<p>So I checked the unofficial transcript and whatnot, and it lists my major as "pre-engineering". What exactly does this mean? I applied to bioengineering, so does this mean I did not get directly admitted to that major, or is it that you can only get direct admittance to the college (engineering)?</p>
<p>At this point, we dont know if bioengineering department has even made decisions on direct admit. </p>
<p>Right now, pre-engineering means that you were 1) accepted, 2) not given a major… yet.</p>
<p>I applied for compsci and have pre science in my unofficial transcript. What does this mean? It’s annoying. :)</p>
<p>Comp sci generally takes around 30 students as direct admit each year. It means that you have not yet been accepted into the CSE department.</p>
<p>Don’t worry about it. I know the advisors were doing decision making on direct admit earlier this month, but I’m not sure if they actually have made decisions yet. If you are accepted, you will receive mail (or an email) from them. Otherwise, you will just not hear anything from them.</p>
<p>What happens to the students that hadn’t received a direct-admit to the CompSci? What should they do during college in order to get into the CompSci major?</p>
<p>Here is the Admissions Requirements page for CSE:
[CSE</a> Admission Requirements](<a href=“http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/ugrad/admit/programapply.html]CSE”>http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/ugrad/admit/programapply.html)</p>
<p>The biggest tips I can give you are the following:
-VERY, VERY strong grades in CSE 142/143. These are the 2 intro courses.
-Personal Statement: Be very passionate. </p>
<p>Here is some more information about the review process:
[Application</a> Review Process](<a href=“http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/ugrad/admit/reviewprocess.html]Application”>http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/ugrad/admit/reviewprocess.html)</p>
<p>I also suggest that you go in and talk to one of the advisors. Go over grades (even if they’re ‘bad,’ at least you can get an opinion on what you should work on), talk about how competitive of an applicant you will be for the department. CS/CE majors are combined - around 160 graduating from both majors per year. You’ll be competing with not only CS-hopefuls, but also CE-hopefuls.</p>
<p>I’m a direct admit student, so I can’t say much about accelerated or upper-division admissions. I would suggest talking to upperclassmen who went through this process for any tips they have!</p>
<p>Entry into CS is RIDICULOUSLY competitive among nerds at UW so I’m really hoping I get in directly. I know people who devote all their time to getting into CS and have gotten rejected multiple times.</p>
<p>My transcript says im Pre Science while Industrial Engineering was my 2nd choice after CS (so I should’ve been Pre Engineering if I was rejected by CS) and I think it’s very unlikely I would get rejected from IE so its possible I got into CS.</p>
<p>@speedsolver do you remember what it said as your major in your unofficial transcript back when you got accepted to UW?</p>
<p>Given my personal statement and my ECs, I should have been pre-admitted to CS. How certain are we that CS pre-admit decisions are made?</p>
<p>@jumpshooter, OMGMIT: Goodness! Just scrolled up - this post is pretty long, but I hope it answers your questions! Please let me know if you have any other questions and I will try to answer them as well as I can.</p>
<p>First, I would like to make a note that advisors do not send in ‘change of major’ forms for CSE until later. They wait until they hear back from the students who are accepted (to see if they accept the major). If students do not accept the CS/CE major for some reason or another (sudden desire to do biochem? Who knows?), then they turn to their <em>waitlist</em> to choose students. </p>
<p>Even if you got direct admit, your unofficial transcript should still say pre-science or pre-engineering for now. CS is in the College of Arts and Sciences, so students who have CS as their intended major first should actually have pre-science on their transcript. For CE (College of Engineering), you should have pre-engineering.</p>
<p>I don’t know why CS is in Arts and Sciences; it makes sense that it would be in College of Engineering, right?</p>
<p>I had pre-engineering (wrote 1) CE, and 2) CS as intended majors) on my unofficial transcript. I ended up ‘changing majors’ before freshman year even started; now my unofficial transcript says CS.</p>
<p>Even with freshman application personal statements and extra curriculars…
I wouldn’t really be ‘certain’ that you will be admitted into CS. A strong combination, which you probably have, would deem you a very competitive applicant. </p>
<p>However, there are some direct admit students who have no programming experience before. Much of what the CSE department looks for in freshman direct admit is potential, not just what you’ve already done. For me, I only mentioned experience in computer science somewhat in passing in one of my personal statements. </p>
<p>If you’re very confident you ‘should’ be direct admit, then I have confidence that you will get into the major - even if it’s after taking the intro series. Think about it this way. You have a very strong background. Now keep it up in college (what you should be doing, especially for this field, anyway) and you’ll have no trouble getting into the CSE department. </p>
<p>As of last year, this was the approximate time frame for CSE Direct Admit:
-Mid/late March: Decisions made by CSE department. This includes acceptances AND waitlist. Notifications of direct admit students sent. Waitlist and rejected students do NOT receive any notification. We do not know that direct admit decisions have been announced until we start hearing from other students that they received a notification from the CSE department. I feel that this won’t happen until we actually start getting tangible acceptance letters. </p>
<p>-April: CSE Advisors wait to hear back from students on if they will attend UW, and if so, if they choose to accept the CSE major. Believe it or not, some students decide they want to go on another track.</p>
<p>-May: CSE Advisors go back and look to see how many spots are left open in CSE direct admit. By now, students, have responded to college, so they know exactly how many more notifications to send out. They’ll go through their waitlist and email some students about ‘late acceptances’ into the major. </p>
<p>Competitiveness of Department:
There are 160 graduating spots per year. Admissions is roughly 30-40% of all applicants, although this number is not very certain because there are students who apply every two quarters (upperdivision) who may be rejected multiple times. There are also students who give up in the middle of the intro series. </p>
<p>You’ll need about a 3.8-4.0 in both CSE 142/143 (intro courses) to be considered competitive. To get an idea of CSE 142 grades for Autumn Quarter (usually most competitive, since these people want to get the series over with ASAP to apply to the major), here is a link to my class’s grades:</p>
<p>[CSE</a> 142, Autumn 2010](<a href=“http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse142/10au/grades.shtml]CSE”>CSE 142, Autumn 2010)</p>
<p>In our Class of 2014 Direct Admit class, there were over 900 freshman applicants and we had a class of 32 direct admits.</p>
<p>tl;dr: Go back and read this before asking any other questions. =)</p>
<p>speedsolver, thanks for the detailed info!</p>
<p>thanks speedsolver, that was really helpfull! and omgmit i checked your stats and to be realistic they’re very low. You still have great ECs so good luck!</p>
<p>No problem, guys! =) I hope the best for you, and if you do end up going to UW, perhaps I’ll see you around the CSE building ;)</p>
<p>If you have any other questions, don’t hesitate to ask!</p>
<p>Is this the acceptance email or financial aid email we are talking about? I got a financial aid email and my unofficial transcript loaded. Does this mean I am in for sure? I live in California so I’m guessing I wont hear for a couple more days.</p>
<p>@broadmb: which post are you referring the ‘email’ to? Sorry, just want to make sure I don’t give you a completely off target answer. If you got a finaid email and your transcript loaded, I think it’s safe to say that you’re in. Just hold tight a bit for mail to get to Cal!</p>