Starting during the Winter 22 Capped Major Application cycle, courses must be COMPLETED at the time of the Capped Major Application to be eligible. We are no longer allowing courses to be in progress. Please plan accordingly.

IMPORTANT: Grading Policies (P/NP) for Data Science Major, Minor, and Capped Major Application Requirements Please carefully read the attached letter from the Data Science Department Chairs regarding grading option policies (P/NP) for the Winter 2021 and Spring 2021 Quarters.

IMPORTANT: Capped Major Application Updates:

The Data Science department will allow one screening course taken during the Spring 2020 or 2020-2021 Academic Year to be taken as P/NP. Students who take one of the screening courses as P/NP during one of the above quarters must complete the other two screening courses for a letter grade. As a reminder, screening courses are Math 18/31AH, Math 20C/31BH, and DSC 10.
Winter 2021 Capped Major Application: Only the highest two screening course letter grades will be used to determine a student’s screening course GPA. For students who took all three screening courses for a letter grade, the lowest letter grade will be dropped from the screening course GPA average. For students who took one of the three screening courses for a P grade, both letter grades will be used for the screening course GPA average.

Capped Major Application

UC San Diego undergraduate students who would like to change from another major or undeclared into the Data Science Undergraduate Program may apply to the major via the Capped Major Application. Applications must be submitted on or before the deadline.

Transfer students will be eligible to apply to the Data Science major through the upcoming Capped Major application. We are still in the process of reviewing our eligibility requirements for transfer students, and will provide an update regarding transfer student eligibility as soon as possible. Please note, however, that prospective transfer students are strongly encouraged to meet with their college advisor and a data science advisor to discuss their interest and ability to become a Data Science major.

Students are allotted only two application attempts. Therefore, if you are not admitted during your first attempt, you have one additional opportunity to apply, so long as you still meet eligibility requirements.

The Data Science Capped Major Application can be found on the UC San Diego Capped Major tool here: https://soeapp.ucsd.edu/cappedmajor/DSC

Next Capped Major Application Dates:

WINTER 22:
- Dates: TBD
SPRING 22:
- Dates: TBD

Eligibility Requirements:

Successful completion of 24 units at UC San Diego (to ensure that students are making progress towards their degree).
- 24 units must be must be completed and/or in progress* at the time of the Capped Major application to be eligible.
Successful completion of the screening courses: MATH 20C, MATH 18/20F, and DSC 10.
- Courses must be completed and/or in progress* at the time of the Capped Major application to be eligible.Please note: after the current WI21 cycle, this policy will be changing. Please see the notification at the top of the page.
- Students who pursue the honors versions of MATH 18 and MATH 20C (MATH 31 AH and MATH 31 BH, respectively) will also be eligible for the Capped Major Application.
- Students may not have any outstanding grades for screening courses or any reason (i.e Incompletes, pending Academic Integrity case, etc).
Students who entered UC San Diego as Freshmen must apply by the end of their 6th academic quarter at UC San Diego.
Students with 150+ units at the time of the application will need to submit a quarter by quarter (QxQ) plan for their remaining requirements to be reviewed by the DSC department and their college. QxQ plan must be emailed to dscstudent@ucsd.edu no later than the capped major application deadline.

*Please note: If you are applying while courses are still in progress and you Withdraw or Fail courses needed to be eligible, your application will be denied. This will be considered one of your allowed two application attempts. Double Major Restrictions: Students majoring in the Computer Science and Engineering department are not able to pursue a Data Science double major. Students within another department in the Jacobs School of Engineering and students in the Math-Computer Science major are now eligible to pursue Data Science as a double major.

Selection Process:

Students will be ranked based on their GPA in the screening courses, MATH 20C, MATH 18/20F, and DSC 10. Grades from transfer credit will be used in calculating the GPA for the screening courses.
Students with the same GPA in the screening courses will be ordered by their overall GPA.
Students will be admitted according to their ranking based on the number of available seats. If there are more students at a given rank than the available seats, random selection will be made from among the students at that rank to fill in the remaining seats.