Hi everyone, I hope I’m not posting in the wrong thread. I have a few questions about the UC admit process.
I am applying as a freshman applicant (for the fall quarter of 2017), and am considering majors like Pre-Econ with Accounting emphasis or Business Admin/other business majors. However, I don’t know if I’ll actually like these majors, thus am considering applying Undeclared.
I know UCs require students to declare a major their sophomore year, so my questions are: Will I still be able to declare/get into an impacted business major my sophomore year?
Will I be worse off than those who apply as, say, Economics/Business majors going in?
Do UCs “admit by major”?
I hope someone sees this thread. Thanks in advance! 
Some UC’s admit by major (usually Engineering/STEM). Some UC’s admit by College for example: College of Letters and Sciences or College of Environmental Science and Agriculture. Still others admit into the University first and then into the major. You can go in as Undeclared but you need to check each UC’s website of the difficulty of switching into your choice major later. Some impacted/capped programs are very hard to change into later and will require excellent grades in the pre-req courses.
If you are leaning toward Econ/Business, then apply with that major. You will taking several GE and major pre-req courses your first year, so can get an idea of the major will be something you want pursue.
Thanks for the quick reply Gumbymom.
So, since I am not going into Engineering/STEM, the major I apply as won’t impact my admissions chances?
I just checked the UC’s Procedures for Freshman Admissions, and you are right, it seems that outside of engineering/STEM, UCs do not admit by major. But I am a bit hard-pressed to believe that applying as an Econ/Business major grants the same chances of admission as applying Undeclared does…
Also, is it correct to say that all freshmen take the same courses (outside of those applying to engineering/STEM)?
Not all Freshman take the same courses. You will have General Education requirements for any major you select. Some of your major prep courses can overlap with your GE’s so there will be flexibility in these courses. At the UC’s there are numerous ways to fulfill the GE’s so no two Freshman will have the exact same schedule.
For UCSD, Econ is a capped/impacted major so if you apply, select a non-capped major as an alternate.
All majors in the Department of Economics are capped.
Students admitted to UCSD as freshmen wishing to declare a major in the Department of Economics must meet these two criteria:
“C” grade average across Econ 1 and Econ 3
"C-"grade average across Math 20ABC or "B-"grade average across Math 10ABC
Beginning FA17 entry will require a 2.5 grade average in Econ 1 and Econ 3, rather than the current “C” grade average (2.0).
These criteria are designed to ensure adequate preparation for the challenging upper-division courses that follow.
For UCSB, you are admitted as a Pre-Econ major.
In order to qualify for admission into the Economics major, students must complete Economics 1, 2, and 10A with a UC grade-point average of 2.85 or above. No grade lower than a C in pre-major courses will be accepted. In addition, students must complete PSTAT 109 or 120A, Math 3A-B or 34A-B, and Writing 105AA-ZZ or 107AA-ZZ or 109AA- ZZ with a grade of “C” or higher; the grades in these courses will not be used in computing the pre-major GPA but will apply to the overall major GPA.
Like I stated, you need to do some research on to see the difficulty of switching majors later if you go in as Undeclared.