The Allen School is announcing a change to how it does admissions for currently enrolled UW students to our majors. In short, while CSE 142 remains a prerequisite for current UW students to apply, we will no longer consider CSE 142 as one of the prerequisite grades in evaluating academic performance.
The rationale for this change is to help address the negative impact that competitive admissions has on the environment in CSE 142, a course that is designed for students with no programming experience. We hope the effect of not using CSE 142 grades in admissions is a greater focus on learning and a lesser focus on grades in CSE 142.
This change was initially recommended by a working group of faculty who reviewed our 100-level courses. It was then considered and approved by our undergraduate admissions committee. This change does not affect how we evaluate other prerequisite grades, including CSE 143.
As always, the source for accurate information on Allen School admissions for current UW students is https://www.cs.washington.edu/academics/ugrad/admissions/currentuw and our undergraduate advisors.
As that page notes:
We use an evaluative, rather than a quantitative, process in our admission review. This means our decisions are based on more than simply which applicants have the highest grades. We do not tally up points; rather, we form an overall evaluation based on academic background and other factors, such as outside interests and activities, evidence of leadership and a sense of direction, and life experience. We do not expect all students to excel across the board, but achievement in relevant academic areas or evidence of overcoming hardships can strengthen an application.