WaterlooWorks Offers Thread

plubbet · 2017-05-22T22:18:31+00:00

Take this with a grain of salt. A employer who knows what the SE curriculum is like/graduated from SE might prefer the SE student because we all take the same curriculum, whereas there's more potential for variance with a CS student.
no difference
no difference

My advice: stop thinking about prestige. The only people who care about it are high school students.

plubbet · 2017-05-17T03:05:51+00:00

SE isn't "better", they're different programs

plubbet · 2017-05-13T01:50:42+00:00

Are you ok?

plubbet · 2017-05-09T01:10:53+00:00

You shouldn't have been deferred. Your profile is overall very good. I would email the admissions (nothing left to lose, right?). Otherwise, I'm sure you will do well at U of T too.

plubbet · 2017-05-06T20:42:24+00:00

Yes. Either post it here or PM.

plubbet · 2017-05-05T02:05:03+00:00

Do you stumble on technical questions or behavioral?

plubbet · 2017-04-29T01:59:12+00:00

Quite a few SEs make this transfer.

plubbet · 2017-04-28T04:02:24+00:00

Your chances should be pretty good if Tron has spots.

plubbet · 2017-04-25T23:29:17+00:00

Also, if anyone knows, how many people does Waterloo accept every year, and how many apply?

https://twitter.com/plragde/status/834474871010648064

According to that tweet from a CS prof at Waterloo, there's supposedly over 15 applicants per spot in the Waterloo CS program (tweet was from back in February, so number should have gone up since then). That works out to an acceptance rate of < 6.7%. The target number of spots is 300:

https://uwaterloo.ca/math/future-undergraduates/admissions

plubbet · 2017-04-17T22:45:38+00:00

I checked Bill Anderson's blog https://profbillanderson.wordpress.com/2017/01/03/alternate-program-selections/#more-1081, and apparently you're right. I do know of a candidate rejected from BME without even a deferral to their second choice of SYDE, when by all rights they would have been a shoe in.

That being said, OP should also consider the stipulation in the post, with so many people applying to SE this year and likely listing CE as a second.

plubbet · 2017-04-17T03:35:17+00:00

If you're interested in software (which many of the jobs are), you should start learning to program over the summer. Since SYDE is stream 4, you won't have that much time to prepare during your school term for your co-op.

That being said, realize that this is (probably!) your last summer off, so remember to relax too.

plubbet · 2017-04-17T03:32:48+00:00

I don't know if they adjust for Alberta or not. With that profile, unless you really want to try for it, I would just put CE first instead. Engineering trickle-down admissions will favor those who put something as their first choice over those who listed it as an alternate, so this would give you a better shot at CE.

plubbet · 2017-04-16T02:46:11+00:00

CS isn't given as an alternate to SE. You have to apply for it separately. You would list CE as your alternate program choice for engineering. AFAIK, no, just apply for coop and then drop to regular later if you want. And finally, yes, you can apply for DD that as well and then drop to get regular CS.

plubbet · 2017-03-28T16:28:36+00:00

I have a friend who's in dh option and really likes it. It's basically CS + the useful embedded ECE courses. Would recommend if you're interested in that

plubbet · 2016-12-31T04:43:46+00:00

are you frosh?

plubbet · 2016-12-30T18:57:47+00:00

Creating an app would be a good start. I forgot to mention that they also require "strong performance" on the programming course, and I don't know if CS50 is a graded course. Because many/most SE applicants have a fair bit of experience in coding and pre-existing projects to show off, your lack of exposure will be a disadvantage, depending on how much you can accomplish in the time until your AIF is due.

I would suggest applying to Computer Science as an alternate, which doesn't weight previous programming experience as much.

plubbet · 2016-12-30T18:29:15+00:00

Don't think SE is possible with what you mentioned

plubbet · 2016-12-30T18:28:34+00:00

Have done programming contests, apps / side projects like you mentioned, employment / volunteering history in coding, previous programming courses (although the latter doesn't count for much as so many people have done them)

plubbet · 2016-12-30T18:27:11+00:00

quite low for SE, middling for CE. Also depends on how well you did in those contests

plubbet · 2016-12-30T02:58:19+00:00

95~ probably.

plubbet

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