Universities and Majors

Applying to College
1

Hello. I’d like to get a clear understanding of something. I plan on having my major be computer science. I think I actually must remain this for my scholarship, so let’s say it’s firm. I am going to apply to some of the top CS public universities in the U.S. These are (perhaps tentative): Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, Michigan, Washington, Illinois, and Texas (flagships of states).

It is my current understanding that all of those are universities. Within these large universities, there are colleges. Each college has a specific major or group of majors it focuses on. For example, the college of engineering would have mechnical engineering, the college of social science, would have psychology, etc.

If you want to major in some topic, say computer science, you would need to enter the specific college that offers that topic of study. I think that’s right in general; please correct me if I’m wrong.

Assuming that’s correct, I want to understand the process of me majoring in computer science at one of these universities. I also have the understanding that you can apply to the university itself or a college within the university directly. If you apply to the college directly and get it, you’re solid. If you don’t get into the computer science college, are you rejected in the university, or can you still get accepted into the general university and then go into your college later on?

These universities are really strong in computer science, so it’s probably harder to get into the college that offers that major than it is, say, the one that offers English.

If I want to do computer science at Berkeley (or any other school), and I get accepted to that university, am I guaranteed to be able to do computer science?

Basically, I’m confused about this whole part, and it has never really been explained to me well. In short, I’d like to major in computer science in one of those universities. How would that process look like? Thank you.

2

It all depends on the university - different ones operate in different ways.

Berkeley does admission by college, and, in the College of Engineering, by major. For example, they state that it is harder to get admitted to electrical engineering and computer science than it is to get admitted to mechanical engineering, even within the College of Engineering. [url=<a href=“http://admissions.berkeley.edu/selectsstudents%5DHere%5B/url”>http://admissions.berkeley.edu/selectsstudents]Here[/url]

UCLA does admission by college and major within the School of Engineering and Applied Science. You have to apply to a specific major. You can also apply “undeclared,” but apparently admission to the undeclared major is also very competitive. UCLA doesn’t say but I would imagine that their electrical engineering and computer science majors are more competitive than the other engineering majors. [url=<a href=“http://www.admission.ucla.edu/prospect/Adm_fr/fradms.htm%5DHere%5B/url”>http://www.admission.ucla.edu/prospect/Adm_fr/fradms.htm]Here[/url]

For UCLA and UC Berkeley, it’s not 100% clear whether if you are rejected from your major of choice you are also rejected from the university as a whole. But, if you are rejected from CS as a freshman, I would say that even if you could still attend transferring into the CS major is probably nearly impossible.

UCSD has this unique college system that’s akin to a residential college; there are 6 general colleges to which every UCSD student is sorted. The college determines your general education requirements; the engineering school determines your major requirements. So admission is a two-step process: First, you apply to UCSD, and specify that you are applying as an engineering major. If you are admitted and assigned to a college, then the engineering school evaluates your application. Some engineering majors are open; if you are admitted to UCSD you are automatically admitted to that major. Some engineering majors are impacted; you have to be evaluated for admission to those majors, and you can be denied. So at UCSD it’s possible to be admitted to the university but not to the major. Of course computer science and electrical engineering are both impacted majors at UCSD. [url=<a href=“http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/admissions/admissions_freshman/steps.shtml%5DHere%5B/url”>http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/admissions/admissions_freshman/steps.shtml]Here[/url]

So at UCSD it is very possible to be admitted to the university, but not to an impacted engineering major. However, if you were admitted, you could still major in an open engineering major. However, right now it looks like ALL of the UCSD engineering majors are impacted. They’re all listed on [url=<a href=“https://students.ucsd.edu/academics/advising/majors-minors/impacted-majors.html%5Dthis%5B/url”>https://students.ucsd.edu/academics/advising/majors-minors/impacted-majors.html]this[/url] website. So in practice, this becomes a case in which you could get admitted to UCSD, but not any engineering majors, and then find it very difficult to transfer into an engineering major later.

At Washington there are three different ways to be admitted into engineering. You can be admitted directly from high school into an engineering department by specifying an engineering major as your first choice on the application form. UW says that only 10-20% of engineering majors are admitted directly into a department. If you are not admitted into a department, you are admitted as a pre-engineering major. Secondly, you can apply for “early admission” to an engineering department at the end of you freshman year, if you have strong grades. Thirdly - the most common way - you can apply for admission to the engineering departments in the middle of your sophomore year, after completing the pre-engineering prerequisites.

At UW it is also possible to be admitted to the university, but not engineering. Furthermore, UW seems like one of the few places on your list where not being admitted to engineering as a freshman is not a bad sign, but the norm, and that you’d still have two more chances to transfer into engineering at UW.

Michigan and UIUC appear to do admissions similarly - you have to specify that you are applying to the College of Engineering even though you apply to the same undergraduate admissions office as everyone else. They don’t specify that certain majors are more competitive than others, though. UT-Austin also has you apply through the regular admissions office, but you do have to specify a first- and second-choice major, and it’s implied that admissions outcomes may vary depending on what major you specify - some are more competitive than others.

At UT-Austin it sounds like it’s possible to be admitted to the university but rejected from engineering. It’s not clear whether that’s the case at Michigan and UIUC. It’s also not clear on how easy it would be to transfer from the colleges of liberal arts and sciences to an engineering major, if you get admitted to the university but rejected from engineering. I would imagine given that engineering is so competitive at these universities that it would be difficult.

3

Note that Berkeley offers CS in both the EECS major in the College of Engineering, and the CS major in the College of Letters and Science (L&S CS). The EECS major is generally considered more difficult for frosh admission, but L&S students all enter undeclared, and those seeking the L&S CS major must earn a high enough college GPA (currently 3.3) to enter the major (EECS admits are in the major and just need to pass their classes).

At Berkeley, applicants are only considered for the major or division that they select. I.e. those applying for EECS are either admitted to EECS or rejected.

4

Universities (which include all the ones you list) are typically made up of several colleges (sometimes called something else such as Schools) among which are an engineering college and a liberal arts and sciences (LAS) college (sometimes called a Letters and Sciences college, a Literature, Arts and Sciences College, or Humanities and Sciences college), and sometrimes LAS is actually two separate colleges one for liberal arts and one for sciences.Those colleges are then made up of numerous departments or divisions with particular majors. Do not get too hung up trying to ferret out all the minute details of the hierarchial structures within a university, but understand you often do apply for a major within a particular college at a university, the Computer Science (CS) major is usually found in a department in the engineering college or the LAS college, or a separate sciences college, and when you go to apply you will find that you can choose the applicable CS major and college among the choices of majors and colleges given,

Berkeley, UIUC, and UMichigan actually have two separate CS majors, one in the engineering college and one in the LAS college. At UIUC, the engineering major is CS and the LAS major is a combined Math and CS major. Students in both colleges take the same CS courses but the engineering college requires more other science and engineering courses for the major than the LAS college, while the LAS college requires more math courses than the engineering college. At Berkeley, there is a combined Electrical Engineering and CS major in the engineering college while the LAS college has a CS major, and at UMich there is a CS major in engineering and a CS major in LAS, and like UIUC, the Berkeley and UMich majors have differences in requirements but the same CS courses. At UWashington, you have a Department of Computer Science and Engineering connected to both the LAS and engineering colleges and it has a CS major that is in LAS college. UTexas has an engineering college, a liberal arts college and and a natural sciences college, and the CS major is within that natural sciences college. At UCSD, the CS major is in the engineering college. If you are admitted to the university for the CS major you choose, you will be able to continue to pursue that program to a degree as long as you meet course requirements and grade well. Note, however, that it is possible to be admitted to a university while being denied admission to that first choice major, i.e., the university considers you good enough for admisison but not so for the CS major. You may later be able to transfer into the CS major but the odds of approval of such a trsansfer are often much lower than 50%.

Note that I know nothing about your scholarship and its requirements, and before applying for a CS major at universities that have more than one CS major, you should likely determine what your scholarship officals actually approve before choosing the major for your application for admission…

5

Thank you all very much for the great and detailed information. I will contact the admissions offices to clarify when necessary.