I’ve been admitted to UCSD as an undeclared student. I’m interested in pursuing CS, and am really interested in UCSD because they have a great program, but I also heard it’s extremely difficult to get into CS as an undeclared. I’ve got offers from The University of Maryland and Purdue for CS, should I consider going to UCSD ?
Would you happy to attend UCSD if you were not able to get into the CS program?
To change into the CS major at UCSD, you need to meet the GPA and course course requirements and then placement is based on a lottery.
** Eligible students who have not exceeded the two-time application limit and meet the 3.3 GPA cutoff for screening courses, UCSD 8 unit residency requirement in CSE courses, and approved quarter by quarter plan (QXQ plan needed for students with 150+ units) will be populated onto an Excel sheet. Each student is then randomly assigned a number using Excel’s random number generator. Students are then sorted by their assigned number from highest to lowest number. The students with the 80 highest assigned numbers are offered a seat in the CSE department (80 seats offered with an anticipated yield of 75 students).
Thanks for the reply! I would be happy, as long as there is another major that I could get into. If another major such as data science or bioinformatics is easier to get into than CS, even though they are still capped, I would be OK with that. I also know about the Cog Sci major being a pretty good alternative to CS.
Data Science is still pretty tough to get into: you might want to read my other post: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-san-diego/2181339-ucsd-undeclared-data-science-hopeful.html
Bioinformatics is capped across three departments: CSE, Bioengineering, and Biology.
The CSE one is a lottery, after you get a 3.3 or above in the screening classes, and if you qualify, you’d be better off applying for straight CS, since you can switch from CS->(CS with a specialization in Bioinformatics), but not the other way around.
Bioengineering: Bioinformatics is pretty tough to get into. I know a girl with got in this year with a 3.89 in the screening courses. No mean feat.
I don’t know about the Biology Bioinformatics. I would assume it’s not as hard as the other two to get into though?
If you like circuits, you could try ECE Computer Engineering too. Unlike Math-CS or Cog Sci, you would have an easier time getting into CS major classes too: http://ece.ucsd.edu/undergraduate/computer-engineering-major
A 3.5 GPA in the screening courses would set you up nicely. (But it’s pretty tough to attain unless you like circuits and math)
If you like Math, there’s also Math-CS! It’s not as insane to get into as CS and Bioengineering for sure. Source: https://www.math.ucsd.edu/~handbook/undergraduate/cappedstatus/
Cog Sci is pretty good. Many people minor in CS with Cog Sci and land software jobs. It’s uncapped right now too.