Hi, I was accepted into the college of arts & sciences, but I am still undecided and trying to figure out what I want to do. I was wondering if it would be possible to switch into SEAS or the school of nursing before starting in August. Has anyone tried to do this, or do I have to wait a year and apply to transfer schools? If I have to wait a year to transfer into SEAS, would I be able to take engineering classes within the college of arts & science?
You have to ask admissions ASAP. I’d guess you could switch to engineering at this time as long as you had the capabilities (such as a good math score on your SAT). Nursing may be more problematic because it is a smaller program with capacity restrictions. By the way, UVa’s nursing program is direct entry from high school, unlike many other colleges in the SE US.
If a person is undecided between engineering and arts and sciences, they should start in engineering. That is because it will be hard to graduate within 4 years if you later transfer into engineering, vs. you can probably meet the requirements for most arts and science majors in 3 years if you have a year of engineering completed…
SEAS classes, especially within a major, are usually restricted to SEAS students, but you can certainly take some of the other courses a typical first-year in SEAS takes (Intro to Chemistry, Calculus II, Calculus III, Intro to Computer Science, Physics I, Physics II, Ordinary Differential Equations, etcetera) with math courses taken from MATH in the College instead of APMA for SEAS (which I believe are transferable, but you should confirm this with the registrar). You would not be far behind if you took some of the above listed courses and can easily graduate on time in 4 years.
I am not aware of enrollment policies in the Nursing School, but I imagine there are some course requirements you can take in the College that fulfill the Nursing program. Here’s the courses you need for the BS in Nursing: http://www.nursing.virginia.edu/media/BSN_POS_03_15.pdf
As for formally transferring into SEAS or NURS, it generally depends on the enrollment numbers for the Class of 2019 in each school; it is not uncommon to switch, and it’s certainly possible if you act quickly. Switching now would be easier than switching after one year, where there’s a formal, separate application.
Best of luck! If you have any SEAS questions, I can likely answer them or reference someone who can if I cannot. 