Second Degree Admissions

<p>Hello All,</p>

<p>I just registered as a member on here and have a few questions about getting accepted at scools to earn a second Bachelor's Degree. </p>

<p>First off, I earned a Bachelor's Degree in 3 1/2 years from a small private school in Business and had a respectable GPA but would like to earn another Bachelor's degree, this time at a larger state university. </p>

<p>Normally, how does it work for people who have earned a Bachelor's Degree but would like to earn another as far as admissions go?</p>

<p>I have heard acceptance would be easy if you have a degree already, but I have also heard that it does not matter.</p>

<p>Can anyone help?</p>

<p>All of the people I know who have earned a second Bachelor’s degree either picked up the extra coursework for that degree at their first college/university (essentially a delayed double major), or went to their home-state public U for the second Bachelor’s after finishing their first degree elsewhere. Contact the university admissions office and the undergraduate advisor in the department that you are interested in for advice.</p>

<p>It is very common for people to change career fields, and more often than not this will require more education. Chances are that your local community college, and your home-state public U have seen cases just like yours before.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

<p>Some of the most competitive colleges do not accept non-traditional applicants looking to obtain a second bachelor’s degree. However, there are a few top-notch programs that cater to prospective students just like you, most notably, Columbia University’s School of General Studies.</p>

<p>Just mentioning it. Otherwise, the local state school probably has a program that could fulfill your academic needs.</p>

<p>If you can afford to pay in full, many non top private schools would be happy to have you. It’s tough to get aid for a second bachelors and some state schools have stopped allowing them as they are so overcrowded.</p>

<p>Thanks for the information. My local state school is the University of Texas. Any more insight?</p>

<p>What would you like to earn a second bachelor’s in? In nearly all cases, it is unnecessary to earn a second bachelor’s degree to swith careers, and can largely be a waste of time and money.</p>

<p>Let’s say that you wanted to be a computer programmer, for example. It would be far more useful for you to take some classes in programming or learn a computer language on your own time than for you to do a second bachelor’s. Or say that you wanted to become a journalist. You could probably do it with just your bachelor’s in business, but it would be far more useful for you to get a master’s in journalism or some kind of writing than a second bachelor’s. In other ways, most of the time what you want to accomplish can be accomplished simply by taking some extra classes or earning a master’s degree, which will be far more useful.</p>

<p>The only time I can say that this IS necessary is certain natural science fields that require a lot of pre-requisites. And even in those cases, it’s not always necessary. If you wanted to be a nurse, for example, you would almost always have to go back to earn a second bachelor’s degree in nursing, because most master’s nursing programs won’t even accept you without a BSN and you can’t be a bachelor’s level nurse without it. However, say you decided you wanted to be an engineer. You could either take the pre-reqs and then apply for a master’s in engineering, or apply for a second bachelor’s; the difference in time and money probably wouldn’t be much in the long run.</p>

<p>I’m looking at the University of Texas for the Geology department, more specifically something in mapping.</p>