Comment by davidbalbert

In our experience, computer science and programming are two different things. Being good at one, doesn't necessarily make you good at the other, but they are certainly complementary (computer scientists will tell you that programming is a tool to do their studies; programmers will tell you that computer science is a tool to help them write better code). We have had students with advanced degrees in CS (M.S., PhD) and students who never studied it before. All are welcome.