closer to home.

I verified with some students I know about UCCS transfer credit to CU Boulder and almost NONE of the math credits transfer. Its truly dismal situation for engineering majors who want to transfer from Colorado Springs branch to the Boulder branch of U of Colorado. The two campuses have two different standards and no real path between these two four year colleges. Arts and Sciences majors may be OK, I have not checked that, but physics and any engineering major is going to have to almost start over at CU Boulder if they want a degree from CU Boulder, because the math classes at the two campuses are not the same. Its pretty bad situation and nothing at all like U of California where classes tend to transfer between programs.

@Coloradomama, that is helpful, if disappointing. I think it validates my son’s wise decision to proceed from local community college to guaranteed admission to UC after two years. The course articulation agreements are explicit, so there’s no guesswork. Colorado appears to have some wood to chop in terms of aligning the programs and prerequisites among the CU campuses.

I realize this thread is quite old, but I needed to respond and refute the obviously incorrect information presented here.

The University of Colorado, while separated into four distinct campuses, maintains an integrated academic record. Regardless of which campus a course is taken, it shows up on your CU transcript.

So it really makes no sense to speak of transferring credits between the different campuses, since your academic record follows you throughout the CU system. While individual degree programs might or might not accept a particular course, the credits, once earned, are yours.

That being said, the “transferability” of credits between degree programs is way more generous than @Coloradomama claims. Most of the first 4 or 5 math courses taken for a typical Engineering program (Calc I, II & III, DiffEqs, and Probability & Statistics) are transferable between Boulder, UCCS and UCD. Physics and Chemistry have similar situations. See https://catalog-archive.colorado.edu/2016-17/node/2230.html for course equivalencies.

While I’m not as familiar with the Community College pathway into Engineering at Boulder, there are similar course equivalencies from the Colorado CCs into Boulder, UCCS & UCD. See https://www.colorado.edu/engineering/courses-will-transfer for more info. AFAIK there are also guaranteed admissions between many of the CC programs into Boulder based on the quality of a students academic record.

Sources: I teach (and often advise students) in the College of Engineering and Applied Science at CU Boulder. I also have two children who are Engineering students in the CU system.

@FesterMcTester–to get into CU Engineering, which I think was what the original poster wanted, four classes must be taken at CU Boulder campus, and not any other U of Colorado campus. Two are math classes and two are science classes. It clearly states, these four classes cannot be taken at UCD or UCCS if one wants an engineering degree from CU Engineering Boulder. If a student is transferring from Mines or another engineering
college, those credits may transfer but NOT from UCD or UCCS. Its very clear. The student only needs a C or better
in these four classes to get in, but they must do this at the Boulder campus.

https://www.colorado.edu/engineering-advising/intra-university-transfer-iut-engineering

Look at step 1, required coursework. I cut and pasted it here for convenience.

You must complete the following courses on the CU Boulder campus with a C or better.

Math (two courses): APPM 1350 (or MATH 1300, or APPM 1340/1345) and APPM 1360 (or MATH 2300) at a minimum.
Science (two courses): ONE combination of the following is acceptable:
PHYS 1110 (or PHYS 1115) + CHEM 1113/1114 (or CHEM 1400)
PHYS 1110 (or PHYS 1115) + PHYS 1120 (or PHYS 1125)
CHEM 1113/1114 (or CHEM 1400) + CHEM 1133/1134
Additional notes:

Transfer credit (including AP/IB coursework) does not apply to IUT admission requirements.
If you have taken coursework, at UCD or UCCS, your grades from those courses will carry over to CU Boulder but will not factor into IUT admission GPA requirements; IUT admission is based on CU Boulder coursework only.

So while poster above is right, all the classes one takes at any U of Colorado campus will appear on your record,
its very clear that math and science courses taken on other campuses may not count to earning an engineering degree from CU Boulder, and Boulder Colleges of Music, Education etc also reserves the right to ask you to repeat any class they wish, on their campus. Also its rare to transfer from UCCS directly into CU Engineering, most students work their way in, by taking the four classes, two math and two science and remain in Arts and Sciences until they complete this in Boulder. See my post above, from the CU Website, to understand the four classes that must be taken at the Boulder campus with a grade of C or better, to work one’s way into CU College of Engineering.

Read this website and roll down to transfer credit from other CU campuses:
https://www.colorado.edu/admissions/transfer

Here is the cut and paste from that section:
Course work completed at other campuses in the University of Colorado system will be a part of the student’s cumulative university record and will not be considered as transfer credit. However, the applicability of this course work towards specific CU Boulder degree requirements will be determined solely by CU Boulder colleges and schools. External transfer credit presented by students to other University of Colorado campuses will be evaluated by CU Boulder guidelines upon the student’s matriculation into a degree program at CU Boulder.

^^I disagree that that is what Step One says.

This says the gpa will not transfer, NOT that the courses do not transfer. My nephew is in the engineering school at CU-Boulder. He took Calc 2 at Metro and it transferred just fine. Did the grade transfer into his gpa? No.

@Coloradomama you’re conflating a couple of issues here - admission from another campus of the University of Colorado and the transfer of credits into a degree program. The first is pretty easily resolved as CU Boulder has guaranteed admission from other Colorado post secondary institutions (including other CU campuses, sometimes referred to as an ICT, or Inter Campus Transfer).

This is distinct from an Intra University Transfer (IUT) which only applies to those students already matriculated into a program offered by another college or school on the Boulder campus. Students at UCD and UCCS can apply to CU Boulder just like any other transfer student, with the exception that they are guaranteed admission if their academics meet certain requirements. See https://www.colorado.edu/admissions/transfer and scroll to the bottom to Guaranteed Admission for Colorado Transfer Students.

Moving onto the transfer of credits once accepted into a program within Engineering - the claim that a student might have to take most, or even many, classes over once transferring from UCD or UCCS is demonstrably false. Most of the lower-division (1000 and 2000 level) engineering, math, physics, chemistry and CS classes typically taken in the first year or two are considered equivalent to those offered on any other CU campus. Many of the upper division classes have equivalents as well. As stated previously, the link at https://catalog-archive.colorado.edu/2016-17/node/2230.html details those equivalents.

Finally, my experience in the classroom directly contradicts your assertion that credits don’t transfer from UCD and UCCS. I have many students who started their academic careers on another CU campus and, as long as they met the requirements to transfer into our program, have had a majority of their credits transfer over. Generally anything B and above will be accepted for transfer.

Going to UCD or UCCS for a year or two of engineering is a generally accepted method for getting into Boulder later on - you just need to get decent grades to make the transfer.

just hopped on CU Boulder’s website and saw that Facebook, Google, and Charles Schwab are all scheduling recruiting events for CS and other students on campus. This is great news for CU.

@FesterMcTester is correct with the actual info on transferring classes. I’m not sure where @Coloradomama is coming from on this. Quite a bit of misinformation.

As an anecdote, my DD graduated from CU Boulder in ChemE. She took Calc 3 at UCCS during the summer and not only did the course transfer, the grade was included in her overall GPA at UCB.