Hi, I’m currently a freshman at the UW (who is about to start his second quarter).
So far, I kind of messed up my first quarter and didn’t do so well, so I kind of ended up with a 2.3… But I know I need to do better and need to improve myself. I kind of had some difficulties, working as a parcel for many hours while transitioning into this college life as a commuter. Though I quit the job so I could have more time studying and passing my classes.
I was wondering though, how hard would it be to get into the computer science major? From what I know on their website, the typical average G.P.A. for them is 3.4-4.0 (while the minimum G.P.A. is a 2.5). Right now I’m a bit worried since bringing up from a 2.3 to a 3.4 might be tough for me unless I can keep getting like 3.7 every time in each of my classes. Though I was wondering what else could I do to boost my chance to get in?
Right now I’m taking the General Chemistry I, Computer Programming I, Plays and Styles. I was having a tough time picking out my third class (since most of them were taken and some of them had a tough time fitting in my schedule).
I’m worried that I might end up with like a 3.0 overall G.P.A. if I can’t maintain a 3.7+ for more advance classes. What other factors would they look at, especially for someone who doesn’t have super high G.P.A. What kind of classes should I be taking (besides math and computer programming), what should my third class be? What could I then do to improve my chances?
You mean Washington, not some other UW school? Washington CS is famously difficult to get into.
At the very least, get A grades in all of your CS, math, and science courses. But that may still not be enough, so consider planning for an alternate major, or transferring to another school where you can get into the CS major, as backup options.
Yeah. That’s what I was worried about. From what I heard from the UW statistics of the computer science department, it says about only 200 gets in per year.
I was especially worried if I might be taking “cupcake courses” like Plays and Styles. I wanted to take another English class or something like sociology (but the pre-reqs for computer science is like 2 computer programming classes, 1 english class, 3 calculus classes). Should I go for the tougher classes in science? Or go for the Visual Learning Performance Arts and Individual & Society classes so that I could have more time to focus on the pre-reqs. Would this affect my chance on what my third class might be?
Like next year, after completing the English class and 2 computer programming classes, I just have to take MATH 124, 125, and 126. I don’t know what other classes I should take along with that since I’m done with the computer programming req and english req.
I think 200 per year is the freshman direct admit, and the transfers in are a little higher, you have 2x per year to apply. Just keep progressing in the classes you need major and fill the other class with your general requirements. It is fine to take other classes you are interested in as you have to anyway for graduation requirements. UW wants CS students who do well in English and other communication skills so that is fine and you want to do well in that. Sometimes students have a rocky start and can recover, but you really have to do what it takes going forward if you want that major.
The UW CS dept only admits 150 per year total (direct admit, regular admit freshmen & sophomores, juniors and seniors applying for the nth time, transfers, everyone). Only a handful of incoming freshmen are offered direct admission – basically only applicants with stats that could get them into one of the top-five CS schools (MIT, CMU, etc). The only purpose of direct admission is for UW to lure students who would otherwise go to one of those other top-five schools. UW even dropped its “early admission” program this year, which in past years allowed current freshman students with very high prereq grades a chance to apply early before fulfilling all prereqs. The program has become so competitive that grades that used to get students in for early admission are pretty much required for regular admission now so they scrapped early admit.