UMA has a top three AI CS program in the country. It’s moved into number 64 usnwr and 24 for all public unis. It’s not the old days.
Unfortunately for the star students and parents who look at the average stats don’t understand that CS and engineering are at a completely different level in 2020. Waitlists do have a chance.
However keep your chin up. You’ll all probably end up at schools with higher overall rankings and programs you’ll love. It all works out.
@Theunknown28
But since both CS and informatics are in CICS wouldn’t that mean applying to the most competitive school and therefore decrease chances of acceptance?
@Theunknown28 Yeah, my mistake, I was pretty hands off during the application process and son did nearly all the decisions.
@privatebanker the current freshman CS class has average SAT of 1431 and GPA of 4.15, its documented in the school website. The rejects I’ve seen here have much better stats than that!
I’m denying my offer of admission in the next few weeks-I really hope that helps one of you who are on the waitlist and really want to go to UMass!
@privatebanker I believe the WL email said that they will not be getting into biz and cs if they are accepted off the WL.
What happens to students that go in undeclared and want to take a course in CS? Do they not have access to those unless for all accepted into CICS?
If you get in off WL - are those classes “off limits” - forever?
Seems strange as undeclared that you wouldn’t be able to “sample” classes to find out what you want to major in.
Maybe I am misunderstanding?
I’m not positive how this works, but I read on their waitlist FAQs, if you get in off the waitlist into another major, you can request an internal transfer into all competitive schools except for nursing. I may have read that incorrectly, but that’s my understanding. Also, my daughter has been waitlisted and UMASS was her first choice. I have read on threads and have heard from so many other people who were accepted, they have no intentions of going to this school. They simply applied as a safety or they just wanted to see if they could get accepted. Seems to me, unfortunately, that admissions accepted so many of the wrong people!!
@Equinox1
They could fix this by moving to binding early decision and regular decision.
BC and Holy Cross have done this. Would stop people from using UMass as a safety when they never plan to attend.
Their yield would go up. Might also reduce OOS and international candidates.
@gretchen101 I totally agree. For a college this size, yes, ED and RD would be the way to go. This EA doesn’t seem to work here. It’s been a stressful experience for us, and sadly, from speaking with other people, this has been going on at this school for years. Unfortunately, I had no idea it was like this until my daughter applied and we were waiting for results. Live and learn, I guess.
Son Accepted into Engineering:
OOS: Maine
GPA : Weighted 4.51
SAT: 1390
ACT: 30
Loads of EC
Tri Varsity all 4 years, Capt.
Merit $16K
Not accepted into honors.
I don’t disagree. However it’s just more complicated than that.
I know I’m stating the obvious.
First, that’s last year’s scores.
Secondly, it’s an average.
Also they may look at the math section or act subscores more closely. They may also look at specific grades and ap exams. You don’t really know what the teachers say in the Rec letters. There’s a lot to it.
More importantly. There are many other factors that go into these things.
Ethnicity gender location and backstory all matter. First gen. The school they attended and ses metrics. (A 1300 may be valedictorian or the best student and is also from a very poor school district).
Interests and Ecs. They are building a mosaic. Not simply the highest scores and grades. It’s more like casting for a play and there’s only so many chosen for a specific role in the whole production. At another school they win the part in that play. It’s very subjective.
All of these kids are stars.
That’s just my Observation. And I’m not saying it’s the right or wrong way. It’s simply that there is no more competitive pool applying to UMA than cs and engineering. Nursing and Isenberg not far behind.
I think as a public school, UMass should think of what best to serve the public. Lets face it, there are way too many outstanding private colleges in the state, UMass will never be Harvard or MIT nor we ever need it to be. We just need it to provide a solid education for our kids serious about learning at an affordable price.
I still think that UMass made a mistake in rejecting my son. And if yield protection was the reason, I’d suggest UMass try out some form of limited early decision, like the accepted students can only decline if they got accepted to one or two designated colleges. This way, UMass (using CS as example) will know that they have an edge against WPI/Northeastern but will lose out to MIT.
Another thing is that colleges should be honest about why kids didn’t make the cut. Kids spent hours filing the application and all they get is cookie cutter response like ‘we received 50k applications and they can’t accept every qualified one’.
I don’t want to be super negative, but this is absolutely false. No one is coming off the waitlist before May 1 and UMass is being very clear that very people will come off the waitlist for Fall 2020.
https://www.umass.edu/admissions/sites/default/files/pdf/Waitlist_faq.pdf
We are definitely making other plans.
There are lot of kids who have admits to Amherst, and it is still their back up college. They are waiting for March RD’s to come. That is the reason why i was saying there will be many open slots.
They over-enroll as is, expecting many people will not come. I’d be delighted to be wrong! But no one will find out until after May 15, which is well after when you have to put down enrollment and housing deposits elsewhere.
I’m just going to put UMass-Amherst out of our heads for now and work on a plan to enroll at one of the schools that offered him a lot of merit and is a good fit.
@2024Mama I agree. My daughter has opted to stay on the waitlist just to see, but realistically? If I were a betting person, I sure as heck wouldn’t be putting any money on coming off that list.
According to a UMass spokesperson, the funds appropriated by the state cover 21% of the annual budget.
UMass needs OOS students because the state keeps cutting their support. If 50%+ of the school’s budget was provided by the state you might have an argument about the school owing something to in-state students.
That being said, UMass REALLY can’t get out of its own way when it comes to admissions policies and procedures.
Reading all the comments - my OOS DS was denied while my in state nephew was waitlisted. However, he can’t get into the Business School off the wait list. So another point of reference for you all. Best of luck to those still waiting and those on the waitlist I hope it works out for you!!
@GKUnion The so called 21% appropriation is probably for the whole UMass system. But for the Amherst campus, it is closer to 29%. Here is the link that shows for FY 2019, Amherst received 363M from state for a total budget expense of 1240M!
https://www.umass.edu/budget/sites/default/files/FY19%20Approved%20Budget.pdf
29% is a lot of money! For comparison, U of Washington in Seattle, a school that doesn’t even accept OOS into their CS program, received only 6% of their expenses from the state. See here fore details: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Washington#Finances
Also, for U of Maryland, the state appropriation is about 25%: See here: http://otcads.umd.edu/bfa/FY18%20Working%20Budget/Web/FY18%20REVENUE%20TOTAL%20OP%20BUDGET%20.pdf