Waitlists

By Phill Conrad, Teaching Professor, CS Department, UC Santa Barbara.

Students often ask about how waitlists and crashing works for CMPSC 16.

While this is written from a CMPSC 16 perspective, a lot of it applies to other highly impacted lower division courses such as CMPSC 8, 9. I’ll describe CMPSC 16 first, and then make a few remarks about whether 8, and 9 may be different.

Here’s the short version:

First and second registration passes for CMPSC 16 are typically restricted to certain majors
If there is still space on third pass, the course is open to other students as long as they meet the pre-requisites.
However, the course typically fills up before third pass and then a waitlist opens up.
We will then take as many students as we can from the waitlist, typically overenrolling the course (i.e. taking 10-15 students beyond what we really have capacity for)
At the point, we close the waitlist, and then having overenrolled, we don’t accept any crashers and we don’t backfill if/when students drop (since we usually still over the course capacity at that point.)

We use this approach because the waitlist typically has anywhere from thirty to over a hundred students on it. Not knowing whether you will get into a course or not is stressful. And, for the course staff, dealing with “churn” (i.e. students adding/dropping throughout the first 2-3 weeks) creates additional problems for everyone. Our approach is to take as many students as we can before the first day of class, and then everyone can start the quarter knowing exactly where they stand—either in, or out.

But then, how can I make sure that I can eventually get into CMPSC 16

Short answer: you can’t, unless you were admitted to the Computer Science major or the Computer Engineering major before you came to UCSB.

There is no guaranteed path to getting into CMPSC 16 if you are not a CMPSC or CMPEN major.

You can try, and you might succeed. The best thing you can do it to try in Spring quarter or Summer quarter instead of Fall or Winter; most CMPSC/CMPEN majors take the course in Fall or Winter.

But, even that is no guarantee. Many students try repeatedly, and never get in. That’s not a new situation; it has been that way for years (at least eight years). And while the Computer Science departmnent woudl like to see that situation change, there are aspects of the problem (mostly having to do with resources) that are beyond the department’s control. The university has been made aware of the problem. If and when it becomes a priority for them to solve it, I assume they will, but any such solution is almost certainly more than four years away.

In the past, sometimes students would try to get into CMPSC 16 by declaring one of the major offered by the PSTAT department. This “hack” no longer works; students in those majors are now directed to take CMPSC 9 (a course that covers CMPSC 16/24 material in Python instead of C++), instead of CMPSC 16. CMPSC 9 is arguably a more relevant course for PSTAT majors, since Python is used extensively in the PSTAT curriculum (C++, not so much.)

Then does that mean that I can’t change majors into Computer Science?

Yes, it might mean that. Students that apply to the majors in the College of Engineering (including CMPSC and CMPEN) that are not accepted to that major, but to an alternative major (including “undeclared”) are sent a letter that includes this paragraph:

Please be advised that changing into an engineering major after enrollment is very difficult and unlikely. Thus, if you accept our offer of admission, it should be with the understanding that you will benefit from one of the many exciting majors in the College of Letters and Science, rather than with the expectation of changing into the College of Engineering or College of Creative Studies. If you have questions about this offer of admission, please review our Frequently Asked Questions page.

We have included this language for quite some time because we are aware that we do not have the resources to provide access to the Computer Science major for as many students as would like to pursue it. This is also not a new situation, and not one that is limited to UC Santa Barbara; see, for example, the following links that show that the problem is widespread, has existed for years, and that no-one sees any good solutions on the horizon.

Then what am I supposed to do if I want to study CS?

I wish I had an answer to that question. I’ve been asked it hundreds of times, for more than 10 years, and I still don’t have a good answer. It isn’t for lack of trying to come up with one.

My training is in Computer Science, Software Engineering, and how to teach it. Those problems, I know how to address.

Solving the problem that there aren’t enough seats in CS classrooms at UCSB (in particular) and across North America (in general) would seem to require a complete reorganization of the entire way that the University of California in particular, and higher education in North America (in general) is organized, funded, and administered.

That, I do not know how to do. For years, I beat myself up because I couldn’t address this question. I’m starting to let myself off the hook, because it’s just bigger than both of us.

I truly wish I had a better answer.

Don’t you have any suggestions at all?

Ok, there are a few things that I’ve seen students try that sometimes work:

There may be UC Online courses (in particular, a few offered through UC Riverside) that might be transferrable as CMPSC 8 and/or CMPSC 16.
You may be able to take a CMPSC 8 or CMPSC 16 equivalent at a Community College; see assist.org to see what might transfer.

If you can get past 8 and/or 16, it sometimes is easier then to get into CMPSC 24 or CMPSC 40 as a non-major, because there are fewer students at that point in the pipeline that are trying. But I need to emphasize: there is no guarantee.

Is it different for CMPSC 8 and 9?

Not that much. The main differences are:

CMPSC 8 is required for more than just CMPSC and CMPEN, so there are few more majors that might get priority. These change from time to time, so I won’t list them here.
We typically offer many more seats in CMPSC 8 than in CMPSC 16 each year.
CMPSC 9 is intended for student in certain PSTAT majors, so they may get priority for CMPSC 9. Note that CMPSC 9 is not on the path towards change of major into Computer Science or Computer Engineering.

Disclaimer

Please note that the contents of this page, while intended to be helpful to UC Santa Barbara students interested in Computer Science, are the personal views of one faculty member (the author, Phill Conrad), and do not necessarily represent official views of the CS Department, the College of Engineering or the University of California, Santa Barbara.