I have been accepted to these five colleges for my undergraduate studies but I am not sure which one would be the best for me. Any advice on which I should go to and WHY would be highly appreciated.
Accepted :
The University of Washington, Seattle (College of Engineering)
University of Wisconsin- Madison (Computer Science)
Uni of Massachusetts Amherst (CS)
University of California Irvine (CS)
University of Minnesota Twin Cities (CS)
About Me:
I want to major in Computer Science. I am especially interested in Artificial Intelligence. I am from India and all these colleges would cost me almost the same. Apart from Academics, I play piano(just a hobby) and would like to continue that in college.
1, 2, and 3 are the best academically.
All three have an excellent reputation for CS.
Wisconsin has a fantastic college town and will be very cold. The students are recruited from all the big name tech companies.
Amherst has the five college consortium (and there’ll be plenty of snow and nor’easter) plus the Boston tech corridor.
UW has the cool city of Seattle and proximity to tech Giants.
@MYOS1634 I am really interested in attending University of Washington Seattle. However, they let you declare your major after one year only. And all the engineering aspirants are admitted as Engineering undeclared. They have limited seats for computer engineering and they do not guarantee a seat. They only guarantee an engineering degree. Do you have any advice regarding this issue and is it worth it to take the risk ?
You should ask this question on the University of Washington forum, but I know it is very difficult to get into CS at UW if you were not a direct admit. It is also holistic admissions, so you cannot be assured of a spot even if you get top grades.
“The students are recruited from all the big name tech companies.”
True, but the political situation right now about hiring international employees is in flux. Please have a solid plan for finding a job at home if things don’t work out here the way that you hope.
It’s better than not admitted to the School of Engineering, but yes it means that if you’re not among the top 10% students you will NOT get the major you want (since CSE is in very high demand). So, if you’re set on CS, UWisconsin and UMass Amherst are both excellent choices. Did you get into Honors at either one (or apply)?
@ciervo - direct admit to major is only for CS. There is nothing like direct admit for CE(computer engineering). There are only two decisions. Pre-major and direct admit to CoE called the Engineering Undeclared.
I got the better option - Eng. Undeclared
For every engineering major, you have to first study for a few years and then apply for your specific major.
Every stat I found on the internet is for CS major and that is why I am so confused.
@MYOS1634 - I want to do a departmental Honors instead of a general honors degree. It has to be applied for after taking a few CS courses and having a high gpa in those. I would definitely try for those but it is not a sure thing.
For students who are not directly admitted to CS at Washington, the “regular admission” rate to the CS major has been around 35 to 45% in recent years.
For CE, this is the first year of Direct to College admission, and therefore, admission statistics are not available. However, the College of Engineering most likely admitted (and projected the enrollment of) a certain number of students for each intended engineering major. Based on the ASEE profile, electrical engineering, civil engineering, mechanical engineering and bioengineering enroll the largest numbers of engineering students at the UW, I would expect the admission offers and enrollment projections track the the relative sizes of each major.
Of course, enrollment targets are just targets, and it is likely that some students will change their minds about their intended engineering majors. Thus, the UW website notes:
“Students who have completed all the course requirements for placement with at least a 2.5 GPA in those courses will be able to request placement into a major. Some majors will have more requests for placement than they can accommodate. The placement process will be facilitated to best match students with their interests. As part of an immersive first-year engineering experience, there will be many resources and opportunities for students to identify their interests and to understand multiple pathways for meeting their goals.”
In summary, the UW most likely plans to enroll approximately the number of intended CE majors that the department can take in as sophomores. However, given that other students may elect to seek admission to CE who initially planned to pursue other engineering majors, you do not want your grades to be at the bottom of the CE applicant pool. Your test scores indicate that if you continue to focus on your studies, you should not be anywhere near the bottom of the CE applicant pool.
I recommend that you speak with the advising staff at the UW College of Engineering about your prospects for successfully entering the CE major as a sophomore.
Congratulations on all of your excellent admission offers and good luck!
@UWfromCA Thank You so much for your answer. It will help so much to decide.
Can you please type the link in a comment from which you got this information.
@PengsPhils That is why I applied for CS at all the other colleges except UW. While applying, I looked at courses that are offered in different majors and CE at UW has an entirely different course curriculum from what we picture when we think of CE. It is not all Hardware as is expected. It almost covers all the computer science courses and offers some extra courses from Electrical Engineering. They make it possible by removing a lot of courses like writing that are supposed to be taken in the first two semesters that almost have a negligible contribution to computational thinking.
And they ask you to choose courses at a higher level where you can take those like Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Embedded Systems, Human-Computer Interaction, etc. When I tried to make my complete course structure, I found more flexibility in CE at UW. But that is just my opinion.
If you know otherwise, I would love to get some insight.
@applicant1308, your analysis finds support from Prof. Ed Lazowska (Bill and Melinda Gates Chair at the UW), who wrote in a Quora article, “At the University of Washington we have two degree programs: a B.S. in Computer Science offered through the College of Arts & Sciences, and a B.S. in Computer Engineering offered through the College of Engineering. The two programs are pretty much indistinguishable. … The degree requirements are very similar. I teach the senior-level Operating Systems course one quarter each year, and I have no idea which students are in which program. … It tends to be easier to dual-major from Computer Science, because there is heavy overlap in the distribution requirements with other A&S programs - we have lots of dual majors with music, art, math, biology, linguistics, [etc.].”
Likewise, a student commented, “They have lots of classes overlap. The only difference I would say is that CS students take more MATH-related courses and CE take more EE-related courses.”
The UW website states, “CS is a major within the UW’s College of Arts and Sciences; therefore, it has broader liberal arts/general education requirements and more flexible upper-division requirements. CE is a major within the UW’s College of Engineering; its requirements are more focused and include a Technical Writing component. Both majors are flexible and lead to similar employment opportunities.”
Interesting, good to know as it’s usually a bit more EE/CS median at other places. Thanks for the info everyone. That makes this a bit tougher, but I think given the strength of the AI/ML at UMass, I’d avoid the risk of secondary admission and go with the still top-level program, assuming all other things equal.