Official UC Berkeley Haas Transfer Thread 2017

Transfer Students UC Transfers
221

@gobearz It’s worth it. Can you do an earlier summer session for some accounting classes?

The professional communications course isn’t the most ground breaking course, but it’s useful. You’ll do it all basically again when you take the required UGBA 100 communications course your first year.

You’ll likely get A’s in both classes. When you start recruiting in the fall, you’ll have a 3.8+ UC Berkeley GPA. A’s typically aren’t easy to get in Haas, so these “freebies” are nice as the last two years the courses in PreCore weren’t curved.

Other benefits are that you meet some professors and faculty and you go into fall semester with 30+ peers you know really well, which will only help you in the classroom, as well as making friends. My PreCore group from last summer still actively talks, hangs out, studies together, etc. You’ll also learn the lay of the land, how things work, etc.

222

Okay, cool, thanks.

So for the other degree requirements like Financial/Managerial Accounting, etc. we would be able to use our major prereq’s from cc to get credit for them, right? And UGBA 100 is the required one that everyone has to take (that we can’t replace with cc Intro to Business course)?

How did you plan out your Haas courses and balance technicals and business courses? I would need to take more accounting courses so I don’t know how did you manage them? And which courses did you take so far that were your favorite as?

And I didn’t finish my breadth, so do you think I should get my breadth out of the way early at a cc?

So many questions, sorry lol

223

Which courses did you take that were your favorite at Haas?*

224

@gobearz It sounds like you have a fundamental misconception about the pre-reqs and degree plan at Haas work.

Your major pre-req fulfill lower division classes. If you were at UC Berkeley as a freshman and sophomore, these are the classes you’d take to get accepted into Haas, much like these were the classes you took to get accepted into Haas as a transfer. When you get to Haas, you have 10 core UGBA courses required to graduate. Courses from community college cannot fulfill these.

You could have taken 15 accounting classes at community college, but you’ll be taking Intro to Financial and Intro to Managerial Accounting again at Haas.

You can see the required core classes, as well as other offered classes, here: https://haas.berkeley.edu/Undergrad/pdf/requirements_for_degree.pdf

And here is a suggested 2-year plan: https://haas.berkeley.edu/Undergrad/pdf/suggested2yearplan.pdf

I completed all my breadth courses before I got to UCB to give me the most flexibility in my scheduling. As such, I haven’t taken courses outside of Haas. I’d absolutely recommend getting all your breadth courses out of the way, but you’d need to speak with your advisor about this before taking any summer courses. I’ve focused on getting my core classes out of the way so I’ve had a wide breadth of classes but haven’t gotten very deep into any on subject in particular.

As a rising senior, I’ve taken thus far:
100 Business Communications
101A Microeconomic Analysis for Business Decisions
101B Macroeconomic Analysis for Business Decisions
102A Introduction to Financial Accounting
105 Leading People
106 Marketing
107 The Social, Political, and Ethical Environment of Business

Next semester I’ll do:
102B Introduction to Managerial Accounting
103 Introduction to Finance

My final semester I’ll do:
104 Analytic Decision Modeling Using Spreadsheets

103 and 104 are the hardest.

If accounting is what you want to do, you want to knock out 102A/B ASAP so then you can jump into all the other accounting courses, which are the UGBA course numbers starting with 12x.

I haven’t found any courses yet that I’ve really, really been excited about. 107 I liked because of the professor. 101A I liked because of the professor.

225

@briank82 Thanks so much for the comprehensive reply. I’ve been stressing a little because I’ve called Haas about academic advising for summer courses and they said they only have advising for fall (around Golden Bear Orientation time). Thanks for the heads up about taking accounting courses beforehand.

226

@gobearz My pleasure. For summer session, UCB has multiple sessions:

A - First Six-Week Session May 22-June 30
B - Ten-Week Session June 5-August 11
C - Eight-Week Session June 19-August 11
D - Second Six-Week Session July 3-August 11
E - Three-Week Session July 17-August 4

For business, the classes are here: http://classes.berkeley.edu/search/site/?f[0]=im_field_term_name%3A583&f[1]=im_field_subject_area%3A103

I’d see what classes specifically would work with PreCore, either earlier/later in the summer, or possibly at the same time but on different days/times.

102A is offered with Tiffany Rasmussen, and she’s great. Easy overall, especially if you’re already really familiar with financial accounting. She has a lot of experience, having been an audit partner at KPMG for quite a few years.

Or, you could try and knock out a breadth course. Or, maybe, see if you can knock some out at your CC.

There’s definitely options, but work on figuring it out ASAP. The network and sense of community you’ll gain from PreCore is definitely work it though, among the other numerous benefits.

227

@briank82 did you have Azhar for 106? I keep
putting off taking it because he has such a bad rating on rate my prof. Im taking 105 this fall with schrok, I think it is.

228

@Ohm888 Azhar is fine. The only issue with his class is that’s he monotone and bit boring, but he knows his stuff. I probably went to only 25% of the lectures because it was boring … I’m pretty sure I bombed the final … and I got a B+.

The class is easy. In lecture, you only do a final and 4 case studies. The rest of the work comes in your discussion with another lecturer (not a GSI).

The only rating I see on RMP is from one person … is that what you’re going off of? Besides being a small sample size, I think the review is mostly unwarranted. He goes out of his way for you to succeed, the final is open notes (you can print every lecture slide deck), etc.

Schroth, for 105? She’s good. Just had her final last night. She’s a good professor but her exams (all multiple choice) are very tricky.

229

@briank82 thx! I saw several reviews. Some might have been elsewhere, ninja? I don’t recall. Yeah, i did see he was monotone. Anyway, good to know.

230

@Ohm888 He also has an accent (Indian?) and can be kind of hard to understand. When he first started teaching though I guess he put a lot of work on his students … but his class was easy. He gives you everything you need to get an A, it just depends on how much you pay attention. I didn’t pay attention … and still got a B+.

231

@briank82 i noticed he won some teaching award so it kind of threw me that he had bad reviews. I know i saw at least a few. Let me ask you - i could have sworn there was a crisis management seminar but i can’t find it anymore. Am I wrong?

232

Hey, Im a Transfer Student who will be attending UCI Paul Merage School of Business in Fall 2017

Major: Business Administration

CCC GPA: 3.91 (applied with 4.0)

I was hoping to get into Haas School of Business as I had all A’s, had work experience, was heavily involved on campus, and did a PR/Marketing Internship during the summer. UCI was my backup and I can’t help but be depressed about my rejection from Berkeley. I prefer UCI’s campus, location, and the academics will be less cut-throat and stressful than Berkeley, however the prestige and value of Haas’s name is unmatched.

I do realize that I must move on and utilize the opportunities that will be available to me, in terms of networking and internships, in Orange County. I am expecting to meet other motivated and innovative business students at Paul Merage considering their extremely low acceptance rate. Although, I am disheartened by the rejection from Cal, I look forward to attending UCI.

233

@SullyK007 I cannot believe that you were not admitted to Berkeley with your GPA, ECs and work. How was your essay? Did you find out why they did not accept you? Did you appeal?

234

Hi all,

Thought I would join the discussion as I was admitted to Haas for Fall 2017 and submitted my SIR last week! It was no easy feat, transferring to Haas has been my goal since entering ccc in the Fall of 2015. I have signed up for the PreCore program and applied for housing in the on-campus apartments at Wada, CB and Martinez (still waiting to hear back). Hopefully, I will see some of you all there! If anyone has ANY questions, I would love to start a conversation. I know how hard it can be to navigate the transfer process and everything that comes with it. Go Bears!

235

What were your stats? Please share thank you! @tadtobar

236

Transfer Student - Community College

completed 4 semesters and 1 summer semester

Major: Business Admin
GPA: 3.93

ECs:
Eagle Scout
Student Government Treasurer
Presidential Honor Roll - 4x
Multiple Academic and Leadership Scholarships - Sp 16’
Business Club President and Founder
Board member on my CC’s philanthropy foundation
CC District Bond dispersal oversight committee board member
Missionary in El Salvador for 6 months
Spanish speaker
Speech and Debate team member
Most awarded debate competitor for the 2015-2016 academic year
I like to code in my free time…

237

Hello everyone,

I made an account with the sole purpose of joining this discussion. I’m an OOS admit to Haas; from a Pennsylvania community college, nonetheless. Any other OOS transfers here? Congrats to those of you who also got in! I SIRed last week in order to reserve a spot in PreCore.

Also, I notice that Haas’ yield hovers around 97%, which is impressive. For those of you who were admitted, is committing to Haas really that easy? As mentioned, I’m from the East Coast, and hope to pursue a career on this side of the country. I know that an overwhelming majority of graduates take job offers in the Bay Area, so my main reservation about coming to Haas is that it might be a challenge getting back East. Money aside, I am also considering Lehigh and Georgetown—both of which only took ~47 of my 66 credits, as compared to 63 at Berkeley.

Visited campus last week, btw. Weather and people are great! Looking forward to getting to know many of you this summer and over the next two years!

238

@asuttt I was under the impression they let in virtually no OOS. So congrats! You must have stellar credentials.

239

Appreciate it, man. My stats are actually on-par or even a bit below those of other applicants from this year’s pool. I consider myself very lucky. UG office at Haas told me I may be the only OOS transfer this year, but I’m hoping someone was fortunate enough to slip through the cracks!

240

hi everyone. i’m a bit late to the party, but i figured i’d post my stats here for those in the future looking back on what happened in 2017. congrats to everyone who got in, and good luck to those applying in 2018 reading this!

My Stats:

Transfer Student - California Community College

Applied To:
UC Santa Cruz (Econ)
UC Santa Barbara (Econ)
UC Davis (Econ)
UC Berkeley (Haas School of Business)

Accepted by:
All of them.

Community College Major: Business Administration
GPA: 3.97
Units Completed: 65

Major Pre-Req:
Completed all, finished my last Haas pre-req in Spring 2017. A few notes that may be of interest: I decided to do Business/Applied Calculus instead of regular (got A’s in both). Also, the only B on my transcript was in Stats. I was a bit worried that getting a B on one of the pre-requisite math courses would be a problem, but apparently not. Also, I completed the Haas 7 course breadth, as well as the American Cultures/History requirements before transferring. I completed the foreign language requirement, only to learn that it isn’t required anymore, oh well lol.

IGETC: completed in Fall of 2016

ECs:
I did virtually zero volunteer work over the past four years, but I have been working full time at a pretty well known financial software company. I’m a re-entry student (over 25) so I’m guessing that might have helped. I actually left the volunteer and community service section totally blank, because i really would have been lying if I said anything. That being said, I’m pretty confident that my resume, certifications, and work experience are what set me apart. To the potential Haas students reading this, I’d say go out there and do whatever you can to get an internship of some kind before you try to transfer.

UC Essays:
I’ll be honest, I wrote all three of the UC essays in like an hour the day they were due, and didn’t even revise or edit them. I was totally honest about my college failures in the past, and why i’m over 25 and still completing my undergrad. When writing the essays just be yourself, but don’t do them at the last minute like I did lol.

Haas Essay:
The prompt was somewhat related to ethics, so I wrote my essay about business ethics, and used examples from both my personal job experience and from well known business cases in which ethics violations have had big impacts on companies. I felt really good about my Haas essay, and I guess they liked it too.

Interview:
I did a skype interview with a Haas alum, which I think went really well. The questions asked were basically the same as you’d expect in a job interview, so if you want to prep I’d say just search for the top 15 most common job interview questions and get ready to answer questions like those.