<p>I've always wondered whether it is possible to transfer from one specialized school to another.</p>
<p>For example, university of pennsylvania, like any other schools, is divided into "college of arts&science", "penn engineering", and of course "Wharton"!</p>
<p>how hard is it to 'move' from one school to another after you've been admitted to one of them? will it be as difficult as any other transfer?</p>
<p>additionally, will the students be able to take classes from other branches of the school? (well, this somewhat defeats the purpose of going to a specific schoolin the first place, thus are students limited in taking courses?)</p>
<p>It depends on the school, I think. At Rice where I'll be going, it is easy to switch divisions and take classes at all of them except for their architecture and music schools (there are music classes for nonmajors, but it is difficult to switch from engineering to music, for example). At like UT-Austin, you have to apply as an internal transfer student to change schools, but taking classes aren't prohibited.</p>
<p>It depends on the university. Getting into Wharton after you were at Penn would be just as hard as getting into Wharton from anywhere else. Moving from Arts and Sciences to Engineering would depend on how selective the Engineering Dept is. I have heard of one school that required you to reapply if you changed your engineering major.</p>
<p>If it wasn't like this, applicants would use a "bait and switch" technique.</p>
<p>also it depends on which direction you want to go. For example, at a UC school in CA its easy to xfer from engineering to Letters&Science, almost impossible to go the other way.</p>
<p>As dufus3709 mentioned, it does depend on the school itself, but the trend mikemac mentions is generally true for the UCs. Dufus3709, I think many schools do that technique, so I'm surprised you've only heard about it at one school.</p>