Post-bac Students

This information is intended for students who already hold a bachelor's degree (in any subject, from any school) and are interested in earning another bachelor's degree from UW's Computer Science and Engineering department.

• If you want to take UW courses but do not want to complete a degree, you may enroll through UW Extension's Non-Degree Enrollment program.
• If you want to enroll as a post-bac to take courses in preparation for grad school, but you will not apply to a CSE major, you should contact a UW Admissions Counselor.

Note that there are separate applications for admission to the UW and the CSE department. You must apply both to the UW and to CSE. Post-bac applicants go through the same departmental admissions process as all students but must also fill out a specific application at the UW Office of Admissions. Additionally, post-bac admission to the UW is very limited, and admission to a department greatly strengthens the general UW application for post-bacs. It will be important to work closely with the CSE department and UW Admissions on your applications.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites for both the Computer Science and Computer Engineering majors are listed on the Upper-Division Admission page. Applicants must provide transcripts from all accredited colleges and universities they have attended as part of their applications.

Previous coursework may fulfill CSE prerequisites and graduation requirements. If you have not completed all CSE prerequisites, you will need to do so at another school or as a non-matriculated student at the UW. Post-bacs can generally use previous coursework to fulfill many (if not all) of the UW's general education requirements so their time at the UW can be focused on courses in their major.

Washington community college work: If you attended a Washington community or technical college, or plan to complete prerequisites at one of these schools, you may use our Course Equivalence page to see how programming courses transfer. This page lists only current direct equivalents to our two introductory programming courses. The UW Transfer Equivalency Guide lists all transferable credit from these schools.

Other schools: Coursework from other colleges and universities may satisfy some CSE departmental requirements. However, students must still earn at least 24 graded credits of CSE majors courses at UW to complete a degree. Transfer credit is evaluated after a student is admitted.

Required Materials

Both Computer Science and Computer Engineering use the College of Engineering's online application.

Deadlines

Students should apply to the department and to the UW for the same quarter. The CSE department admits students twice per year, for autumn and spring quarters. The CSE application deadlines are July 1 for autumn quarter and February 1 for spring quarter. Departmental admissions decisions generally happen within one month of the application deadline -- this means the time between receiving our decision and starting the program can be as little as a few weeks or as much as a couple of months.

Application deadlines for admission to the UW are often up to 5-7 months earlier than deadlines to the department.  Plan ahead and read the UW admissions information carefully.