He was admitted to Chemical, and would prefer Mechanical.
@Titus00 My friend’s kid changed major within engineering and it wasn’t a problem for him two years ago. I’m not sure about now. If he is stuck with chemical engineering and if he’s cool with chem, it’s a very versatile engineering. You can be an electrical, mechanical, materials, and to some point Civ engr as a chemical engineer but not the other way around 
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Does anyone know if UCI has a parents Facebook page? I’m going to break down and create a FB account if it does. Thx!
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Here you go for the change of major information: Henry Samueli School of Engineering
You can open up an fb account, make EVERYTHING private, don’t use any personally identifying info, and only use it for groups. You’ll then be able to steer clear of most of the fb issues.
My D is admitted to UCI as undeclared. She wishes to get into school of ICS later on. I checked the transfer requirements website, but I am wondering if anyone has done this and how difficult to do this? She ‘d like to pursue BIS major but any major within ICS is fine.
Thank you, I appreciate the insight @MommaLue!
Will UCI be fully open for incoming class of 2025 students?
Define “fully open.” This year classes were virtual but some students were able to move into the dorm rooms as singles. Current state guidance states that classes are limited to 25% or 100 students, whichever is less. Orange county is in the red tier but should be moving to orange soon.
We are in the same situation and have the exact same question. Our son accepted as Undeclared and his chosen major was Business Information Systems. UCI’s listed GPA requirements don’t seem too bad but still wondering if this is highly competitive process. We don’t want him staying in limbo without a major that he wants. We do plan on reaching out to the school.
Self-Tour: I went on reddit to ask for suggestion on how to start a self-tour and one of the students suggested parking at the UCI student center parking structure off Campus Drive. It was shared w/ me that parking is free at the moment. The campus is apparently in the ring and then on one side is Mesa Towers and the other side is Middle Earth Towers, where the residences are. FYI in case you didn’t know where to start like me!
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I couldn’t get an idea of whether or not the campus was ‘open’ for visitors to walk around. I tried calling and emailing a few UCI departments but didn’t hear back. We are headed there late next week to walk around. We did take a guided tour November 2019 but it was geared towards applicants, not admitted students (so he did not see inside dorms or anything). I guess we will walk around (literally in a circle) with our masks and hope we can get a good feel (I’m really hoping S21 chooses UCI as it has so many options for what he wants to pursue in his major - Business Admin).
@Ozzie19 It’s likely not but you can do a self-guided tour. I would imagine we can’t go inside any of the buildings but can get up close to it, similar to what we have done in the past when we would tour over winter break where things were closed at other unis. May I ask a dumb question since you seem to have already been to UCI? We walked randomly 2 years ago but it was in such poor context vs. now. I saw on google map that it truly is a ring. Looks like I can get out from Student Event Center and then tour the buildings around the ring with Aldrich Park and the two towers to the side. Are the tower areas mainly the dorms (old and new?). And within the ring, are those all the main buildings where they would take classes? I’m fine for S21 who has a great choice between UCSD and UCI, but in booking hotels, it’s much less expensive at UCI and airport closer :).
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I’ll be honest - I can’t really remember the layout of the campus - it was 11/2019. Two days before we had toured Cal Poly SLO (on our own), next day UCSB (guided tour - sunny, beautiful, almost too perfect lol!), next day UC Irvine (it was raining but we had a great tour guide). I don’t think we walked around the entire circle (hard to remember as it was pouring). He did point out new dorm towers that students were really excited about (maybe we did not go to the other side where the other towers are). I remember the park being gorgeous and huge! Now that this may be a reality for S21, even just walking around outside on the campus will help us I think (he’s very ‘wooed’ by UCSB’s beach location but that can’t be his only criteria). UC Irvine is close to the ocean so we plan to give him that sense of just how close he is to amazing things at UCI (including business opportunities AND the beach).
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There are two housing communities where freshmen generally live: Middle Earth and Mesa Court. Both Middle Earth and Mesa Court have Classics and Towers (the Towers are the newer dorms). Mesa Court Classics are newer than Middle Earth Classics, and Middle Earth Towers are newer than Mesa Court Towers. Mesa Court is actually located across the street from the main campus, but it is connected by a pedestrian bridge near the Student Center so you may not even realize that you are crossing the street.
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Question about entering as undeclared vs transferring from CC for computer science:
My son was admitted to UCI but as undeclared (even though his application is strong in CS and he already has experience coding). He would not need ICS31, so he would start with ICS32A and 33. He also previously took Calc 2 at Long Beach City College, so he has the math pre-requisite. Does anyone know if maybe this route into the major from undeclared is more possible than for students who start out needing ICS31?
He is seriously considering starting at Irvine Valley College and transferring via their Honors program to save $, so I’m wondering if this is a better option than starting at UCI and hoping to get into the CS major. I don’t really know how to compare the two. Has anyone asked this question?
We are local to UCI, and I would prefer for him to start there, but it may not be what’s best for him.
Yes. Just park in the parking structure and that’s the student center. Walk around the ring and you will see most everything. Cut through Aldrich park to get to places more quickly. I love the layout and really enjoyed my time there when I was a student. When we did a self tour with our kids last spring break, all buildings were closed and it was a ghost town but we still could get the lay of the land. Hint: there were no open bathrooms!
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They had this live walkaround the other day. Just go for your self-guided walk and follow the person doing the live walkaround for admitted students lol
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Great idea!!!
My older child is considering UCI for grad school so we went to visit the campus today. It is spring break during a pandemic but there were still a decent amount of people walking around. We drove around campus and the surrounding neighborhood then parked in UTC (2 hr parking) and walked over the bridge to explore campus on foot.
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