I will be applying to Umass Amherst in the fall and have a few questions about the program and how difficult it is to get directly admitted to the business school. I go to a highly competitive public school in New Jersey and have taken 6 honors classes through my first 3 years and will be taking 3 APs and 1 honors class next year. Here are my stats:
1990 sat score (750 M 600 CR 640 W)
3.37 gpa
1360 psat score
What are my chances of getting into the business school directly?
If I am not admitted directly how tough is it to get into the business school if I go in undeclared?
Well, if you only look at the numbers, your stats are actually quite similar to mines, and I was admitted directly into Isenberg (I’m going to be a freshman this year). I had a 3.4 GPA as well as a ~2000 SAT and 30 ACT. However, in High School, I was part of an accelerated program, so every class I took was either an Honors or AP class. I ended up taking 17 Honors and 10 AP classes. On top of that, I was in NHS, had a decent amount of community service, and played 2 sports.
I really don’t want to sound pessimistic or anything, but I don’t think you have that great of a chance of getting into Isenberg directly as a freshman (I would even consider myself lucky that I got in). I think this year’s incoming class for Isenberg’s average GPA was slightly above a 4.0, and I would assume it would only get higher as the years go on. However, that’s not to say that you should apply undecided. On your common app, I would just put business as your first major, because chances are, if you don’t get into Isenberg directly, you’ll get put on the exploratory track and you’ll have a much easier time getting into Isenberg after that (you’re already technically a part of it if you’re on the exploratory track).
If you really do want to do undecided and join Isenberg as an internal transfer, I heard the average GPA for that is a ~3.7 (at least that’s what they told me at NSO when someone asked), which is fairly high for a college GPA.
The only thing is your GPA tbh. I got in directly to isenberg and i’ll be a freshman this year as well as the honors college. I had a 96.6066 GPA on a 100 point scale, a 29 ACT, a lot of music related extracuriculars, and a lot of community service. Your test scores i would say are more than fine it’s just your GPA really. I say you have a shot depending on your extracuriculars, letter of recs, and essay, but maybe not into honors since they usually raise the standards pretty much every year. UMass is getting more and more competitive, it’s quickly shedding that party school reputation.