UMD Cuts Computer Science Class by 50%

[Anonymous]

UMD CS is a tough admit. Acceptance rate likely in the 10%-20% range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UMD CS is a tough admit. Acceptance rate likely in the 10%-20% range.

Not sure if accurate but I saw this quote from a CS info session (below for 2023 cycle)

9,000 applicants indicated CS as their major, 3,000 of those were admitted to UMD, 600 of those were direct admints to CS, 450 enrolled

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow. When I enrolled in CS in early 90s, they would basically take anyone as long as you passed the math prerequisites. That was before CS salaries took off.

That was also when computers were wound up with a crank at the back, without wifi.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMD CS is a tough admit. Acceptance rate likely in the 10%-20% range.

Not sure if accurate but I saw this quote from a CS info session (below for 2023 cycle)

9,000 applicants indicated CS as their major, 3,000 of those were admitted to UMD, 600 of those were direct admints to CS, 450 enrolled

OP here and I attended the presentation where those stats were given. All the figures seem ok, with the exception of a 75% yield rate. In the FB UMD Class of 2028 parents group, a few weeks ago one of the UMD staffers who answers questions indicated CS had the highest yield of any UMD major. That being said, it seems unlikely to be anywhere close to 75%. She may have misstated the number of direct admits. But any way you slice it, getting into the UMD CS major is a tough nut to crack. It likely has an acceptance rate below 20% and possibly is below 15%. I think it would be quite helpful for candidates if the acceptance figures, including GPA/SAT/%TO for accepted applicants in each major were published.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UMD recently changed the CS LEP rules for class entering in 2024. Only 600 slots and virtually no transfers in. "Find another major!" When we were at the open house in the spring they said 9,000 applicants indicated CS. 3,000 of those were admitted. 600 of those were admitted to CS. 450 enrolled. But at that time it wasn't that hard to transfer in. Anyway, crazy numbers for the state flagship. Take everything into account and the admit rate for CS this year will likely be 10-15%. Until this year the total class was 450 direct admits + 1,000 internal/external transfer= 1,450. Now it'll be 600 direct admits + 100 internal/external transfers= 700. If your kid's heart is set on in-state flagship CS, without plausible major substitutions, this could force you to go out of state or private even if you clear the increasingly tough hurdle of getting into UMD. UMBC is the #2 MD state engineering school, but involves a lot of tradeoffs.

From the UMD CS webpage:
First Year Applicants | Undergraduate Computer Science at UMD

Fall 2024 Computer Science LEP FAQ | Undergraduate Computer Science at UMD

The Computer Science major is a limited enrollment program (LEP), and we receive thousands of applications each year. For the Fall 2024 admissions cycle, we expect to have spots for about 600 first year students. As such, direct admission to the Computer Science major as a first-year student is very competitive.

If you are accepted to the university but not to Computer Science, you MUST be prepared to pursue an alternative major.

While we plan to increase the number of freshmen directly admitted to the Computer Science major by 150 slots (from 450 to 600 enrolled freshmen), the number of slots for new external transfers and internal transfers coming from a different UMD major will be reduced to 100 per year (down from 1,000).

So direct admits are increasing by 25% from 450 to 600. Great! All this means is that applicants should be honest about wanting to major in CS and not try to play the game and transfer later.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is limited enrollment due to fact that people in CS can make more money outside of academia? It’s a good part of why nursing programs (yes I realize nursing is not as competitive) have become so hard to get into nowadays. Not enough people to teach.

There are far more CS PhDs awarded each year then tenure track faculty jobs, and CS TT positions still have hudnwreds of applicants. It's not an issue of a lack of talent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also looking ahead, other than UMBC, does anyone have any CS school suggestions for a current underclassman that will likely have a 3.8 UW GPA and mid 1400 SAT.

U Alamaba will give 28k per year in merit scholarships

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it, don’t we need more CS majors, not fewer? Why would a state not be trying to graduate as many competent cs majors as possible? I get not admitting people who can’t hack it, but shouldn’t anyone with the grades and test scores who wants to try be given a chance? This seems incredibly short-sighted for the economy of the state.

Why would you hire more professors when you could buy a second yacht?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:U can still take the core CS classes ..just not graduate as a CS major. Employers care about which classes you took and do you know your stuff

Do college grads put down what classes they took in college on their resumes? That's new. I don't think I did that. I just put my degree, GPA and experience.

Yes they do. I interview engineers and CS grads. Many put down course names like algorithms etc. its helpful.

I don't care what your major is. I'm looking at your experience. Most new grads don't have a lot of work experience outside of internships so they detail about the projects they've worked on. The project could have been either as an intern at a company or as school assignment. When I interview you and I talk to you specifically about what YOU did on the project, I can figure out if you have the knowledge and experience that I'm looking for.

I don't care about how you pick your employees.

Different poster. You don’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed.

+1

DP here. Many employers expect transcripts as a condition of employment. I am shocked that more people do not realize this.

That's typically late in the process where the goal is to make sure you aren't rejected for a poor transcript. An excellent transcript won't help you over a fine one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CS majors and classes are enot important for the high paying jobs the unwashed masses are clamoring for. It's not a big deal. programming is the easiest skill to learn for free on the Internet.

CS is not just about programming.

PP referred to CS majors, and 90% of applicants do not care about algorithm complexity or the intricacies of operating systems and memory management.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it, don’t we need more CS majors, not fewer? Why would a state not be trying to graduate as many competent cs majors as possible? I get not admitting people who can’t hack it, but shouldn’t anyone with the grades and test scores who wants to try be given a chance? This seems incredibly short-sighted for the economy of the state.

Why don't Harvard and MIT accept 100,000 students?

They’re private institutions whose priority is themself. UMD is a public institution whose first priority should be what’s in the state’s best interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CS majors and classes are enot important for the high paying jobs the unwashed masses are clamoring for. It's not a big deal. programming is the easiest skill to learn for free on the Internet.

CS is not just programming.

Lower level programming has been off shored for many years. That's not where the money's at.

The big money in the future is going to be AI and ML.

Those require PhDs, the best background for which is Math. Classes in operating systems, java programming, etc, are far less useful than those in calculus 3 and advanced statistics.

But even within the math courses, some are more useful for building a foundation than ithers. It's good to know partial differentiation and the gradient as that's how gradient descent works, but integration in all of its forms is far less useful (remember, students have a limited number of courses they can take, so parsimony is key). There's a lot of room to improve the curriculum so that a PhD stops being necessary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get it, don’t we need more CS majors, not fewer? Why would a state not be trying to graduate as many competent cs majors as possible? I get not admitting people who can’t hack it, but shouldn’t anyone with the grades and test scores who wants to try be given a chance? This seems incredibly short-sighted for the economy of the state.

They don’t have the professors. None of the schools do. There was just a big article about Pomona basically cutting its CS major because it can’t staff the department in California. Not enough people got CS degrees decades ago and I think most universities want phds which aren’t that common for CS folks. I think the immigration debacle of the last few years is also playing into this, but not sure—-from what people tell me, the CS majors from other countries aren’t that great as far as the higher skillsets.

They don't need PHD CS to teach the entry level courses. A BS/MS and industry experience would be just fine. However, if you can make $200-300K working in industry easily, why would you want to be paid $80K to teach. So until universities are willing to pay more for CS teachers, they won't find enough.

I'm chair of a department (R1 public), and most CS professors in T1 schools are hired in the six-figure range. However, you are correct that it is difficult to compete with industry jobs that pay $200-300k when we are offering $150k. Many times this leads to a failed search and possible loss of a tenure line. People with MS degrees can be hired as non-tenure track faculty, but again, it's not easy convincing someone to take the job at $85K. And the university is not going to significantly increase the department budget to pay the market rate. Also, it's not fair to students to over-enroll classes just to meet demand--there is a tipping point in which the class size is too large and the drop/withdrawal/fail rate increases significantly.

Why don't you start offering 120k to teaching faculty? You can also offer long-term contracts (Duke does up to 10 years for full teaching faculty) as a sort of pseudo-tenure to give teaching faculty some job security.

[Anonymous]

Personally, I think this downturn is a great opportunity to snap some top tier talent who are likely burnt out from corporate life and would appreciate the satisfaction and security that teaching can offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UMD recently changed the CS LEP rules for class entering in 2024. Only 600 slots and virtually no transfers in. "Find another major!" When we were at the open house in the spring they said 9,000 applicants indicated CS. 3,000 of those were admitted. 600 of those were admitted to CS. 450 enrolled. But at that time it wasn't that hard to transfer in. Anyway, crazy numbers for the state flagship. Take everything into account and the admit rate for CS this year will likely be 10-15%. Until this year the total class was 450 direct admits + 1,000 internal/external transfer= 1,450. Now it'll be 600 direct admits + 100 internal/external transfers= 700. If your kid's heart is set on in-state flagship CS, without plausible major substitutions, this could force you to go out of state or private even if you clear the increasingly tough hurdle of getting into UMD. UMBC is the #2 MD state engineering school, but involves a lot of tradeoffs.

From the UMD CS webpage:
First Year Applicants | Undergraduate Computer Science at UMD

Fall 2024 Computer Science LEP FAQ | Undergraduate Computer Science at UMD

The Computer Science major is a limited enrollment program (LEP), and we receive thousands of applications each year. For the Fall 2024 admissions cycle, we expect to have spots for about 600 first year students. As such, direct admission to the Computer Science major as a first-year student is very competitive.

If you are accepted to the university but not to Computer Science, you MUST be prepared to pursue an alternative major.

While we plan to increase the number of freshmen directly admitted to the Computer Science major by 150 slots (from 450 to 600 enrolled freshmen), the number of slots for new external transfers and internal transfers coming from a different UMD major will be reduced to 100 per year (down from 1,000).

So direct admits are increasing by 25% from 450 to 600. Great! All this means is that applicants should be honest about wanting to major in CS and not try to play the game and transfer later.

Maybe

Or maybe you’ll get a lot of undecideds who apply because they MIGHT want CS and they can transfer out if they decide they don’t, but they can’t transfer in if they decide they do.