I had a nice discussion today with the Bing admissions dept. I happened to get a counselor that was quite upfront and honest. I explained to her that my son was still in high school and when the time came to apply, he would take his chances and just shoot for the SOM for better or for worse. I told her how my son really wanted to give accounting a shot, and to transfer from within the university was not easy. At hte end of the day I basically told her it was not worth the stress to try and get a 3.5 or higher and get shot down it my son did not attain that goal. Then what? Transfer? Really? Just to stressful.
Bottom line is that the admissions counselor basically agreed!! She said that although there are students that definitely transfer from within the university, it is difficult. In fact, 3.5 may not cut it. You may need a 3.7 or so. Good luck with that one.
That said, she basically confirmed my belief that it is better to just try and get in directly and if not, heck, it was not meant to be. Dont get me wrong, there are some students that can get a 3.9 in Harpur and transfer without a glitch, but to me, it is just not worth the stress and anxiety.
I also asked the counselor for averages to get directly into the SOM. She told me a 95 gpa and the old sat at around 1330 which equates to a 30 act score. Not easy to do, but not unbelievable. Now, it depends on the year. There may be some years where these stats are not good enough for Harpur. There are other years where it may be fine. Again, these are averages. Obvously some students get 1500 sat scores and 98 averages and some students get in with a 28 act score and a 92 gpa. I am sure there are alot of other factors such as essays, extracurricular activities etc.
I was happy because I never really had a handle on what it takes to get in directly to the SOM. Now, at least I have a guideline.