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UCSD CS75

Program Overview​

UCSD's CS75 is a very popular "crowd favorite" program. Among the UC schools, it's probably the top two most job-friendly CS program.

UCB only has a 1-year MEng program, and UCLA's MSCS is extremely hard to get into and leans toward research, making it less job-friendly. So for job-oriented students, SD might be the better choice.

Starting in 2025, UCSD CS75 offers co-op. Great location + cheap tuition + TA position halves tuition + co-op availability -- it's basically a well-rounded program.

cs75coop

The program workload can be extremely light -- a senior I know said you can get away with not attending classes and still getting a 4.0 GPA (by strategically selecting low-workload courses, such as CSE 258 - Recommender Systems and Web Mining). Of course, for students who care about course quality, you can also choose coding-heavy courses (like CSE 210 - Principles of Software Engineering, where you build a full-stack project).

UCSD is located in San Diego, right next to the ocean, with ocean-view housing. On-campus housing is extremely cheap and high quality, making this a must-apply program for many CS applicants in North America. Programs commonly compared with this one include CMU MSIN, UIUC MCS, UT Austin SES, and GT CSE.

Admission Preferences & Representative Data Points​

One-sentence summary: Admissions are highly unpredictable. Some students admitted to Stanford EE got rejected here, while some students from lesser-known universities got admitted.

However, based on statistics from the 24 Fall offer holder group, students with 3.9+ GPA made up half of the offer holders. A high GPA can be considered a necessary but not sufficient condition for admission. Other factors like research and internships show no obvious correlation with admission outcomes. Personal statements also don't show any clear preference -- the author wrote about job hunting and got admitted, while a friend wrote entirely about research and PhD aspirations and also got admitted. [Hair Dryer Theory]: UCSD has a significant number of data points suggesting that admission is not related to applicants' GPA/GRE/TOEFL, internships, or research -- it's purely random. Many highly qualified applicants got straight-up rejected (speculation: their materials weren't even reviewed before rejection).

CS75 GPA

  1. SJTU CS undergrad, GPA 91, had Microsoft internship
  2. Beijing Jiaotong University, Communications undergrad, GPA 3.97, one year RA at home university
  3. NYU DS undergrad, GPA 3.92
  4. UCSD Cognitive Science undergrad, GPA 3.86
  5. NUK CS undergrad, GPA 3.95, had local small company internship
  6. UCSD CS undergrad, GPA 3.9
  7. NYU CS undergrad, GPA 3.9, had internship at a major Chinese tech company

Pre-Admission Mystery​

Here's a summary I previously compiled about what portal changes mean:

  1. WES transcript request appears: Admitted. Appears at 4 PM Beijing time (portal updates at midnight California time to notify admission)
  2. Small text above the checklist disappears, but the checklist itself remains: Also good news. Based on 24Fall, admission typically follows the next week
  3. Small text above the checklist has not disappeared: Application hasn't been reviewed yet, keep waiting

Job Outcomes & Data Points​

Both CS75 and ECE are fairly job-friendly. CS75 course difficulty can be minimized by selecting easy courses, so you don't put pressure on yourself during job search season. ECE has co-op. UCSD is also an NVIDIA target school.

  1. NYU DS undergrad, three small company internships in China, landed Google new grad
  2. Indian student with 1.5 years of Microsoft full-time experience, landed Qualcomm intern
  3. UIUC CS undergrad, two non-US small company internships, landed LA small company internship