Application Evaluation

Each year, 120 students are admitted into the Cognitive Systems Program: 60 B.A. students, and 60 B.Sc. students. Because there are a limited number of seats available in the Cognitive Systems Program each year, satisfying the minimum prerequisites for application does not guarantee admission into the program.  

Eligible students will be admitted to the program only until limited seats are filled, with GPA being applied to determine the order of priority.   Selection for admission to the program is based on the student’s calculated average in all courses for which they have been awarded a percentage grade by UBC (this includes failed courses, and both UBC-V and UBC-O courses). Courses taken on Cr/D/Fail basis do not count towards this calculation. 

A maximum of 12 credits will be excluded in this evaluation, provided that: 

1. the exclusion increases the student’s average, 
2. the excluded credits do not come from courses taken in COGS, CPSC, LING, PHIL, PSYC, and STAT, and 
3. the grade point average, after these exclusions, is still based on at least 27 credits of coursework. 

A note to prospective students who have recently transferred to UBC from a different institution: if your transfer credits are on record with UBC, but you do not have 27 percentage-grade credits on record, your UBC admission average will be applied as the percentage for any remaining credits required for the calculation.

Transferring into COGS

In addition to the 120 new seats in the program each year, a handful of additional seats may become available if current students exit the program during the academic cycle preceding the admission cycle. Due to slight differences in Faculty-level regulations for declaring a major, switching from another program into COGS is handled differently depending on whether you are an Arts student or a Science student. 

• For B.A. admissions, additional seats made available due to transfers out of the program are added to the total number of seats available in the program during the next admissions cycle. All students (whether transferring from another program or declaring a major for the first time) will be evaluated on the same basis to potentially be granted one of these seats. For example, if 4 Arts students exit Cognitive Systems over the course of the year, 64 seats in COGS will be available to Arts students in general the following year, regardless of which stream they hope to enter, and regardless of whether they are declaring a major for the first time or attempting to transfer from a different program.
• For B.Sc. admissions, the number of seats available for students transferring into the program is directly dependent upon the number of B.Sc. students who have exited the program since the previous intake cycle. This number is typically small. For example, if 4 students in the B.Sc. Cognition and Brain stream of Cognitive Systems exit the program over the course of the year, 4 seats will be available for Science students transferring from another program into the B.Sc. Cognition and Brain stream of COGS.
  • Please note: applications to transfer into the B.Sc. Cognition and Brain stream of COGS are processed by the Cognitive Systems Program. Applications to transfer into the B.Sc. Computational Intelligence and Design stream of COGS are processed by the Computer Science Department. For details regarding application evaluation for this specialization, please contact Computer Science.

Pilot: New Admission Process for B.A. Students  

For the 2025 admission cycle (accepting applications February – May 15th, 2025, for September 2025 intake into the program), the Cognitive Systems Program is piloting a new admission process.  Most students will still be admitted based on cumulative average (with a 12-credit exclusion applied), but approximately 20% of available seats will be allocated based on a combination of factors, including grades and supplemental materials. In the first instance this new process will be piloted only for the B.A. streams of the program.  If the pilot is successful then we hope to implement a similar change for admission to the B.Sc. stream, but we don’t yet know when (or if) this will happen. 

B.A. applicants who anticipate they will have a cumulative average (not term or year average) below 80% (or equivalent if transferring to UBC) are advised to submit supplemental materials with their application. There will be optional sections within the application form that enable you to submit a 1–2-page resume/CV (to include details such as education history, work experience, internships, volunteering, skills, interests, etc.), and a 500-word personal statement answering one of the following two prompts:

1. Describe a particular experience you have had that will contribute to your success as a student in the Cognitive Systems Program.
   
2. Briefly describe an existing system, explain how you think it could be improved, and specify one initial step that you could take towards that improvement. 

Please do not reach out to COGS Advising requesting general assistance or advice to complete your personal statement.  Each student is responsible for composing their own statement.