<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>I've recently been accepted as a transfer to Columbia SEAS from Cornell Eng. Because my current college required 2 eng. major courses to be completed by the end of this yr in order to be admitted into a specific field, I'm not sure if the credits from these two classes could actually transfer to SEAS (since most SEAS students don't actually start major courses until 3rd yr). And the person in charge of transfer credits will become available only later next wk. If anybody knows anything about this, your help will be highly appreciated. Thanks.</p>
<p>First off, there's two different things: 1) getting placement out of a requirement, 2) getting the transfer credits. What do you really want -- 1, 2 or both? I don't know how transfer stuff works, but I'd guess that they'll likely not make you repeat a class that you already took. I have no idea how credits work for transfers.</p>
<p>hey nancy, the transfer credit eval. was in the big folder we got in the mail.</p>
<p>and sorry to divert the focus of this thread, but when is the latest one can transfer from SEAS to CC? end of sophomore year?</p>
<p>Columbia2002,</p>
<p>what i meant to say was I definitely do not want to repeat an engineering major course that I've already taken at Cornell. However, some classes, such as p-chem does not exist in Columbia SEAS. I don't know if a comparable class at CU SEAS, chemE thermo I, would actually match p-chem II (thermo). But it'd be really annoying to have to repeat something i already know.</p>
<p>p reepa,
I still haven't got a chance to pick up my acceptance package yet since I'm still taking finals now. But I'm not sure if TCE actually specifies which engineering major courses are accepted by SEAS.</p>
<p>i'm pretty sure that chemistry guys I knew at columbia, including one i lived with, had to take p-chem. one was a TA for it.</p>
<p>you'll need to come in and meet with the department head or the academic advisor for the department, and haggle over this stuff. pretty much every transfer has to. Ask WindowShopping, he's gone through this transfer process twice now. Tell them that you'd like to accept their offer, but can't do it if it means that everything you've done in college up to now is wasted - you can't and won't repeat a number of classes.</p>
<p>they can't and won't budge on the nontechnical requirements (the core), but department-specific and major-specific stuff is negotiable.</p>
<p>Denzera,</p>
<p>Firstly, ChemE is different from chemistry, and p-chem is not required for SEAS chemEs.
Thanks for your info, but I think the admission deposit might be due before transfer credits are evaluated. So I don't know if I'd be able to get a chance to negotiate with the department before the deadline.</p>
<p>Very happy to hear of your impending transfer.
Columbia seems like a better fit with you.
Congratulations.</p>
<p>Nancy,</p>
<p>if you know all that, then you know better than I do. But if i've learned one thing from the business world in the last 12 months, it's that negotiation is the basis to gaining anything, and that most of humanity shies away from negotiation because it's difficult and stressful. those who are willing to go through with it - and not look for excuses not to - reap the benefits.</p>
<p>best of luck in your decision.</p>
<p>
[quote]
what i meant to say was I definitely do not want to repeat an engineering major course that I've already taken at Cornell. However, some classes, such as p-chem does not exist in Columbia SEAS. I don't know if a comparable class at CU SEAS, chemE thermo I, would actually match p-chem II (thermo). But it'd be really annoying to have to repeat something i already know.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>P-Chem exists at Columbia -- it's in the Chemistry department. I'm not sure if it's a ChemE requirement or not, but if it doesn't it would at least count as a technical elective. Thermodynamics and physical chemistry aren't that much alike, either.</p>
<p>So you're worried about not wasting your time taking stuff you know? Columbia isn't going to want you to repeat stuff you know. You're coming from Cornell, not some chop shop where they're going to be skeptical that you learned anything at all.</p>
<p>I don't think it's a "negotiation" as Denzera put it. It's just a matter of sitting down with the departmental adviser and figuring out where you should be. If you want to have that discussion before you accept Columbia, that might be a good idea. Either call the department directly or call the admissions department and see if they can put you in touch with someone. A departmental adviser should be able to tell you where you'd fit in.</p>
<p>It should be a negotiation, though. They want you to attend the school, you have some leverage. If push comes to shove, no departmental advisor wants to get a call from the admissions office asking why he was a stickler over whether he could count course X for requirement Y, and as a result they lost a promising candidate. They want you. Don't retake a dozen classes and be a doormat and do hundreds upon hundreds of extra hours of work just because you're not willing to demand that the guy meet you halfway. you've earned some respect for doing so well at a challenging school for several years, so be willing to stick up for yourself.</p>
<p>can you tell I have a B-school mentality? :)</p>
<p>(BTW - I consider it unlikely that it would come to any of this... my experience with department heads, as opposed to freshman/sophomore year advisors, is that they're flexible and friendly and willing to justify themselves at length. but you can never be too prepared.)</p>
<p>Haha, yep. But negotiation implies 2 sides, and as bureaucratic as Columbia is, I don't think they're going to be insisting that OP repeats material that he learned at Cornell. I just don't think the process needs to be adversarial until they do start pushing back.</p>