What program to select on application

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Washington
1

I’m an in-state high school senior applying to UW for Fall 2019. I have a 35 ACT and 4.00 unweighted GPA, and I’m a full-IB diploma candidate.

I am still not sure exactly what I want to major in yet, but am interested in UW’s public health program. I may want to major in engineering (possibly bioengineering?), but again, I am unsure. UW doesn’t offer direct admission to the PH major, but it does offer this to engineering majors, and I know that if I tried to get into bioengineering not as a direct admit my chances would be lower. That being said, I think I am more interested in PH.

Essentially, my question is this: Should I select bioengineering on my application as my primary interest, so that I have a chance of being directly admitted and so that I keep my options open if I decide that I truly am interested? Is it easy to get out of the college of engineering before freshman year begins? Even though there is no direct admission to the PH major, will selecting PH as my primary interest on my freshman application have any effect on my chance of admission to the major later on?

2

I would say definitely list your intended major as bio engineering on your application since PH isn’t offered a DA. Going forward most students interested in engineering will be admitted through the new DTC admission system. So if you list your intended major as bioe and you get into UW and you decided to do PH later you can still do so and you’ll still have a backup major but if you don’t get into bioe then no biggie you can try for PH. Another factor to consider for DTC is that they have some requirements for students such has having to do one STEM class per quarter. Judging from your scores I would say that wouldn’t be a problem for you!

3

If you think you want the option for engineering, you need to apply for that. Under the new system, your chance of getting later admission is lower than ever.

How different are the first year bioE and first year PH requirements? If you get engineering, but don’t take the classes to get matched to a major, I’m not sure that’s very useful.