Switching from LSA to CoE after acceptance but before arriving on campus?

(Note: I know about the cross-campus transfer procedure - I’m asking a related but different very specific question.)

My son was accepted to LSA last year and is now overseas on a gap year, planning to join the class of 2023 in fall of 2019. When he applied, he was interested in computer science and economics and decided to apply LSA. Now he’s less interested in economics and more interested in operations research, so he wants to switch to engineering and is wondering if it’s possible to just switch his enrollment from LSA to CoE now, i.e., before orientation, so that he can take the engineering placement exams next spring and enter with an engineering advisor, etc.

Has anyone had success in making this switch BEFORE ORIENTATION and without having to go through the cross-campus transfer procedure / waiting until after prereqs are completed? If so, is it best for him to talk to the admissions office or to talk to the engineering school?

In case it’s relevant, he will be entering with AP credit for calculus (5 on the BC test) and macroeconomics (5). He won’t have physics credit but he did get 4s on both parts of that AP test. He also has an 800 on the math level 2 SAT subject test. So he would have been a reasonably strong candidate if he had originally applied for engineering.

Once again, we do know all about how the cross-campus transfer process works and he’ll do that if necessary. But he’d prefer to enter on day 1 as an engineer if that’s possible. We’d love to hear about anyone’s relevant personal experience.

I would email the engineering admissions department. But Unless they changed their rules they won’t do it.