Official Fall 2014 Decisions Thread

<p>@SD2018Dad @NinRash: </p>

<p>There’s a number listed at the bottom of the admissions page or in the common phone numbers/emails page.</p>

<p>Admissions: <a href=“Admission to majors | Office of Admissions”>http://admit.washington.edu/Admission&lt;/a&gt;
Common phone numbers: <a href=“About the UW”>About the UW;

<p>I haven’t tried calling that number, but it appears to lead to the undergraduate admissions office. I don’t think there are general admissions counselors. If you’re looking for departmental advisors (who sometimes are on the admissions committee), it should be somewhere on the departmental websites.</p>

<p>@speedsolver to the rescue, yet again! BTW, do you happen to have any sort of inside scoop on whether or not all CS direct admits have been notified?</p>

<p>@NinRash No inside scoop, sorry!</p>

<p>does the welcome packet include any information about financial aid? i am dying to know what my actual cost of attendance will be as an out of state student, since i absolutely want to go to UW, but UCSD offered to cover most of tuition (12k) for the 2014-2015 year :/</p>

<p>@ApplicantA I am curious to know why you would want to consider UW and not UCSD. What is your major? My D has acceptance from both UCSD and UW (pursuing computer sc) and need to decide</p>

<p>Got my welcome packet…listed as pre-science…<em>sigh</em></p>

<p>I though by taking all the pre-reqs in high school, I would have a decent chance. Guess the UW is just that “selective”. @speedsolver what are my chances I’d get in spring?</p>

<p>@NinRash I can’t really chance you without knowing grades, what your CSE personal statement is, etc… If you’ve finished all of the prereqs and do decide to enroll at UW, I suggest talking to the advisors to know how to make your application as competitive as possible. </p>

<p>Thanks for the info, @speedsolver …you’re always there for us! :D</p>

<p>Here are my grades though:
Math 124: C+
Math 125: A
Math 126: A-
CS 142: B-
CS 143: A
Phys 121: A
Engl 101: A
Engl 235: A</p>

<p>and a bunch of humanities/social sciences with A’s and a couple B’s</p>

<p>SAT was a 1760, not very important considering my college experience…</p>

<p>My essay included using technology to connect the world and bring us closer together so we can all (the human race) make the best of our combined knowledge and opportunities.</p>

<p>At this point I feel like taking florida state’s offer instead, I am in Computer Science there…</p>

<p>@NinRash</p>

<p>The UW cares about grades A LOT. My uncle is a college counselor so he gets hired to essentially “create” students’ college applications for them. He has always said over the years that if I wanted to go to the UW and get into Foster through Direct Admit, I would need to get good grades. There is no letter of recommendation at UW and there is very little room to talk about extra-curricular activities since the UW application only allows the student to list five. It’s very hard to express what kind of student and work ethic you have when all you can give them is your transcript and two essays. </p>

<p>That being said, your stats are very low for Direct Admit. I saw your numbers through the Decisions Thread. A 1760 on the SAT is below average for UW in general, and so is your GPA (3.4, I believe?). The UW’s average SAT is over 1850 and the average GPA is around a 3.6-3.7. </p>

<p>Also, your SAT score DOES MATTER. It matters a lot. You can’t dismiss it as being “not very important” because of your “college experience”. The UW does not care if you are “ahead” and did Running Start. That’s just the reality on how they approach this program. You have to understand that Running Start colleges are not an accurate depiction of how well you will do in college because they are very low-tier universities. They are not rigorous. My college counselor discouraged me from doing Running Start unless it is for a financial benefit. Running Start will not help you get into college and the UW does not believe it to be better than AP or IB. If anything, it is less rigorous.</p>

<p>I’m sure you will get in after two years. It seems like you have a really great passion for CS and it will be more rewarding for you to get in after some exploration at the UW. Best of luck. :)</p>

<p>Thanks for the encouragement and help, @lyndak. I think they do care. My grades aren’t low. SAT doesnt mean anything, I have taken 96 college credits with a 3.5 college gpa as a 17 yr old. I got into UW because of running start and because of that only. One would think that by taking this challenge, that I’d have a good shot. I believe I will be the most successful, I don’t doubt it for a second. I have a proven record of success in various areas of my life, including college, specifically math and computer science. That is something any of the applicants nor DA kids can say. Hope you get into direct admit for business though, wish you good luck!</p>

<p>No, your grades are not low at all! I’m saying they are low for Direct Admit consideration. Direct Admit is very selective and the UW only takes the best for Direct Admit (ie: 2000+ SAT and 3.8+ GPAs). Thank you for your kind wishes and I hope you get in in two years!</p>

<p>Thanks. 2 years?? I just need to wait for spring, so 2 quarters. You understand running start, right? </p>

<p>@NinRash </p>

<p>No I don’t really know how it works. Like I said, I never did it. My family, uncle, school counselor, and college counselor all discouraged me from doing that.</p>

<p>@lyndak oh okay then. The reason schools discourage it is because the school district pays for our tuition. It’s really unfortunate that not enough kids know about it. It was the best decision of my life, I got 96 college credits for free, earned my associates for free as well. Not to mention they are way better than AP classes in pretty much every way. Basically you take college courses at a local community college and have the credit count for both HS and college. I went a step further and am also earning my AA so I wasnt required to do any bogus HS culminating project. Pretty awesome!</p>

<p>Also, your grade in the course is final, no dumb standardized AP tests to determine college credit awarded, and then be told to take it anyways lol</p>

<p>Yeah, Running Start really does sound awesome…If I’d gone to high school in the US I would definitely have done it. </p>

<p>@NinRash, @lyndak - fantastic discussion. I have exact same questions as Ninrash. My daughter is an international student. SAT 2030, SAT subject - Math 2 770, Physics 730. I don’t know how to calculate CGPA for her since she is international. Let’s say that her grades are good and competitive. She took Computer Science courses for 2 years in high school in India. I was a little surprised that she didn’t get DA to Computer Science. In any case, now that she is here… what will it take for her to get admitted into CS and how long?
Also, my daughter has got admit into the following colleges. How do you folks compare UW with these colleges</p>

<p>UC Davis - Computer Science
UC SD - Undeclared Major , Revelle college. Same situation as UW
NC State - Computer Science intent
UIC - Computer Science with merit scholarship
NYU - Got a likely selected message. Have not got the decision yet.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the discussion and help.</p>

<p>@NinRash Chill. =) </p>

<p>As for the personal statement, I mean the one you write for CSE upper division admissions. That’ll be different from what you wrote for your freshman application.</p>

<p>I’m not going to get into the debate about IB versus AP versus RS, though each has its pros and cons. Bashing AP/IB won’t do much good on these forums. For some school districts, Running Start has also been seen as taking the “easy way out” since some people find community college classes to be easier than taking AP/IB at their respective schools. Obviously, this totally depends on the person and where they grew up, so you’ll run into people with different perspectives of the three programs. </p>

<p>UW has a weird system of naming your ‘standing’ based on credits, so you’ll be a “first year, junior standing” student. Does that make sense? I barely use the freshman/sophomore/junior/senior term on campus since it can be very confusing.</p>

<p>@NinRash @lyndak @SD2018Dad The earliest you can apply to the CSE department is at the mid-to-end of Winter quarter of your first year (for Spring admissions). This assumes you’ve finished the prerequisites to apply. Your credit standing isn’t taken into account when determining whether or not you’re eligible to apply. If your application is unsuccessful, you can apply at mid-to-end of every Summer and Winter quarters (for Fall and Spring admissions, respectively). </p>

<p>You can find out more info here: <a href=“http://www.cs.washington.edu/prospective_students/undergrad/admissions/upper_division/”>http://www.cs.washington.edu/prospective_students/undergrad/admissions/upper_division/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I recommend that everyone keep an open mind of the different programs here. If you’re set on <em>only</em> majoring in computer science, it’s a risk. If your end goal is to be a software engineer (or anything else…), there’s plenty of opportunities here. See my other post in the CSE thread for more rambling thoughts on this. =) </p>

<p>@speedsolver what about majoring in liberal arts and taking all of the non-major CSE courses? I’m interested in linguistics, sociology, and econ too. Since I didn’t get DA I have some time to explore more and am realizing I might want to get more of an “education” in college instead of strictly CSE training. By getting a BA in one of the majors I listed, and taking every non-Major CSE course, would I still learn enough CS to work in the industry? Info seems too much like IT/tech support to me, ACMS is too math-focused, and I’m not all that into other engineerings (electric, mech, etc) as a whole.</p>

<p>Guys I’m really sorry. I’m deviating the discussion a bit here: since this thread is active I thought I’d just post it here : so I got in uw with a pre-major(A&S) same as @lyndak . I filled in business administration but got the former. Now I know a DA to foster is rare and I don’t expect to get in(without taking all the pre req classes) so what worries me is that I don’t want to spend my first year just getting random class credits that would get me to foster. I’ve been accepted by D’amore Mckim Business school at Northeastern with International Business and since it is a DA it sounds much more appealing to me. Any thoughts?</p>