<p>S was in accepted to Berkeley. At the time of application, he was flip-flopping between Chemical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. Therefore, when he applied he wrote Chem. Engr. </p>
<p>Now he has decided that he wants to be an EE major. We did not know that at Berkeley that is not possible at this point. He can apply for a transfer next year and they will evaluate his application, but no guarantees.</p>
<p>Seems Berkley is out of contention for us.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is somewhat similar in that you have to apply to transfer between Arts and Sciences (or whatever they call it there) and Engineering, and Computer Science is a whole separate program from either one, which you need to apply for separately. My son didn't apply to Carnegie Mellon, although he had spent most of a summer there and loved the school, because he wasn't sure enough about Computer Science to commit himself. It is a good thing, too, since his academic interests have changed since he was a high school senior.</p>
<p>Thats the catch at UC schools; it can be hard to transfer between impacted majors, and almost impossible to transfer into them from a different college (Letters & Science, etc).</p>
<p>The exact thing you mention happened to someone I know. Applying to a UC (not Berkeley) he knew his career interest was in engineering but didn't know which field. So more or less by chance he put down Chem although he had good enough scores to get accepted into any engineering major. After a year or two in college he discovered his real interest was EE but he didn't have a high enough GPA to xfer into it, since they only take a few students. He was stuck.</p>
<p>My advice to someone applying to the UCs if they aren't sure they want ME or ChemE or something else is put down EE since thats the toughest to get into; its a lot easier to change from that to another engineering branch than the other way around.</p>
<p>To pay out of state prices for the privilege of extreme red tape is something that boggles the mind. The UCs are a hard enough choice for us in staters to endure as we're probably looking at 5 years without a major change!</p>
<p>mikemac....true he had the stats to get in to EE,. Just got an e-mail that he is a semi for alumni scholarships.</p>
<p>I transfered into BioE from letters and Science. It would be considerably harder to transfer to EECS from L&S, but from ChemE I'm not so sure. ChemE and EECS both vie for being the most difficult majors at Berkeley, so doing well in chemE would allow him to transfer into EECS (I know there's a chem/materials major too, that might fulfill some of those interests). </p>
<p>Frankly, I would choose ChemE over EECS, especially at Berkeley. Both are highly regarded and are top of their field for graduate work (undergraduate engineering at Berkeley is pretty top flight as well); however, ChemE has more money (the College of Chemistry has only two majors, one of them being chemE), a better ratio of professors to students, and no weed-out sequence (undoubtedly, all the chemE courses are going to be really hard; however, the EECs students have the CS61 series, pretty much designed to weed out potential L&S computer science majors; there is no equivalent experience for ChemE). </p>
<p>And if your son is at all interested in biotechnology, Berkeley chemEs are heavily recruited in this area.</p>
<p>
[quote]
ChemE has... no weed-out sequence (undoubtedly, all the chemE courses are going to be really hard; however, the EECs students have the CS61 series, pretty much designed to weed out potential L&S computer science majors; there is no equivalent experience for ChemE).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Too bad that I didn't find this thread until just now. I would STRONGLY dispute the assertion that ChemE has no weedout sequence. I would submit that not only are ChemE 140, 141, and 150A all notorious weeder courses, but ChemE also leverages the upper-division Chemistry weedout sequence of Chem112A/B (especially 112B) and Chem120A. You can rest assured that Berkeley ChemE's walk the weeder death-march.</p>
<p>zagat:</p>
<p>the UC's do have plenty of red tape (Housing Services being notorious), but this is not such a situtation. The major is just full. The engineering program accepts a full class from Frosh applicants. Dropout and transfer out spaces (to L&S, for example) are reserved for jucos. It's not much different than some LAC's; everyone can't be an Econ major. Or, applying to Cornell's Engineering, ILR or Hotel school from their liberal arts college.</p>
<p>Yes, in Simba's situation it's only ONE student, with excellent credentials. However, given the nature of the app pool to Berkeley (many budding scientists in this state), everyone of those kids would apply to L&S (less competition) if they thought they could transfer into EECS (or Chem E) once they arrived on campus.</p>
<p>However, your point about economics is spot-on. For OOS tuition ($39k) and only the a possibility of the major the student wants......</p>
<p>Some engineering schools do not care about your intended major in engineering; they make you pick after 2nd or third semester, a much wiser policy. Cornell and Michigan adhere to this. I dont know which others do.</p>
<p>UC does not automatically equate 5-year. My nephew is really enjoyed it there and it looks like he could even graduate sooner than 4. He is taking more than full load and still getting good grades.</p>