this is very good on part of UCB. Although I disagree that other majors in COE are nearly as selective as EECS.
Well, the shear number (small) of students in COE acts as a gate keeper. LS is huge in comparison. Most cases, the BME people are not interested in EECS and the ME guys donât care for BME. Also some upper division classes may still be major restricted, meaning you go last if not in that specific major. Then it comes down to time: how much time do you want to spent in college to finish these classes and still within the allowed time frame.
From what I have seen. COE really acts like a big happy family on every UC campus. PITA to get in, but once in, the college does go out of its way for the students across majors.
Fortunately this is not the case for UCB COE. In fact I think this reduces some pressure on other COE students to switch to EECS, because they donât actually have to switch to EECS in order to enroll in upper level CS and EE / EECS classes (unlike at many other schools).
Except for UCSD.
based on what i am reading here, that is not the case for UCSD.
I thought the whole thing is about getting into COE from LS. Every engineering major is impacted.
That is debatable but already non-EECS majors who want access to EECS classes generally have pretty good access because there is reserved non-EECS seats even for the most sought after CS classes, and most EE classes donât have any enrollment limits at all.
In general, there is very little incentive to game the system but I suspect eventually these paths will close/narrow at some point.
Are you talking about UCSD here?
At UCSD, being admitted to one engineering major does not give you an advantage to switch to another engineering major (except in a few very specific cases). The various engineering departments are relatively separate from one another. Courses are also major-restricted.
I guess then it sucks to be at UCSDâŠ
Yes, UCSD has been a bit of an outlier among the UCs for its higher level of rigidity.
UCSDâs new selective major change policy MAY actually represent some intent to open MORE of a âdiscoverer pathwayâ than they have had in the past. But I think the details will require some tweaking.
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Having said that. I have heard of plenty of people trying to game admission to UC COE by applying undeclared / history / math / econ / medieval literature / whatever just to get in and later trying to switch majors.
I have seldomly hear people game this by getting into one COE major with intent of switching. But thatâs just me.
Assuming you are talking about UCBâŠ
If their goal is EECS, these people are misinformed, since itâs not possible to switch to EECS from outside of COE. If they want CS, they could try to switch to the CS major using the holistic pathway.
Students outside of COE can potentially switch into a non-EECS COE major, but they canât make another major change within COE after that.
Thatâs why I find it interesting that back in Feb / March there were many parents post that their kids got into I/R/M/D for Engineering and CS, then for B/LA it was math or econ⊠Havenât seen those folksâ posts for a while and I wonder what their kids are deciding.
well, i donât know for sure, but based on what i have read on this board, EECS admit rates seem much lower than other COE majors and that is true for UCLA as well ( their CS/CSE admit rates are very low). i am sure gaming the system is happening as it happens in other aspects, but i would take the trade-off of flexibility at the expense of some gaming. in the end, market forces such as availability of high paying jobs will determine the extent of gaming. in my opinion, UCB has done the right thing.
i am not sure what you are referring to by âmath competition experienceâ? it seems plenty of people get in without any success at math competition.
UC Merced does not seem to be too restrictive to change into CS.
Could be that the reduction in L&S / CCDSS CS majors by moving mostly to a semi direct admission model means more space for CoE major changers.
yes, i forgot about UC Merced. although it is good that CoE majors can now change to EECS, what is the point of locking out other school majors? it seems that under current system a physics major cannot change to EECS. What if we made the change criteria uniform and stringent - Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, Complete lower level physics series and some other CS/EE courses that EECS deems necessary for their major. Wouldnât that be more fair?
This is the type of system that UCB used to have for L&S CS, and similar to the old UCSD system. (That is, access to the major is open to any students who complete a specific list of courses with a specific GPA, or open to any students who compete successfully on GPA in these courses.)
In a context where there is an extraordinarily high level of demand for the major, and few spaces available, the university must further limit access to the major by (a) limiting spaces in the qualifying courses, and/or (b) grading the qualifying courses harshly, and/or (c) using a lottery at the end when there are too many students who qualify.
It doesnât work well when there is too much demand. It leads to students, who are already studying at the university, being locked out of the major for reasons beyond their control, and also has associated problems where course access ends up being limited for other students who simply want to learn the material, etc.
With UCB L&S CS, access wasnât sufficiently limited, and the number of students grew to exceed the capacity of the department to teach them. Thatâs another problem.
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As everybodyâs been discussing here, UCSD isnât the 1st college to set up limits/restrictions on certain majors.
Similar, but not identical, example:
Consider U of Aâs Eller College of Management. If youâre planning on being ANY type of business major at U of A, youâre admitted first as a BS-Business Admin major. This used to be a pre-major thing, but they changed it a couple of years ago.
So letâs say you want to really major in MIS. You have to take the âfoundationalâ business classes that all of the other business majors have to take. You can guarantee that youâll get admitted at end of sophomore year to the MIS major by achieving a 3.75 cumulative GPA AND completing an interview w/Eller College of Management. You also have to submit a resume and a cover letter which explains why you want to pursue that major.
You have a max of 2 attempts to go through the whole process of doing this âprofessional program applicationâ and if youâre still not selected by the end of attempt #2, then you can change your major to something outside the business college or you can stick with the BS in Business Administration.
Can you still apply for the MIS major even w/o a 3.75 cumulative college GPA? Yes, but admission to that major wonât be guaranteed.
As a result, one should probably assume that itâs a little dog-eat-dog to get the top grades for freshmen & sophomores who aspire to a business major other than BSBA.
However, U of Aâs rules apply right now to both in-state AND OOS students, which is different than the UCSD situation weâve been talking about.
Is it âfairâ that U of A has such stringent criteria for the MIS major? Maybe, maybe not. US News & World Report ranked it #3 for MIS programs. Could you get an MIS degree elsewhere which will result in employment after college? Absolutely.
UCSDâs computer science program, for example, ranks #13 nationwide. Is it âfairâ that itâs hard to get into the computer science program at UCSD? Maybe, maybe not. Lots of people chase prestigeâŠthatâs why itâs really hard to get into the MIS major at U of A and why itâs really hard to get into the computer science major at UCSD. Thereâs only so many spots available and colleges end up having to find a way to weed people out. Is the weeding-out process equitable or âfairâ? Thatâs debatable, of course, and one could make good arguments on both ends of the spectrum on that topic.
Could you get a computer science degree somewhere else? Absolutely.
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Even though, I am critical of UCSD major change policy, I think they have an incredibly strong Computer Science department with relatively very young and dynamic faculty. Regardless of ranking, which is pretty good, their department and courses offered there is really top notch. They are relatively new compared to UCB and some other higher ranked places. But I would not be surprised if their undergraduate education in CSE is even better than at UCB, although UCB has the advantage of proximity to Silicon valley. I really think some of those rankings are meaningless.
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I donât know what the criteria was before. Somebody here said it had something to do with math competition, which seems very strange to me. Well, a sufficiently stringent criteria with focus on basic math, physics and CS/EE courses in their first year should produce limited number of applicants.