UC Merced vs UCR vs SJSU

PhantomVirgo
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 02:24:56 +0000

I know you didn’t direct that at me, but are you referring to SJSU?

Keep in mind that a 3.45 GPA in college in a competitive program that’s actively weeding out applicants is a very different beast than getting a 3.45 GPA in high school. Let me reiterate: A 3.45 minimum GPA requirement is a very high cutoff, and most that want to switch into the major won’t attain that. In addition, it could increase by the time you’re applying for the switch, and I’d consider that possibility very likely with how popular CS has been getting.

And on top of that, just making the cutoff GPA isn’t enough. It’s also competitive on top of that. So effectively you’d need to have a much higher GPA than the cutoff to have a decent chance of getting admitted, and even then there’s no guarantee because it depends on available space.

I’m not trying to say it’s impossible. I’m not trying to say that you personally couldn’t do it. I just want to make it very clear that having to deal with this kind of highly competitive application process when you have direct admit options is a very big downside, and not something to be taken lightly.

If you still want to go for it, then by all means do so. But know the difficulties going in and be prepared in case you don’t get admitted.