Transfer wants to change major

Colleges and Universities A-Z Emory University
1

<p>I was accepted as a transfer (going to start as as junior this fall) to Emory College of Arts and Sciences as a Political Science major. However, I had a talk that went on and off for weeks with my father, which concluded in me deciding that I should double-major in Political Science and Finance or Accounting, or even Finance or Accouting with a minor in Political Science.</p>

<p>Following this decision I made, I called the office and they transferred me about 7 or 8 times before somebody told me that I HAVE to wait until orientation until I can talk to a counsellor about my situation.</p>

<p>I currently have three other universities I am considering and I'm not sure if I would like to attend Emory if I am unable to change my major to Finance or Accounting -- Is there any way I could finalize whether I could do so before I go to orientation since I live in Texas right now?</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>Did you contact someone at the b-school? Also, you have to make sure you have all the b-school pre reqs</p>

3

<p>No, I keep on getting transferred to another person.</p>

<p>I looked up on that and I have 2 out of the 4 needed prerequisites, so is it possible for me to transfer after the coming fall semester, when the prerequisites are complete? Or would that be too late?</p>

<p>Also, what are the statistics as of now for average GPA and SAT scores for the undergraduate business school? Thanks for your help again!</p>

4

<p>3.5/1370ish, though I’m sure they’ll overlook the SATs of a transfer (as Emory accepted you as a transfer and the B-school isn’t that rigorous anyway. 1370-1380 is actually lower than the overall college). Just do the pre-reqs and then apply for spring. Also, try to take some B-School classes (they’ll allow this knowing that you plan on attending full-time in spring) starting the fall (ones that don’t require the pre-reqs you’re missing) that way you get a head start.</p>

5

<p>Thank you so much for your help, Bernie! I’ll fedex you a cookie. (:</p>

<p>My GPA is 3.7 to 3.75 as of now, so based on that statistic alone, I’m confident in being accepted. However, are there any extra-curricular factors that play into account?</p>

<p>I guess my biggest fear is that I dedicate a large portion of my fall semester to Business School prerequisites and courses, but I don’t get in – it would be a dreaded waste of my time and resources.</p>

6

<p>No, just grades and pre-reqs. They accept like 80%+. You’ll probably get in.</p>

7

<p>If you’re interested in business finance or accounting, you may just want to take some applied mathematics or economics courses to supplement your political science degree and then pursue an MBA after working for a few years. Most top universities don’t even offer finance or accounting degrees to undergraduates and there are plenty of employees at nice firms who majored in a variety of subjects (if you’re in a more technical aspect of business, all they want to see is that you can handle math). Personally, I have my own qualms about getting a business degree without any real work experience; however, I will admit that you will be able to network at Goizueta in ways that you won’t be able to in the college of arts and sciences. Just remember that top MBA programs take everyone from teachers to big time managers. You won’t be screwed if you don’t major in business now or don’t land a nice consulting position straight out of undergrad.</p>

8

<p>Emory has those, but I would rather do what herp said than go to the B-School. As for work, summers are this person’s friends (in fact, B-School may be easy enough so that you can have a job during the year. Polisci may be a different story though. Many times such classes require more writing and prep. if you are to do well or fully engage. Just a lot more work than B-school)</p>

9

<p>3.5 is what you usually need if you an Emory college student to go to the b-school. 3.7 is closer to what external transfer have. Also, there is around 6 or 7pre-reqs, I am sure you took some already.</p>

10

<p>Wow, really? I don’t know why an external transfer would need a 3.7. Normally the math and econ. classes are significantly harder (and yet Emory won’t accept the credit) at other institutions. Yes, even less selective publics. We need not even talk about more selective public schools. We have some very stuck up policies in terms of accepting credit and admissions for transfers that make no sense. Some of it just seems to be Emory pretending to be more rigorous or better than other places by implying that “our course doesn’t fall in line w/your course’s syllabus”. This may work for the sciences, but doesn’t really work for anything else.
They already screwed over one of my friends who was a transfer from Georgia Southern this way as they did not accept her intro. econ. credit. I assured her, it provided an adequate background to go on to the B-school, and to enjoy wasting her time retaking the course at Emory (probably easier than HS econ.).</p>

11

<p>youknowme123, it will be an internal transfer since I was already admitted for fall under College of Arts and Sciences. There are 5 prerequisites, and I have already taken both of the Economics courses (grades are B for micro and A for macro).</p>

<p>If the case, as herpderp2 and bernie12 has said, is that an undergraduate degree does not hold much weight, I think I might be going to Edinburgh instead and keep my politics major. Thank you guys! (:</p>

12

<p>I don’t know if the degree itself holds that much weight. All I know is being in the B-School BBA can lead to some good connections, internships, and jobs that perhaps help you get a head start on getting experience that may qualify you for an MBA or make you a more interesting grad. school candidate. Also, some students start projects on their w/help from the B-School or simply what they’ve learn, so it has some uses. However, a BBA alone, unlike say, a bachelors of science in engineering, is not some automatic ticket to a reasonably/high paying job (technically, neither is this, but it’s more likely).</p>

13

<p>Hey Bernie,</p>

<p>I am also a transfer student for Fall 2011 and I am planning to apply for the B-School in the spring (I am a sophomore but I’ll have Junior standing). You say that admissions is very unselective (80%) but students have a 3.5. So are Emory’s grades really inflated or what? 3.5 Seems pretty high for such a high admit rate.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

14

<p>Emory is grade inflated and the B-school pre-requisites are just easy (or just the latter as I imagine some profs. for B-school pre-reqs don’t curve). For example, many of the economics professors are easy. They also get to take business calculus which is easier than 111/112 (which they are also allowed to take) or 115/116 (the life science series). So, basically, their grades are composed of B-School pre-reqs and Emory GERs (which will be mostly non-science, and even if they included a science, they can choose easier non-major science courses. Nonetheless, even those classes probably end up being harder than the non-science courses they take. This may be where some Bs come from). I can’t really even think of where any of the B grades that make for a 3.5 come from. Perhaps many students are actually choosing harder econ. profs (at the intermediate level maybe) or they must also take a couple of pre-reqs in the B-school itself which curve grades so 65% of the class gets B+ or lower.</p>

15

<p>Well for the fall I am taking Acct 210 and marketing management BUS 340 as an incoming transfer (with a 103 languge and a 309 polisci stats class.) I have a lot of transfer credits from AP and stuff so I don’t really have any pre-reqs to do other than accounting so thats what my counselor told me to do. Do you think I can do well enough in the BUS 340? I would be totally screwed if I didn’t get into the B-school and I have no idea what I would do haha…</p>

16

<p>Yeah, you could do well. Even if they use the B-School grading distribution, like 35-50% of students can receive A grades. Therefore, it shouldn’t be that hard.</p>

17

<p>I wouldn’t say the pre reqs are easier. I took both math 111 and math 119 both were pretty easy but math 111 was way easier. </p>

<p>Economics classes are pretty hard not to get an A if you have any kind of study skills.</p>

<p>The b-school classes on the other hand require more work just because the material is usually more in depth. Generally what separate b-schoolers from non b-schoolers</p>

18

<p>It depends on who you take for 111 I think. Some of them are indeed very easy (I took one who was, he sucked though). Also, I believe 119 goes into more Calc. 2 oriented things.</p>

<p>Are you sure? I would argue that some of those classes are perhaps harder than some of the econ. classes but I question how much harder they are than say econometrics which has been known to yield 60 something averages on exams (plus I think they may have had a workload) or some other classes in the college. Does the b-school have any such classes. Also, various research studies regarding amount of time dedicated to studying/academic work among US undergraduates indicates that out of: business, engineering, science, social science, “letters” (humanities), that business students study the least. This applies to either 2003 or 2006 (I forget). Note that students rated themselves this way. Then the businessweek rankings came out and revealed that Goizueta students apparently did 15.7 hours of work outside of class (that seems low to me as a science major and as a person who has taken several social science courses). Weird enough, this was the high end of schools (as in, it put it in the top 10) and a higher ranked school such as the one at Notre Dame only had 14 or hours. </p>

<p>So while I think there is work associated w/the B-School it is only perhaps above average business majors in the US (about 13 hours), but not the rest of the college (it’s either lower or the same as say the social sciences). Admittedly, the humanities comes close. Humanities majors were, to my surprise, rated closer to science majors than one would expect. That’s probably because they have a significant amount of reading and writing assignments. Also, they may have more courses taught in a non-traditional manner that incur a fairly heavy workload from week to week. Note that the study was emphasizing the declining study/academic dedication of students and that the gaps actually seemed larger than when we studied more. Over time, they appear to have converged closer to the same point (all at lower ends than before). Not only this, but elite/selective research institutions and LACs (these students studied the most as expected) had perhaps only marginally higher study times from others, so I would guess that the comparison across disciplines still applies to elite schools except that at many, the bars are moved a little higher for each one. </p>

<p>The only thing that really got me about the 15.7hr number is the fact that I thought B-School students took 5-6 classes a semester as a standard load. Perhaps the assignments are a bit more straightforward (though somewhat time consuming) than in many of the college classes. For example, I heard that the marketing project last spring was annoying (saw my friends working on it a lot). However, up until then (as in fall semester), I never really saw them stressed. Maybe only a couple of classes push those buttons. The relatively soft grading curve may also contribute (the fact that you are graded on a strict distribution means that you are competing against each other and not a set of standards set by the prof. meaning that everybody in a class they don’t like or feels is difficult can buck the system and do poorly and have those grades distributed, or in another class, people will do extremely well and have good grades distributed), though it sucks when there is a really easy class, with easy exams, meaning you must score very high to get an A (like when it is so easy, that 97=A-). However, whether such a class is that easy is almost out of ones control and the difference between 97 and 100 is probably a careless error or a sudden lapse in memory during the exam and thus doesn’t mean, you should just study a lot more. Even then, selective institutions only average about 17.5hrs a week (among all disciplines I guess, as in averaged together).</p>

19

<p>Well, I just got off the phone with my mother and apparently my father thinks Emory is more of a prestigious university than University of Edinburgh is.</p>

<p>I’m not sure if an undergraduate business degree would get me far since I’m planning on at least a Master’s and a law degree. It seems to be very wasteful of my parents’ money and my time.</p>

<p>Thoughts?</p>

20

<p>I have no idea what University of Edinburgh is just as some/many won’t know what Emory is (I mean, we are an up an elite school that is still up and coming. Luckily, those who matter know about it), and, so I have no idea how that’s relevant. All I know is that Emory does your areas of interests well (I don’t know about comparisons w/elsewhere, I just know it’s darn good)</p>

<p>Anyway, I don’t know. Seriously, what’s the worst that happens? You come to Emory and study something like political science (or international studies), English, history, or philosophy, all areas at which Emory excels? It can’t hurt to come. If anything, just come to Emory and don’t major in business. Emory is good at other things besides business and pre-med despite what everyone hears. In fact, in can be argued that we actually provide a more interesting and perhaps better experience in other non-preprof related studies. If you want to get a masters or law degree eventually, Emory will certainly help you in this arena. You can just take business courses if you want to develop a background in some business area (provided the courses have room for you and you have the pre-reqs), many of my friends have done this. Point is, coming to Emory doesn’t exactly hurt. I don’t see how it would be a waste of time. Whether it’s a waste of time is up to you.</p>