UWaterloo Computer Science Software Engineering option

[wmano]

Hi,

At University of Waterloo they offer Computer science with a software Engineering option. Is the degree from taking this option going to be the same degree as you would get with just going with the Computer Science option they offer or will it be different in any way?

Also for the Software Engineering program at University of Waterloo what is the admission average you need, to get in. I know the cut off, but I would like to know if anyone knows what the average admission average is or whether it is the same as cut off. Also I would like to know how many people are usually accepted for the Software Engineering program at University of Waterloo or going to be for 2010.

[Prabhakar Ragde]

In CS you have a choice of the Bachelor of Computer Science (BCS) or the Bachelor of Mathematics with honours in CS (BMath/CS). The Software Engineering Option is an add-on to the BCS, declared any time before graduation. Basically if you take the ten courses required (many of which count for BCS requirements, so it's not ten extra courses), you can get the option added to your diploma in fine print.

The "average admission average" is naturally higher than the cutoff unless everyone has exactly the cutoff average, which is pretty unlikely. How much higher for SE, I do not know. For the Math Faculty as a whole, it is something like 88 or 89. It's probably similar for SE and CS, though SE now has a lower applicants/accepted ratio than CS (which was not true in the early years of the SE program).

The incoming class of SE students is between 100 and 120 students. They, like every program, accept somewhat more than they expect to allow for students who don't accept offers. The number of incoming students in the various flavours of CS is about 400. I know that the acceptance rate is something above 80% for CS; I don't know what it is for SE.