UCLA vs. UW vs. Umich CS Transfer

College Search & Selection
1

Hi guys,

I’m a transfer student and I received the admission from UW(CSE DA), Umich(LSA), while still on the waitlist of UCLA(CS). Since I will only have three days to make my decision if I were taken off from the waitlist, I hope to reach a conclusion as soon as possible. I’m looking for major in CS and double math if possible, here is some information for startup

Factors I’m considering(ranked)

  1. Graduate School recognization(aim for direct Ph.D. but will consider Master)
    1.5) Undergraduate research opportunities

  2. Starting salary after graduation(I may head to industry for a few years to earn some money for attending graduate school)

  3. Education quality & Course flexibility
    3.5) Possibility of double Math&CS and the quality of the math department

  4. Name recognization

  5. Learning atmosphere(hope to be challenged and motivated by my peers)

  6. Cost of attendance

Thanks for your time on reading my post. Please give me some suggestions on selecting between them, I really appreciate your help!

2

1 / 2 / 4: All should be well reputed, although there will be some local / regional bias / convenience in employer recruiting (mainly for smaller companies, since big companies recruit widely).

3: You can check the courses and requirements at each school, and check how difficult it is to add the second major (math may be in a different division from CS, so that may complicate a second major).

5: You should find strong peers in CS in all of them

6: You did not mention what cost of attendance will be for you at each, nor how much debt (if any) you and your parents would need

Something you did not list:

7: How will your transfer credit be accepted (or not)? If you need to retake a lot of lower level courses because your transfer credit is not accepted to cover them, that can delay graduation at extra cost.

3

I have a kid at UMich LSA. You can add majors and minors relatively easily, as long as you maintain the required GPA and meet prerequisites. And LSA offers a CS degree.

They’re all great schools.

4

Hi @ucbalumnus,

Thanks a lot for your response.

  1. I believe Umich LSA is pretty flexible on doubling the major as they are under the same college and share the same GE, while UCLA would be difficult since cs is in CoE. I'm not sure about UW.
  2. I'm an international student so my tuition in those schools would be OOS standard. I think the order would be Umich > UCLA > UW, but I'm not sure the cost of living. My family plans to spend around $150000 for the rest of my undergraduate studies.
  3. UW will be good on transfer credit since I studied in a WA CC; Umich is fine, the only class I need to retake is data structure&Algorithm. I'm not sure about UCLA yet since I'm still waiting for the decision.

Thanks again for your post, it helps me to clarify things I forgot to mention in my original post.

5

@sushiritto
Thanks! Do you think registering Umich’s EECS courses would be difficult since there are lots of people double cs(since it’s easy to declare major in LSA as you said)

6

UMich offers many sections of the most popular courses, especially since you can get CS degree in both LSA and CoE. I know my kid had no issues with the crossover math courses.

7

As an international student, for factors 2 and 4, be sure to consider how employers *in your country of citizenship/i view the different universities.