<p>I am inspired by caltanner's thread on his situation at Cal. I see that I'm not the only person with a (crazy?) idea of transferring out of UC Berkeley. </p>
<p>Background: I transferred from a community college in SD to UC Berkeley under sociology. For several reasons, I am not adjusting well to this place and I am very unhappy. I'm a junior currently, and I unfortunately realized now that sociology is not for me.
I really liked the few classes I've taken at Haas, but they won't let me in since I didn't transfer under Business Administration.
I'm more or less set with the prerequisites needed for business, as I did math all the way up to multivariate calculus at my CC.</p>
<p>My main questions are:
1. Should I transfer or just stick it out for another year and a half?
2. If I were to transfer, which schools should I be looking at? (already submitted USC Marshall App)
I don't mind doing an extra year.</p>
<p>Please give me your honest opinions. Does it sound dumb to get out of a highly ranked institution? Does it look bad if I did? Do I even have a chance with such a low GPA?</p>
<p>Would it be awkward/borderline insulting to ask teachers for a letter of recommendation to other schools? </p>
<p>Is it UCB or Sociology that you don’t like? What about switching your major to Economics or Media Studies? I say you stick it out…you can always apply for the MBA program at HAAS later on.</p>
<p>3.3 won’t get you anywhere near the Haas School, but econ is close. Are you able to switch to econ? Or double major?</p>
<p>P.S. 3.9 at Community College to 3.3 at Berkeley is a normal experience. I don’t know if that’s part of your frustration, but realize that Berkeley’s average GPA is 3.27, so you’re right in the middle of an elite cohort.</p>
<p>If you really do decide to leave, then consider University of San Diego. They have an excellent undergrad Business School. The problem – it is private and expensive.</p>
<p>If you want a break from Berkeley but don’t want to give up a Berkeley degree, there is another choice.</p>
<p>You can receive a minor in business by taking summer classes at Villanova University outside of Phila. They have an intensive program each summer that is open to students from other colleges. They have a top 20 undergrad business program with excellent facilities. You can stay on campus. The tuition is only $10K for a semester worth of credit. You can also explore the east coast from there - the campus is right on 2 commuter rail lines that go into Center City Phila and connect to Amtrak.</p>
<p>Part of the problem, Dunn, is Cal (and UCLA) is harder on cc xfers to switch majors at the u. A lot of people, not the OP, have lower stats from cc but are able to get in because they choose less impacted majors. </p>
<p>This is the secret to get in from cc to Cal and UCLA… to choose, say, athro, or biophysics, or classis, or whatever, where teh student can be accepted just on his/her merit, bypassing the surfeit of apps because of the popularity of majors. Some majors like econ have < 10% acceptance rate even from cc, with average xfer having > 3.9 gpas from prior cc or other 4-year.</p>
<p>drax – OK, if I’m reading between the lines correctly, OP has possibly attempted to back-door the admissions process by going in as a non impacted Sociology major, and then hoping to switch to impacted Majors in Haas or Econ, but is not able to, and is frustrated.</p>
<p>I was curious to know what an impacted major meant. From Berkeley’s sociology website: </p>
<p>"Is Sociology an impacted major?</p>
<p>Although the major is consistently growing, we are not impacted. This means there is no competitive admission process in which there is a set limit of students we can accept. If students have taken or are taking the prerequisites, and are in good academic standing, they are admitted to the major."</p>
<p>There are “popular” majors and “impacted” ones.</p>
<p>Popular majors, like soc, will be popular on campus and have large enrollments. Fairly-entirely easy majors…lots of athletes, people who just want a degree.</p>
<p>Impacted ones will be those which the unversity will keep enrollments down, ie, place caps on them, like econ and business and biochem and biology.</p>
<p>Popular majors like soc, don’t need a great deal of resources like labs, etc, to keep them from being so large they become impacted. Can the soc major grow to the point of being impacted? Absolutely, if, say, 1/4 of the undergrads all of a sudden decided they wanted to becom soc majors.</p>
<p>Dunn: Absolutely, that’s the impression I received.</p>
<p>And majors like biophysics are usually underenrolled. </p>
<p>Short of the administration advertising the need for some to major in it…</p>
<p>… and for which the major has extra costs such as labs…</p>
<p>… I’m surprised that more people who want a life-science degree interdisciplined with physical science (similar to biochem), and who want to attend med school or become major researchers, don’t major in it at UCLA or Cal.</p>
<p>Thank you for all the input. I’ll definitely take a closer look at USD. </p>
<p>The thing is I dislike both my major and Cal itself. Not to sound too terrible and angry, but I think the sociology department is filled with people with a strong liberal bias to current event issues. To be honest, sitting in a 400 person lecture hall and being taught by bad GSIs are not what I had in mind when I had my heart set at coming to Berkeley.
Also, the whole school kinda feels broken and old. (With the exception of Haas)</p>
<p>I hear that Cornell is a comparable school to Cal. With such a low GPA, should I even attempt it?</p>
<p>Yes you should. Berkeley is only good for engineering. Other than that, its not that great. This is not me saying, but my girlfriend who graduated Berkeley EECS. Switch out immediately. I recommend Cornell, USC, or Northwestern (Does USC/Northwestern have undergrad business programs?)</p>
<p>Like I said, why not just stick with the program and or college and cross enroll to Haas under their BASE program to get yourself exposed to business courses and would eventually make you marketable. It’s a great program (for those who can afford it) with students coming from the best schools across the US – from Harvard and Yale in the East Coast to Stanford and Pomona in California.</p>
<p>It is a shame that Berkeley has reportedly fallen so far and so fast.</p>
<p>I just read a news article in the Phila. Inquirer that said northeastern colleges are seeing a huge increase this year in applications from students from California. That fact alone explained much of the large increase in numbers of applications.</p>
<p>P.S- In response to a comment above, I think you will find that sociology majors at most colleges tend to be more liberal, in the same way that most business and economics majors tend to be more conservative.</p>
The increases have been far more modest relative to that of the Eastern universities, however. </p>
<p>UCLA’s admit rate was one of its strong points but I believe the Eastern schools will easily catch up to the admit rate soon given the influx in applicants.</p>