UC Merced vs UW for comp sci ??

The OP was waitlisted at uci. The odds of his/her being competitive at uwashington in a major that is extremely competitive are remote. For a 4.0student with lots of programming experience and AP calculus + AP CS, yes the odds are higher than 30% but even those are far for a slam dunk. The number of students who thought they’d qualify and didn’t is so high that the directionals must try to take the 'overflow’and aren’t able to handle them even though they’ve hired new professors.
A minimum 3.7 GPA at a state flagship is very hard to get, especially in difficult classes.