Switching to Berkeley L&S CS after transfer admission for another major?

I plan on applying to ucb as an applied math major this year but am wondering if I will be able to switch to CS if I am admitted since everyone comes in undeclared to L&S anyways. That is, if I get in for applied math can I take CS61A in the summer prior to transfer and complete CS61B and CS70 with a 3.3 gpa and declare CS? I understand this is very possible for freshman admissions but since the difficulty for being admitted to CS as a transfer compared to other majors is so much greater I was wondering if this “back door” method is not possible.

switching within L&S is doable. Actually you’re not even switching per se since yes, you are coming in as undeclared. You do have to declare no later than at the end of Fall semester, and in order to declare you do have to have the qualifying 3.3 for all 3 classes CS61A/CS61B/CS70 before you can declare.

Note that many CCCs offer a Data Structures class, so you may be able to take that as an articulation to CS61B. A couple offer an articulation to CS61A also. However, if you do an articulation, your 3.3 GPA qualification will then be based on 2 classes (or one class depending on how many of the 3 CS classes that you transfer over), which may be helpful or harmful. Do note that even if you do take a Data Structures class in CC, you can take CS61B over again.

is it absolutely necessary to declare at the end of the Fall Semester? I would imagine that there are many people transferring directly to CS who don’t have the option of taking any of CS61A/CS61B/CS70 at their cc. So would they be required to take one over the summer and the other two in the fall?

In my case CS61B is offered at my cc but I would like to retake it at cal anyways.

I think transfers have to declare within a semester after they start, right? I think those are the rules. @Ohm888 would be better able to answer that. Yeah, I think transfers who are CS wannabees at Berkeley probably would have to start in the summer if they wanted to declare in time. CS61A in the summer and CS61B and CS70 in the fall is a heavy workload but manageable.

For CS61B, it is probably the most important class for a CS major at Berkeley, so yes, it would be a good idea to retake the class at Berkeley even if you do take it in CC. I just threw it out there as a way of reducing your courseload.

One strategy, pretty risky, that you could do is the following if you didn’t want to overload - take the equivalent Data Structures class while in CC, take CS61A in the summer, take CS 70 in the fall, then declare if you get your 3.3. Then take CS 61B again after you declare. However - if you do have a end-of-fall deadline and you don’t get that 3.3+ in your first 2 classes, you probably are SOL for declaring for CS.

ok thanks. I’ll decide upon whether to take both in the fall depending on the grade I receive in 61A.

assuming you get into Berkeley, that’s a good strategy.

CS 70 is an incredibly hard class, it does require a lot of work. Around 15 hours a week doing problem sets and studying, double or triple that before midterms and finals. But it is curved like crazy as well. For the Spring semester that just concluded, the median was around a 50% average on exams, good enough for a B+. A +0.5 standard deviation was an A-. CS 61A and CS61B are not curved, your grade is more or less on the 90/80/70 scale.

A strategy that can work for students who are near Laney College in Oakland is:

  • Take usual transfer preparatory course work.
  • Take CIS 61 (= UCB CS 61A according to ASSIST).
  • Take CIS 25 and 27 (= UCB CS 61B according to ASSIST).
  • Take UCB CS 70 during the summer.

If your UCB CS 70 grade is B+ or higher, you now know that if you can get admitted to UCB L&S as a transfer, you have met the requirements to declare the L&S CS major immediately on entry.

The grading scales in CS 61A and CS 61B are nonlinear. https://cs61a.org/articles/about.html shows thresholds of 90% = A-, 68.3% = B-, 58.3% = C-, 53.3% = D-. https://sp19.datastructur.es/about.html#grades shows thresholds of 86% = A-, 68.2% = B-, 47.2% = C-, 25.3% = D-.

what is the benefit of applying CS as a transfer anyways then since it seems you can take the courses regardless of which major you get in for

^ it’s an interesting question- For Transfer to L&S CS I don’t particularly see a benefit. But I’m not at expert in this question so others should chime in.

One thought is that if you had a lot of CC courses that was leaning towards CS and you were applying for say an English major, Admissions might catch on and would jeopardize your admissions. But applying for something related like Applied Math probably would be ok.

Yeah, haha I admit I never bothered to check the depths of how low it would go for anything lower than a B+. For CS wannabes, getting a grade below a B in any of the 3 classes is asking for a lot of trouble as far as qualifying goes.

Do note that for 61B, there’s a big difference in how things are emphasized in terms of grading along with style between Professors Hilfinger and Hug (the 2 that teach the course). Hug - great lecturer, tougher grader, emphasis more on exams, projects are easier. Hilfinger - much much greater emphasis on coding, as his class is mostly graded on projects. Workload is more with Hilfinger since you spend way more time on the projects though, unless you are already a great programmer.