<p>Hey all,</p>
<p>I'm a current student studying computer science. I was a direct admit a few years ago. I check in the forum every now and then to see if I can help clear up any questions regarding the CSE department here, including departmental admissions, research, and general opportunities.</p>
<p>I notice a lot of posts about direct admit admissions decisions get buried in several threads since it's a common goal for many CCers. </p>
<p>Ask away! I'll try to answer to the best of my knowledge or point you to some resources. </p>
<p>I read in the other thread that international students cannot be directly admitted into the CSE department, is that true?</p>
<p>How high a GPA in prerequisites do you have to have in order to get into CS if you did not get into direct admit? It just seems so risky, especially is you already have a spot in a CS program at another university?
Thanks for your insite.</p>
<p>I will have finished all pre-reqs by the end of my senior year of high school through running start…will they be considered for direct admit? I’m currently listed as a junior in pre-science on my unofficial transcript. If I dont get DA, could I petition to apply for fall upper division admission? Since I have already been accepted to the university and will have finished all pre-reqs?</p>
<p>I’ll just chime in a little. Personally, if I don’t get a direct admission, I will not be considering my offer of admission. I have enough offers from other great computer science departments. This is regardless of the fact that the UW is my state school.</p>
<p>kosher which schools are your other options?</p>
<p>@maxwellhk: Good question! I actually don’t know the answer to this one off the top of my head. I don’t know any international direct admits, so I can’t refute that statement by contradiction. :</p>
<p>@Futureholds: A strong applicant has at least a 3.7+ on the prereq classes (math, science, cs, English). However, a huge factor that plays into admissions is the personal statement. I know a number of people who got rejected with a 3.9+, but wrote their personal statements half heartedly. On the other hand, I know people with a 3.0 who got into the department. </p>
<p>I agree that it’s risky. If you’re dead set on majoring in computer science, have another offer to a great CS department, I’d probably just go with the other school (unless there’s a huge deal breaker somewhere). What university is it? </p>
<p>I’d also weigh in the opportunities at the other school (research, internships, curriculum) as well.</p>
<p>@NinRash: Yes, running start students are considered for DA. Maybe a 25-30% of every direct admit class has been running start students, although the admissions rate is on a year to year basis. As for petitioning, I’d talk to the advisors about that. =) I personally don’t know anyone who did that, but you’re also way ahead with prereqs!</p>
<p>Hey @speedsolver just one question for ya, hope you can help shed some light 
So, I was admitted to UW Seattle yesterday and from what I understand the welcome packet with info about my major and other things is coming in a few weeks. I’m not sure if you’d have any idea about this, but my unofficial transcript currently says that my major is pre science. I applied as a DA for comp sci and understand that the transcript is obviously “unofficial”. However, do you happen to know if major-related decisions have been made at this point? Is pre science there as a fallback until the comp sci department accepts or rejects me? Or has all that been decided already and I just did not get in (I hope that’s not the case haha).</p>
<p>sure wish people would search before asking a question that’s been asked 20 times on the board and at least 3 times in this thread…</p>
<p>Hi! </p>
<p>Your unofficial transcript will give NO indication about CSE direct admit decisions.</p>
<p>The way the timeline works is as follows:
- UW general admission notifications go out (March 15)
- CSE direct admit notifications go out via email (early April)
- Direct admit open house, response deadlines, etc (mid-April to May)
- CSE advisors file paperwork for direct admit students to “officially” have the major on their transcript (late Summer)</p>
<p>Official direct admit notifications should be sent out during the first week of April. If you get your welcome packet before then, it <em>might</em> say “computer science”. A subset of direct admit acceptances will see this, though I’m not sure how they determine that. </p>
<p>Ahhh sounds good, thanks for clearing things up!</p>
<p>@Futureholds,</p>
<p>I was accepted and looking at Cal Poly - SLO, U Miami, CU - Boulder for CSE. I am also waiting for Cornell University. However, should I get into the UW’s direct admission to CSE that would likely be the top choice given my situation.</p>
<p>@speedsolver,</p>
<p>Last I saw was that the welcome packet was a pretty good indication of whether or not you got into CSE. It was implied that if you had a pre-major, that you most likely did not get in.</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.cs.washington.edu/prospective_students/undergrad/admissions/direct_admission/”>https://www.cs.washington.edu/prospective_students/undergrad/admissions/direct_admission/</a></p>
<p>@KosherBacon: That makes sense! The admission rate for direct admit hovers around 3-5% (maybe lower now), so the probability of being admitted while still a “pre-major” in the welcome packet is slim. I assume those people are those who are kind of on the fence between an admit/no admit. =) </p>
<p>@speedsolver,</p>
<p>I’m still hopeful about my chances. Ideally my college courses (summer courses for fun) help me a bit. I didn’t realize the direct admit rate was that low. Is it out of the total applicant pool? Do you know approximately how many people apply for CSE? I went to an event at the UW as a pseudo-information session for high school and current UW students about the CSE department. If I remember correctly they said they have about 2k-3k qualified applicants, and they admit 200-300 with the guess that about 60-70 will take their offer.</p>
<p>@KosherBacon: The total number of applicants was out of the number of students who put down “computer science” or “computer engineering” as either their intended major or their alternate intended major. Everyone else don’t qualify for direct admit. </p>
<p>Hmm, maybe it’s new that they admit 200-300 students and expect 60-70 confirmed direct admits.</p>
<p>My year (HS class of 2010), we had about 1200 applicants, 70 admits, and 30 enrolled. Last year (HS class of 2013), the numbers were about the same for admits and enrolled. There were a lot more applicants, though; probably around 2,000. </p>
<p>@speedsolver thanks for the response! I also got an offer from UIUC for Computer Engineering (direct entry), where would you recommend me study at? I’m leaning towards UIUC because of rankings and direct entry, but then UW’s location is far better.</p>
<p>@maxwellhk: Congrats! UIUC is a great school. I would first recommend that you wait until the UW CSE direct admit decisions have been sent out before doing a pro/con chart for both schools. </p>
<p>I don’t know a ton about UIUC’s program, but I suggest you talk to some current students or recent alumni. They can give you better insight into what the experience will be like, how courses work, and what opportunities you have there. </p>
<p>Rather than look just at rankings, I would ask the following questions for any program:
- What type of research can I do here? How easy is it to get a research position?
- What are the professors here famous for? Systems? Distributed Systems? HCI? Algorithms? etc…
- What are the required courses for a CE degree? What electives are there? How much choice do I have when deciding on classes?
- What are the people like?
- Where do most of the graduates end up? This could be a huge factor; for example, Stanford grads tend to start a new company while UW grads are split between large companies, grad school, and small-medium sized startups.
- Scholarship opportunities?
- What companies recruit here? How do they treat the students? </p>
<p>@speedsolver If you don’t mind I’d really love your answers to some of the questions you suggested, but with regards to UW CSE. Most importantly I’d love to know how much choice I have when choosing classes other than the required ones? What people are like is definitely another question that I’d love to hear your opinion on. Also, CSE 142 & 143 are listed as prereqs for the comp sci major. According to UDub’s AP credit policies my 5 on the AP Computer Science A exam will fulfill CSE 142. From what I understand prereqs aren’t taken into account for DA? I know for Washington residents, running start was offered to complete those classes. But, being an OOS student was there anyway for me to complete CSE 143? If you happen to know, what is exactly taught in CSE 143? Thanks for doing all this btw, it’s really insightful.</p>
<p>@speedsolver thanks for hanging out on this thread and giving such thoughtful and thorough answers. The information is really helpful. </p>
<p>@phruitpie i can answer that last one…CSE 143 is mainly about using stacks/queues, linked lists, maps, sets, multiple inheritance, recursion, and runtime/ Big(O) notation. </p>
<p>(I took it through running start at a local community college) and we use the exact same textbook and assignments, sometimes even the same tests.</p>