<p>I’m in a position where I can’t switch to econ, as for some reason they only accept transfers who apply in their first two months at Cal. In the beginning of my first semester, that thought hadn’t quite crossed my mind. </p>
<p>Sorry about the mixup of words in the sentence regarding lectures being taught by GSIs. (Although I have seen a GSI teach for a week when the professor was at some conference) GSIs teach 40-50 person discussions. </p>
<p>The point I was getting at is that it is difficult to get any help from the professors themselves. They generally refer questions and problems understanding concepts to GSIs. I’m not looking for the level of attention people get at a liberal arts college, but being asked to make an appointment and some professors actually having no office hours is a bit weird to me.</p>
<p>Why is > application numbers so important to UC schools, except for the bump-up of non-residents?</p>
<p>As you see, Cal receives a lesser amount of applicants than SD and UCLA. What this means is there is probably some heavier counselor interaction to prevent more ‘chaff’ applicants from applying at Cal, in addition to those who feel that UCLA is a better fit, say, socially. Throw in geography as UCB would.</p>
<p>More applicants in general doesn’t necessarily -> more qualified prospective students.</p>
<p>I’d say, ~ 20-25% of applicants to UCLA are slam-dunk denials, same with Cal; students whom I wonder got through the pre-qual standards, even the index, to apply. And it’s not all that relevant to say USN’s rankings because for its selectivity index, admissions rate is weighted significantly less than t-10% hs and SAT.</p>
<p>(And, though, I didn’t read your PM about the other thread, yet, I hear what you’re saying. I could have done a better job of weighing classes, say, 4.25 units/class for an English major in his or her quest to graduate at four years (with some added APs). But yours was a tighter argument, with less room for error… but we’re cool. English majors have a set of weed out class of 10 series classes - 3 classes, one year, methinks, I believe with lots and lots of work outside of class. They are definitely 5 unit courses.)</p>
<p>But here’s the thinking about switching majors at Cal from 2-year and other 4 year colleges:</p>
<p>1.) Most of the xfers to UC are mature students just about ready to step into their majors. So there’s action preventing an xfer student from switching because you’re later into your undergrad experience. One can xfer in after a short stint at cc if you were admissible from hs. I’m not exactly sure if this means a letter of acceptance to the specific UC to which you were applying or to UC in general, the former, I’d imagine.</p>
<p>2) The competition from cc to Cal is growing as at all UC campuses. At Cal, though the school doesn’t report this, i’m sure the econ major took only 3.85-3.9’s and > from cc. So you see the reason why Cal would be so restrictive in movement from major to major because some are more restrictive to entry than others. Otherwise you’d see someone applying to Cal as a history major and later declare as engineering.</p>
<p>Your undergrad experience will get better as you get past the larger intro classes, so you might want to stick, and you should be just about done with the lower divisions shouldn’t you? Anyway, Cal will get you into a great b-school later on.</p>
<p>I think an excellent school for you would have been Claremont McKenna. It’s well endowed, relatively conservative, would offer far more personal attention, and is strong in social science fields such as economics, government and IR. But I doubt you could transfer into senior year. Perhaps you could start as a junior, if your GPA is good enough and money is not a problem (which it might be, because it’s expensive and aid is tight for transfers at many schools).</p>
<p>Transferring anywhere as a senior will be tough. In my opinion you should stick it out at Berkeley. Focus on improving your experience there and on planning for what comes next (job or graduate school). Try to get some good internship or research experience (Berkeley and the Bay area should be great for both). Focus on the positive and throw yourself into your work.</p>
<p>I’d stick it out. You don’t need a degree from Haas to go into business. Plenty of sociology majors wind up with great careers in business–maybe not more technical areas like accounting, but there are plenty of jobs that love soc majors. </p>
<p>Just FYI, many of the organizational behavior professors at Haas have PhD’s in sociology, and for example the new dean of the GW business school is a Berkeley soc PhD. There are lots of ways sociology can be useful in business.</p>