Yes, the Letters and Sciences CS major at UCB is not direct admit. To petition for admittance into the major requires a 3.30 GPA for the first 3 lower division CS required classes. (CS through the College of Engineering IS a direct admit). Looking at the grade distributions in previous semesters for the very first class, CS61A, only around 50% get a B+ or higher, but the class is also taken by a lot of non-CS intent majors as well. In fact for that matter, everyone coming into L&S comes in undeclared but take classes based on their intent major. You hear all the rumors about grade deflation and the 1,500 people lower division lectures and it does make one wonder.
Admittedly, we don’t know that much about the NE program at this point, my D goes there and loves the place…we’ll have the weekend to figure things out.