Hi,
I was a previous university student from Fall 2006 - Fall 2009. My declared major was Mathematics, and I did well. I did an REU every summer starting at freshman year. I did end up co-authoring some original mathematics in my junior year (a journal publication). My overall GPA is a modest 3.2, but my GPA within mathematics courses was 3.7, and I took many upper level math classes.
The university I attended was a small private institution, that you could consider to be fairly average, not elite by any means, but also not the bottom of the barrel. During my senior year, I applied for graduate studies and got accepted to a couple large public institutions with a full scholarship + TA.
I did not accept these offers though because disaster struck within my life/family. I ended up bailing from school (my degree is unfinished) and getting a job to earn money ASAP. That worked for a while, but now I’m in a rut.
I want to go back to school, but not to finish my degree in Mathematics. I want to get a degree in Computer Science and go that route with my career.
I do not want to attend my original institution. I would like to transfer to a school that has a good computer science program – or at least as good as reasonably possible.
My question is: what kind of schools would I be competitive as a transfer applicant? I really have no idea where I would be considered competitive and what my options are. GPA only tells a small part of my story.
There are so many schools that I just don’t even know where to start, especially considering that I have no idea how I would appear to an admissions committee given my unusual circumstances.
My goal entry time will be Fall 2016, and I am taking every step possible to make sure that happens.
If you read all this, thank you very much for your time!
Start at your former university, and make certain that your records there show that you left there in good academic standing, and that you don’t owe them any money. Speak with your former department there, and find out what it would take to finish up your bachelor’s degree in Math, and whether or not any of their graduates have gone on to grad school in Comp Sci straight from that Math degree. That could be your best option.
Because you have three years of credits, some places will not admit you at all. You also will have difficulty getting good financial aid, and might be limited to the federal student loans. Your most affordable options are likely to be your local community college (especially for the lower-level comp sci classes) and your own home-state public Us. Read through their degree programs carefully, and see how quickly you might be able to complete their graduation requirements.
Since you are an independent student at this point, if you choose to, you can move to a state where there are better educational opportunities, and delay your enrollment until you have established residence there for tuition purposes.
Wishing you all the best!
Hi happymomof1,
I greatly appreciate your advice. I will promptly be contacting my former university to make sure I am in good financial standing with them. My academic standing however, is of course good.
Unfortunately I have no desire to finish my Mathematics degree through my former university. I just do not feel like it would be a good decision from a professional viewpoint. There is a large gap in my education now, which I think would greatly hinder my ability to enter graduate school. I know that I will do well in a computer science program, and I am a strong, experienced student.
I am completely committed to studying computer science, even if I have limited choices. I’m just trying to find a pool of universities to consider, because I have no idea how admissions committees view students like me.
“I have no idea how admissions committees view students like me.”
You are essentially a junior-year transfer applicant who wants to convert a Math major into a Comp Sci major. How easy that will be to do depends in part on how many lower-level Comp Sci classes you are missing. It’s likely that you have all (or almost all) of the math covered as well as the Gen Eds. If you have some notion of which Comp Sci programs are sending students into the jobs you’d like to have or the grad programs you’d like to be in, then those Comp Sci programs should be the first ones for you to investigate.
I have zero computer science classes under my belt. I anticipate having to go to school for a minimum of five semesters. Maybe four if I am lucky. I am fine with this. I understand the magnitude of this commitment completely.
I do have some notion of which Comp Sci programs are sending students into the “better” jobs (generally this seems to correlated with how selective the school is), but I don’t know how competitive I would be or where I would fit, even in an extremely rough sense.
I just have no idea. I do not have the type of family or social background where I would have access to a lot of advice on this type of question, which is why I am reaching out on the internet.
You have indicated that home-state public universities would be a good candidate. Those are now on the list! So, thank you very much for that. I hope I have some chance with them.
If courses from your local CC would transfer into your new major, you should consider taking some of them at your local CC which is likely to be much less expensive than the 4-year institution. Meet with the Transfer Advisor at the CC and ask that person to look at your transcripts. He/she should be able to tell you what would be necessary to earn an Associates Degree in Comp Sci (or another major) and can help you find a university with an articulation agreement for Comp Sci where you would be guaranteed automatic admission. It’s entirely possible that this agreement exists with at least one of your home-state public Us.
Hello again,
I am sorry to say that I have no interest in attending a community college. I am sure articulation agreements are in place, but the quality of the courses would be greatly diminished.
I want to go to the very best program that I can get into, whatever or wherever that may be. I already know how to program in a few languages, so the only thing going to a CC would do is get this acknowledged “on paper” – so I would view it as a waste of my money and time. At least in a large public university, I am highly likely to be learning new things and skills during my very first semester. This is important to me. The primary reason I want to back to school for Computer Science is to build a thorough foundation of the discipline and start a new career.
I am not so worried about the costs and debt. I will find a way to make it work in that respect, no matter what. I will simply not allow finances to become a barrier to me or my future. That is not happening.
So to re-emphasize, what I am looking for help with specifically is finding a pool of 4-year (or higher) universities that I would have a reasonable chance of admission into. As of now, I have no idea, beyond in-state public institutions.
I suppose the ideal university would be very transfer friendly, have a large computer science department, lots of active research, and an admissions team that was understanding of situations like my own. Right now when I contact universities, mostly what I get back is form letters. They don’t make it easy to discern whether or not you are wasting your time with them.
Thank you again
I completely understand where you’re coming from…you want to finish what you weren’t allowed to finish…and you’d like a fresh start at a new university.
There are many great experts here at CC…but I wonder if you might present it as “I have X number of credits that were gained in 2009. Can I transfer those credits when I apply to your university this fall?”
Following up on Post #7 - this is how you need to present yourself, and if I were you, I would do a personal visit to the CS department office and ask to make an appointment with the department chair or undergrad chair. Go with transcript in had, because you may be able to see him or her right away. This strategy is much more likely to work with an in-state, public university where CS is not an impacted major. At this point, your goal should be to get BS in CS from an ABET accredited CS program, ASAP, with minimal transfer credit loss and minimal loans. I would advise against community college since you already have junior level credits, and you don’t want to have yet another set of credits to worry about transferring. Also, the quality of intro CS courses varies widely at CC’S.
With a 5 year lapse from college, a 3.2 overall GPA , and no CS classes on paper, your best bets are state universities where CS is not an impacted major. Start with your closest in-state public, and go from there - literally. If you can tell me your state, I can give you more info.
An ABET accredited CS degree is not absolutely necessary and it excludes a lot of good programs. I would say that nay major state university has a good enough CS program for undergraduate studies and plenty of of opportunities for research which will help you get into a graduate program. In addition, look into Technological Universities including the research oriented [url="<a href=“http://theaitu.org%22%5DAITU%5B/url”>http://theaitu.org"]AITU[/url] schools which usually have good CS departments.
There are plenty of options and you need to first start looking to find schools YOU would like to attend. It is nearly impossible for anyone here to provide you with a list that is anything other than random. You need to look at whatyour criteria are first.
@xraymancs is correct , ABET accreditation is not necessary for larger programs, but may be of more value for smaller second tier programs. I put ABET in because I did not know where OP was from or what programs were close to him or her.