> You need to test into the major before you even enter campus? As an EECS major of roughly the same period...yes? The Cal engineering majors have been direct

> You need to test into the major before you even enter campus? As an EECS major of roughly the same period...yes? The Cal engineering majors have been direct admit for ages, precisely because demand is always higher than capacity. In our day, the CS path was neglected because most incoming CS kids wanted the EECS guarantee. Once demand rose and the L&S admission advantage obviously outweighed the value of the EECS major guarantee, it was all over. The "backdoor" IEOR major (ORMS) has the same issue and is also going "high demand." That said, the last plan-of-record I have seen involves a "discovery" path that will take a few undeclared L&S majors each year. So today's you would still have a chance. But you would be ineligible for the "discovery" path if you had declared "intended CS" during admission (i.e., were actually rejected from the direct admit path).