Smeal College of Business Undergrad

Colleges and Universities A-Z Penn State
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<p>I'm a rising senior looking at colleges and I'm very interested in Penn State and looking to major in business. </p>

<p>I think I will end up majoring in either finance or accounting, but I'm not completely sure. </p>

<p>I saw on the PSU website that each major has "entrance to major requirements." In order to major in finance, it says you need to attain a 3.5 GPA in your first two years. </p>

<p>A 3.5 is not easy at all to achieve especially in college. My question is: what are you supposed to do if you cannot get a 3.5? Is there any other way to get into that major? I really want to major in finance, but I don't want to have to transfer to another school if I'm a junior at PSU and not allowed to major in what I want.</p>

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<p>The control the Finance Major pretty strictly. The most frequent solution to this for kids who don’t get into Finance is to major in Economics. Technically its a liberal arts major, but they are pretty similar. One of my roommates Majored in Marketing and ended up a financial analyst of Credit Swiss (not spelled right…fyi). Anyway, I can tell you that getting a job after college in a specific field has more to do with who you know, than what your diploma says. If you can get an internship with as specific company while still in school, it will greatly increase your chances of working for that company.</p>

<p>Network your tail off and you’ll be fine.</p>

3

<p>AH5050 you raise an important question here and you are smart to be looking ahead! I think that controlled majors are an issue mainly at large public universities like Penn State where there are so many students that they have to come up with these controls. Not to say that you shouldn’t apply to Penn State, but you might want to look into some smaller private schools that could offer you a guaranteed finance major. </p>

<p>Maybe look into Drexel LeBow college of business?</p>

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<p>Thanks. The problem is that I really want to go to a school on the larger side (doesn’t have to be 38,000 like PSU) with great sports and business, but it seems like all the larger schools have GPA requirements attached to their business majors.</p>

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<p>Drexel is not exactly small with about 14,000 students. Drexel bball is pretty good!</p>

<p>You might also look into U Delaware. Here is a link to their major requirements. They don’t seem to have a minimum GPA. This link states that 90% of those applying to the finance major are acccepted and the average GPA is 2.88 <a href=“http://www.lerner.udel.edu/sites/default/files//imce/pdf/2012-Interested%20in%20changing%20majors.pdf[/url]”>http://www.lerner.udel.edu/sites/default/files//imce/pdf/2012-Interested%20in%20changing%20majors.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>UD is a large but not huge school with about 16,000. It has a lot of school spirit and its Football team, while not in the same league as Penn State, does very well inn its division [Football</a> - BlueHens.com - Delaware Athletics](<a href=“http://www.bluehens.com/teams/football/]Football”>http://www.bluehens.com/teams/football/)</p>

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<p>AH5050, if you can get into and stay into Penn State’s Finance Program I would definitely go that route. There are so many networking opportunities at this university. We have the LARGEST alumni base in the nation. The program is very competitive but entirely worth it. Look up the Nittany Lion Fund and see if that sparks your interest.</p>

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<p>Brown Lion- I agree Penn State has a great program but the OP has pointed out that there are no guarantees that one will be accepted into the finance major, which is strictly controlled and requires a minimum GPA. They will accept only the best 300 students.</p>

<p><a href=“http://dus.psu.edu/updates/numbr620.htm[/url]”>http://dus.psu.edu/updates/numbr620.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>I would love to major in finance at PSU, but I’m not sure it’s worth the risk of not pulling that GPA by my junior year. If I don’t get in, I’m not sure what else I would do.</p>