How to Not Get Into Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington

A newly admitted Freshman posing in front of the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering

Congratulations! You’ve just accepted your offer to the University of Washington, the largest public university in Washington state, and home to the illustrious Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. If you are planning on coming to the UW intending to study CSE, follow these easy 6 steps to find out exactly how to not get into the program of your dreams.

Step 1: Develop a Burning Passion for Programming

The first step is to develop a deep, burning passion for programming. You can do this by teaching yourself to write code using books and online courses. If you’re lucky enough to have your parents buy you an off-the-shelf Java book, or get your hands on a lend-me-down programming textbook (bonus points if it’s Building Java Programs: A Back to Basics Approach), you’re already well on your way.

• Start learning programming on your own time. Download an IDE and start trying out concepts on your own computer.
• Gain the support of your friends and family for engaging in a studious hobby with illustrious career potential.
• Start dedicating all of your free time to programming, including weekends and summer vacations.

Following the steps above, you’ll be on the fast track to a passion for programming. After all, if you find it fun, and it earns high paying salaries, why wouldn’t you want to pursue it with all your might?

Step 2: Take a Computer Science Course

Next, you’ll need to transition your hobby into an actual academic pursuit. Depending on your location, the availability of such a course may vary. Generally though, you’ll want to take this first introductory course after you’ve invested a fair amount of time into the subject on your own.

• If you can, begin with an AP or IB Computer Science course in high school, this allows you to easily transition from viewing your “programming” hobby as a “Computer Science” hobby instead, despite not knowing exactly what Computer Science is besides programming.
• Similar to the last step, put all of your effort into these courses, rerouting your efforts from other classes, extracurriculars, and socialization into Computer Science alone.
• Surround yourself with like-minded Computer Science students, and compete over who can dedicate the most of their energy to the subject in meaningless ways.

If your CS classes alone aren’t enough, consider joining (or even creating) extracurriculars that are CS-related. These can be in the form of competitive coding clubs, tutoring, or just grinding problems on LeetCode all day. If your high school awards certificates in certain specializations, including Computer Science, be sure to earn one.

The most important part of this step is to rehash your passion for creating things with code as a passion for Computer Science. Think of Computer Science as the subject that you were put on the face of this earth to pursue. Forget, or outright neglect, other fields or specializations that solve similar problems, or happen to engage in many of the same activities. From here on out, you are a CSE student — and only a CSE student — and nothing will convince you otherwise.

Step 3: Be Admitted to the University of Washington Specifically as a College of Engineering Undergrad

Note: The first part of this step only applies to the incoming class of 2018–2020. The Allen School has changes planned for its admissions system that would make parts of this strategy impossible, but the rest will still apply just as well.

When applying for the University of Washington, it can be tempting to apply to the CSE major directly, through the Allen School Direct to Major program.

If you want to maximize your rejections, do not do this.

Instead, apply for the College of Engineering’s Computer Engineering major. This way, you can be admitted to the University, and have the ability to apply to both Computer Science and Computer Engineering majors at the same time. With the ability to effectively apply to CSE twice per cycle, you can double the number of rejections you’ll receive within a year. Ignore the fact that the admissions for both majors are handled by the same board.

If admitted, establish your presence as a die-hard prospective CSE student. You came here with one goal in mind: to get into CSE, at all costs, and nothing will prevent you from attaining that goal. Proudly overstate your achievements and skills to give yourself confidence that you’ll make it in. Some good signs that you’re on track at this stage include:

• Telling yourself you’re “built different” than the hundreds of other students also gunning for a seat in CSE.
• Getting involved with CSE or Engineering organizations on campus just for the sake of doing something CSE related, and not for the experience or knowledge they offer.
• You think about how you’re the in the “top 10%” of incoming CSE prospects to “grace” the University.

If you have successfully followed the steps above, you will have established yourself among the hundreds of other freshmen that share the same thoughts, feelings, and aspirations, serving to reinforce that stereotype for years to come. If you’re finding it hard to maintain this mindset, follow the directions of the next step.

Step 4: Mold Your Identity Around CSE

This is where the challenge starts. In order to stay on the track of the CSE reject, one must not fall to the temptations of exploring other majors and interests. In fact, try to view the other departments as “back-up majors”, only suitable for those who can’t put in the work and dedication that you can demonstrate. The following thought patterns will aid you in this pursuit:

• View other majors not as their own disciplines, but as derivations and compromises of CSE (i.e. view HCDE as merely “front-end development”, Informatics as “CSE for people bad at math”, or Data Science as “boring”).
• Relate all of your interests to CSE, exclusively thinking of ways to express them from the perspective of a computer program or application, immediately dropping any that you can’t force into being computerized.
• Fulfill your general requirement with classes that are as CSE-related as possible, viewing them ultimately as “serving” your overall knowledge base in CSE instead of ways to explore topics outside your comfort zone.
• Ignore the efforts of CSE, College of Engineering, and First-Year Programs to get you to engage with other majors, passing them off as for people “without a clear path in mind” and not for people like you who are “definitely going to major in CS”

It also helps to continue engaging in many of the procedures listed in previous steps. Find a community of CSE prospects and only socialize with them. Divert effort from classes not related to CSE towards those that are. The goal is to suppress any part of your identity that does not have to do with CSE, such that every thought and action you take is somehow related to it. But the final piece of the puzzle still remains: how do you keep your eye on the prize, and not let distractions get in the way?

Step 5: Pin Your Future on CSE

This last and final piece to becoming the ultimate reject is the pin all of your future hopes on getting into the program. To do this, imagine yourself once you do get into CSE. Imagine the friends you’ll have, how happy you’ll be, and the success it’ll guarantee you in the future. Then, justify all your actions by telling yourself that if you keep at them, you’ll eventually turn yourself into that person.

• Obsessively search for the average GPAs, extracurriculars, projects, involvements, and hundreds of other items of someone who was previously accepted into CSE, and push yourself to replicate them at all costs (Reddit is great for this).
• If you fail to meet the an exceptionally high standard you set for yourself, convince yourself that the future you will take steps to address it and all will be well without actually taking any actionable steps.
• Leave pursuing friendships, romantic relationships, personal development, and other items of such nature to the future you, claiming that you’ll have the time to dedicate to those things after you get in.
• Apply for TA positions, engage with RSOs, and look into research for the sole purpose of improving your application portfolio, stifling any intrinsic value you would have otherwise gained.
• Fantasize about how it’ll all be “worth it” once you get in, leaving the meaningfulness of your efforts up to chance.

If you can continually delay your enjoyment of the present in service of the future, you can even give off an aura of a dedicated “hard worker” or someone with the illusive-yet-misunderstood quality of “grit”. This can earn you the praise of your family and colleagues, and when the subject of admissions is brought up, you can receive comments such as “you’re a shoe-in” and “I think you have a good chance”. Let these comments bring you momentary comfort, ignoring the fact that they are not fully aware of the circumstances.

Keep in mind that to maximize the misery that these rejections ultimately bring, you should build up to them in a way that will implode catastrophically once the time comes. The most meaningful rejections are built over the course of several months and years, but if you’re short on time, at least try to frame it like everything you’ve been doing up until now has been in service of your application.

Step 6: Get Rejected, Maybe Twice

If you were able to follow all of the above, then congratulations! You were likely rejected from the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering at the University of Washington! You’ll likely receive an email with the “CSE Admission Decision”, thanking you for your application and regretfully informing you that they will not be offering you admission. They won’t offer you any form of feedback regarding your application, so you’ll get engage in the fun activity of theorizing wildly about the reasons you weren’t accepted:

• Maybe you could’ve studied harder for a midterm and gotten a better grade in that one Math class.
• Maybe you could’ve went to that hackathon and submitted the winning project and have it on your resume.
• Maybe you could’ve brought up a different example during an interview and gotten that internship with Amazon.

The possibilities are endless as they are futile. Once you are done mulling over what could’ve gone better, it’s important to ensure that you take full responsibility for your rejection. Think only of the things that you could’ve controlled, and that could’ve gone better. Ignore other factors outside your control, including:

• The relatively unchanging base rate of acceptance (20–25%).
• Demographic information including background, standing, student origin, first generation status, etc.
• Access to resources and opportunities that you didn’t have
• The dangerous idea that CSE just might not be the best fit for you

This way, you can make the most of your rejection by making the effects last for weeks and even months. If you’re really good, you can even make them last all the way up until the next application cycle comes around. The best rejects can be rejected three, four, even five cycles. If you need help, try repeating steps 4 and 5 indefinitely, always making sure to convince yourself between iterations that “this time will be different”. But if you somehow manage to sway off the path of the reject, continue on to the last and final step.

Step 7: Figure Out That Maybe, CSE Wasn’t Actually For You

This last step can only be started under one of the following conditions:

1. You were forced to stop being rejected due to time, monetary, or logistical constraints.
2. You got distracted from CSE long enough to realize there was another major that suited you better.
3. A combination of the two.

In any case, if you have reached this step, you have come to the end of the journey as a reject. It is at this point where the veil from one’s eyes can be lifted, and one may start to take a look back at the path that led them here. You may start to realize any of the following:

• You spent more time worrying about getting into CSE than you did about what you would do after you got in.
• You changed parts of your identity to conform to what you thought CSE would accept, instead of focusing on what brought you personal joy.
• There are other departments at the UW that not only offer similar career prospects, but also engage your other interests and ultimately are a better fit for your strengths and weaknesses.

Specific guidance on what to do with these realizations are outside the scope of this guide, but they should at least get you started on what a post-reject life looks like to you.

• Maybe you’ll start doing some of the things you wrote off earlier.
• Maybe you’ll begin to find things that intrinsically motivate you, and begin to find joy in those without the guilt of admissions hanging over you.
• Maybe you’ll go back and rediscover what drew you into CSE in the first place, and find a better way to express that in another way.
• Or maybe you’ll go back to Step 5 and repeat the process a few more times.

Whatever you ultimately choose to do, recognize that if there was a time for you to explore, now would be it. This specific time in your life — the college and early adulthood years — is a time rich with opportunity to engage in topics well beyond what you’re already familiar with. I can’t say for certain, but it seems like the later adulthood years are less forgiving in this regard, due to a combination of things like “responsibility”, “taxes”, and “having to pay your own rent”.

So go forth and explore the world, newly freed from the path of life that was so well charted for you. The people, places, and things that you truly belong to will be waiting. Probably.