UCSD is now limiting availability for current students to switch into Selective Majors (All engineering disciplines including CS, Public Health, Data Science, Bioengineering) based on demographic preferences - California residents and FGLI students. There’s a (not-described) point system including a 3.0 GPA cutoff and demographic information. Selective Majors provides the detail: realistically, for the most competitive majors, students who are not FGLI and/or not CA residents will not be able to switch in after matriculating, whether their GPA is 3.01 or 3.99.
I see that @ucscuuw just posted about this in the context of a single student’s thread, but I think it’s worth noting outside of that.
Agree or disagree, it is generally ill advised to apply to any UC and try to game the system by selecting a less “impacted” major hoping to change later into a selective/impacted major. Historically the change is very difficult if not impossible. Now UCSD just spelled out a point system for those people who screams for “disclosure” and “transparency.”
Personally I would have just defaulted back to a “holistic review” and left it at that. But I suspect the powers to be at UCSD doesn’t care this is going to piss off many many people, especially the rich ones.
As @cy7878 stated at least UCSD is transparent about how they are going to select the change of major applicants.
There have been several variations on the selection criteria for the Capped/Selective majors over the years including a lottery system so at least students that plan to apply or in-coming students are aware of the limitations on changing majors.
The UC’s have stated their Priority are California students so this just reinforces the UC’s mission.
I am sure there will be additional revisions regarding the policy. When they went to the lottery system for the CSE change of major there was push back also.
What’s noticeable is that the change seems to have been motivated less by enrollment management but more by a desire to influence who gets in even if the number of people changing is constant. I’m not sure how I feel about this but my instinct is that the factors themselves are ok but the GPA component has been significantly undervalued. That will be problematic in many of the tough majors like ece, cse since someone who checks all the boxes can get in with a 2.0 but then do poorly once they join the program.
A 2.0 who is FGLI and a CA resident will have 4-5 points, the same as an OOS 4.0. The language only requires good academic standing, usually 2.0 to be in consideration.
Continuing students who apply to switch to a selective major must have completed the required screening courses for that major and be in good academic standing
3.0 FGLI, Pell Grant, CA resident will have will have 4 points
2.0 FGLI, Pell Grant, CA resident will have will have 3 points
3.0 CA resident will have 2 points
4.0 OOS will have 1 point
Priorities are very clear on this one. Decisions will be made with only a cursory consideration of GPA as a measure of a students chance of success in the impacted major.
OOS will effectively have a zero chance of transfer but the biggest impact in my eyes is the hit taken by the typical middle class and doughnut hole CA families who target the UCs for an affordable quality education. They are pretty much locked out of these impacted majors if they didn’t get in the first go round. Their best shot is likely the CACC transfer route rather than starting at UCSD and excelling.
At some point, they will have to publish a more detailed post describing various scenarios and what would happen under those scenarios. If they calculate as hypothesized above that would indeed be terrible. I am hoping they find a way to weigh the GPA factor much more than the other factors. I also feel bad for middle class smart kids from CA who’ve already been hurt badly by the removal of SAT.
The takeaway should be that anyone who is interested in these majors should make sure they apply to the major of interest, and consider major certainty to a greater degree when deciding between schools.
It’s definitely a big change from the previous policies, which required the highest possible GPA in the screening courses, plus a lot of luck. In the past, I’ve seen lots of students on reddit complaining that switching in some majors was not possible without 4.0 in the screening courses, and then on top of that, there would be a lottery to choose between students. There would be only one time per year to attempt this switch (in some majors twice per year), and if you were switching after two years rather than one, you would need additional screening courses. So the old system was already not working well for students.
Since this policy is brand new, I can easily imagine that it will be tweaked between now and when students are actually applying to switch majors.
At this point though, I wouldn’t advise students to enroll at UCSD if they were not admitted in their desired major, and have their heart set on switching into any of the affected majors. Even if they happen to fall into the categories that would give them advantage under the new system as stated, I wouldn’t be confident that this system will still be in place, as currently stated on the web site, by the time they have completed screening courses and are applying to change majors.
Under the old system, it was already extremely unpredictable whether anyone could switch to the impacted majors. That’s why my son crossed UCSD off his list, after he was admitted last year and learned about what it would take to switch his major to MechE or EE (he was admitted in nanoengineering but decided he didn’t want such a specialized major). And the CS-adjacent majors were already effectively closed to people wanting to switch majors.
Aren’t many or even most WL admits let in undeclared? My kid opted into the WL because it appeared bio accepted undeclared if they met the prerequisites. No guarantee, but Bio had let in every applicant, every quarter for last 5 or 6 years. Why would kid accept a WL admit for a high demand or capped major now? I’m a first gen college graduate, but my kid would be disadvantaged under this system because I graduated. That is jarring.
My kid will commit to Cal. UCSD was the only school they would have considered changing that commitment for if they got off the WL. Now, it would stupid to accept a WL admit if the major is undeclared.
From the link above, these are the priorities (noting that First Gen is separated out from Pell Grant, thus, FGLI students don’t get a double boost of First Gen Low Income AND Pell Grant).
They will then be considered for the major using a point system that awards one point each for having a 3.0 GPA or higher in the major screening courses; California residency; Pell Grant eligibility; and first-generation college status (as determined by information received at the time of initial admission to UC San Diego).
I wonder whether UCSD has found its percentage of first gen and/or low income California students is not in proportion to the percentages of the state that are first gen and/or low income. Alternatively/additionally, perhaps the selective majors have a greater skew towards advantaged backgrounds than the rest of the university (if the university itself does have a skew in terms of its students vs. the state’s residents.)
Thus, perhaps UCSD sees that students from families that have parents with college degrees or incomes above those for Pell eligibility have advantages that are apparent in admissions to the selective admissions as freshmen, thus the school is trying to counterweight this effect in terms of its polices allowing students to transfer into these majors once enrolled?
I know that the UCs are considered the premier public colleges in California, but if I was a California resident I suspect I’d rather send my kid to a school like Cal State Chico where they would have the opportunity to explore different possibilities before having to choose a major, rather than needing to decide on a major while still in high school or face the need to transfer to get the desired major, or to complete a degree in a less than desired field at the original university.
Since secondary admission to selective majors traditionally relies on first year grades, it would not be surprising if secondary admission favors those with better high school preparation, which is affected by high school offerings and quality that tend to be better in high schools with fewer first-generation-to-college and low income students.
Capacity limitations affecting popular majors tend to be common at more selective state flagships, where the number of interested students can overflow department instructional capacity of those majors. Very wealthy private schools can just throw money at the problem, while less selective schools tend to have students self-select away from some of these majors which are perceived as “hard” (engineering majors and CS).
However, a student who is interested in nursing will find that problem everywhere.
how are students so certain of the major while still in high school? i mean they barely know some physics and math but they are sure they want to do electrical engineering, mechanical engineering etc. shouldn’t UCs admit student in College of Engineering and let them decide after a year?
