<p>My son wants to be a business major, but may not get accepted to the business school at the school he wants to attend (UMD College Park) as a freshman admit. I'm trying to figure out whether we should encourage him to apply to some schools where he's more likely to be accepted to the business program as a freshman, or if students usually get accepted to their desired majors later. Can anyone provide any insight? My older son was a STEM major, so I feel like I'm starting over... Thanks.</p>
<p>School should post their admit stats. Usually around 50-50 or so</p>
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<p>1) If he is not accepted as a freshmen, there is no guarantee he will be accepted as an internal transfer. If he gets a 4.0 in hard classes his freshmen year, he has a better chance than if he gets 2.0. You are in a better position to asses his capabilities. But, if he is not accepted as an incoming freshmen into the business school, then it probably means he is not a potential 4.0 student.</p>
<p>2) He should apply to other schools, especially if they offer good financial aid. It could end up being cheaper to go to another school. There is a good chance that Harvard is cheaper than UMD (after financial aid), and if he can get into Harvard, he should go there (regardless of whether he gets into UMD business school). But, you will never know if he doesn’t try.</p>
<p>3) A lot of schools, do not accept freshmen in to the Business school. You have to prove yourself in your freshmen year.</p>
<p>4) He can probably take the classes he wants, even if he is not a business major. If he likes Finance, he can probably be a math major and take a lot of finance classes.</p>
<p>Most good biz schools limit classes to non biz majors to a few if any. They are limited by how many students they can handle and that is geared to the enrolled biz students only. They do that to comply with AACSB rules to be an approved program.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone. We will receive no financial aid, so we need to hope for merit if he doesn’t get in to state school. As you know, privates can be cheaper than out of state publics. (my older son is at a private STEM school because he got a lot of merit money - still more than our state, but he worked hard so I was willing to pay the difference). This son has a little over 3.9 weighted and a 2050 SAT score. 1390 for CR/math. So he’s no slouch, but not a shoe-in for merit at many schools he might want to go to. If you have ideas about where he might get merit for business with his stats, I’m all ears. A couple of people made suggestions to a different thread I posted, and I’ll be looking at those schools in addition t doing further research.</p>
<p>My son’s stats were not as high as your son’s so we looked at schools with the freshman rather than junior year admission ( we were looking for engineering). I was not sure he would do what he needed to for a junior year admission. That said, if a student really wants something, he/ she will work for it.</p>
<p>You might take a look at the University of Baltimore. It does not have the reputation of UMCP, but I think there are good opportunities for internships. DD has a classmate who did marketing, had an internship, and was offered a job before she graduated.</p>
<p>Thanks. He will likely apply to UMBC but really doesn’t want to go there. On a positive note, I heard from UMD CP and it sounds like he will be pretty competitive.
Regarding engineering, my older son applied to 4 schools… UMD, Case western, RPI and Georgia Tech. he got in at all of them, but UMDs engineering had the LOWEST admit rate of the bunch, and GT had the highest. I would have guessed the opposite. I hope your son is happy wherever he’s going.</p>
<p>I was not talking about UMBC, but University of Baltimore in the city. Up until a few years ago, it was just upper division, but went to a four-year university six or seven years ago. </p>
<p>Having both of your kids at one school might be nice if your first one is at College Park. My son is thrilled with his school.</p>