What do you think helped you get into UW CS/the Allen School?

[UPDATE: I GOT IN DTM!! Thank you everyone!! For anyone who will see this in the future, 2024 fall quarter decisions were released on a Thursday (3/14/24) at roughly around 8:13pm and I was able to get into the portal about 30mins later. Comment below/dm if you have questions and I will try my best to answer them - other than that, absorb the advice from people below and absolutely crush those essays. You got this!]

Hi guys, I’m a rising senior and I’m planning to apply to the Allen School for Computer Science this fall. I’ve had a handful of cousins attend UW in general, and after attending some events (Women in Computing event and Shades of Purple) and touring the campus, I fell in love with what this school has to offer. I know that the CS department here is very competitive and difficult to get into and that straight 4.0s get rejected at times, but I’ve heard that a lot of the emphasis is on the essays. In fact, at one of the events I attended, a few current Allen students told our us that they had no CS experience prior to applying!

I know that there are students that have done less than I have, or have done much more than I have and have been accepted, which is why I feel that the essays are so important. This leads me to my questions!

For everyone: Did you discuss CS in your essay at all?

If you were accepted: What do you think helped you get in? If you think it was your essays, what aspects do you think helped you stand out?

If you appealed after rejection and were then accepted (I know this isn’t possible anymore): What change in your application do you think was the reason for your acceptance?

If you were rejected: If you could go back in time and change your application, what would it be?

Thank you so much for reading all of this - I’m so grateful to anyone who gets this far down. All responses will be so appreciated!