<p>I have a 2.9 GPA, and my grades are basically the same but all my A's dropped to B's, and one C dropped to a D+ (my intended field of major actually, computer science). So I ended up third quarter with 2 C's and 1 D+, the rest B's. Does this mean my admissions will be rescinded? Everyone on the forums says its unlikely, my counselor says otherwise.</p>
<p>If I do well my final quarter, will that make a difference?
Also, is U. Washington prestigious? It was ranked number 17 for world institutions but a lowly 45 on news weekly? Does it truly provide an ivy league like education? </p>
<p>Is it worth transferring from U. Washington to an ivy league for computer science, say Brown or Columbia SEAS, or UCLA or USC? Do many go onto prestigious graduate schools like MIT? What's Washington really like? I hear the campus is beautiful but the weather sucks? Are there lots of skateboarders?</p>
<p>UW is considered one of the "Public Ivy Leaque Schools". You will likely find that in whatever department you end up in that there are quite a few faculty members who obtained their terminal degrees from schools like Stanford and UIUC. So faculty wise UW has great faculty, although some have been leaving due to salary issues, which is kinda sad. If you take full advantage of UW's opportunities and put in a solid effort in obtaining good grades and making connections with faculty members, you can end up at a top school or one that is considered to be more "prestigious" than UW. I myself attended UW Business School and ended up at USC Leventhal School of Accounting, which is ranked among the top 5 graduate accounting programs in the country. </p>
<p>And UW's Computer Science Program is actually top 10. If you plan to do CS, UW is definitely a great choice. The program is very very competitive though. You must earn very high grades in the pre-reqs.</p>
<p>I don't think your understanding of Ivy League schools is correct. There are just a handful: Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, Princeton...
UW, UCLA are large public universities and are very different in size, scope and atmosphere.
MIT, CIT, VT, GIT, Cal Poly are all examples of technical colleges which are also good choices for computer sciences. </p>
<p>I am sure you will meet great to mediocre professors where ever you go. In my day some of the professors I had at the UW were atrocious.</p>
<p>I don't mean to be rude but your grades would not likely get you into any ivy league college, the big technical schools or UCLA if out of state. UW has had an average GPA of 3.6 the last few years so consider yourself lucky to be in.</p>
<p>To make it into the top academic programs, you and others will be competing with your UW GPA for years 1 & 2. Each department has a website that lists the statistics for the most recent year's class. Check it out.</p>
<p>The term "Public Ivys" has been around a few years. There was a book about them by Green and Green. They are the flagship big public institutions ie Michigan, Maryland College Park, Rutgers, etc and several UCs where they said you could get as good as education as an Ivy if you knew how to deal with the size, impersonal quality etc of these schools. The also used the name "Hidden Ivies" to describe a bunch of lesser known private LACs. Yea, we all know the names of those schools actually playing sports in the Ivy league. To call UDub a public ivy is great</p>
<p>it definitely is something I am interested, however, I would like to know if you could have handled a double major--or was the coursework pretty heavy, not really allowing time for a double?</p>
<p>Also, after graduating UW, did you need work experience before enrolling at USC? How much time between UW and USC?</p>
<p>I myself did not pursue a double major. However, there are a lot of double accounting and finance majors. This is quite doable IMO. One of the main reasons is that since both of them are within the business school, you will be completing the general business school course requirements required for both majors. Most of those who double major are those who intend to get their 150 semester/225 quarter hours to qualify to sit for the CPA exam and work in assurance/audit for a public accounting firm. If you want to pursue another major outside the business school, I recommend that you select that other major early to avoid delaying graduation, as you will need to be completing pre-reqs in your 1st few qtrs. and do not want to take a random class. </p>
<p>The workload for accounting is not easy I would say. They do not recommend taking more than 2 accounting courses a quarter. Even though the accounting courses are only 3 credits, the work required is more like a 5 credit class. There is also a bell-shaped grade curve for business school classes. ACCT 215, the Financial Accounting class required for all prospective business school students, has a mean of 2.9. So that is definitely a weed out class. ACCT 225, Managerial Accounting, has a median gpa of 3.0. Once you get to the 300 level your junior year, the mean is then a 3.2. 400 level business school classes have a mean of about 3.4. So the curve does make you want to put in more time into your studies. </p>
<p>I went to USC immediately after I graduated from UW. There is no work experience requirement for USC's Full Time Masters of Accounting/Business Taxation Programs. In fact, I will be done on May 12th with my Masters of Business Taxation. You can take time off of course and always get a Masters later on. For me, getting a Masters helped me satisfy the 150 semester hours requirement and secure a job at a Big 4's LA office. </p>
<p>BTW....good choice with accounting. UW's Undergraduate Accounting Program is ranked at least in the top 25 by both US News & World Report and the Public Accounting Report. It is a hot major right now and there is a great demand for qualified accounting graduates. Good luck.</p>
<p>baboking,
Did you consider the MAcc program at UDub? How would you compare it with USC's? I understand that UDub's MAcc-Taxation is highly regarded?</p>
<p>How competitive it is to get into UDub's MAcc program? What % of the class is from UDub?</p>
<p>I did consider the MPAcc-Taxation Program at UW. UW's MPAcc-Taxation Program is really good and underrated. The faculty members teaching it are some of the best I've had (I had two of them during undergrad) and extremely qualified (two of them have LLMs in Tax from NYU Law School). The curriculum is already set for you, so you do not ponder over whether or not to take a class. As you probably expect, the workload is very intense. </p>
<p>I attended USC's Masters Program because of the name, rankings, and location. USC's Masters Program has been ranked top 5 in the country by the Public Accounting Report every year since they have been doing the rankings. One of the reasons it has been up in the rankings IMO is that the programs were established long before other schools, like UW, had such programs. So they've had time to make changes as necessary over the years to improve the program. I think in terms of the quality of the education USC's Masters isn't necessarily alot better than UW's. But it does offer you the ability to choose electives to complete your degree, which I liked. The program offers 9 tax electives in the spring semester to choose from. USC also has a well-known alumni network, especially in California, that helps you tremendously as you progress in your career. </p>
<p>As for getting into UW's MPAcc, I would say that the admissions rate(from the numbers I've seen), tends to hover around 50%. Yes, most of the people who apply and get accepted are from UW. But there are quite a few from other schools, in the interest of making the class more diverse. I think they put more emphasis on the GPA than the GMAT component. I know people with low GMAT scores who were accepted. If you apply to any other top schools, you do need to make sure you do well on your GMAT. The average GMAT scores for those who got accepted into USC's Masters have been in the low to mid 600s. In fact, they won't even look at your application if your GMAT is below a 580.</p>