Transferring From Business to Arts and Science

@Hanna, I am a transfer applicant for the fall of 2016 currently studying at a top 50 US News 4 year university. I 've applied to top US universities and am transferring primarily because of family-related reasons. I am a finance major but only 5/20 courses I’ve taken are business related (Junior transfer). Does my major hurt my chances of transferring to an Arts and Science major (Economics) considering some of these universities don’t have an undergrad business school? I also read your comment a while back about Accounting being a bad choice of major for transfer.

Doubtful that would be an issue for admission. The question is how they will evaluate/equate classes you’ve taken with those available in their own catalog. You may have to take some additional classes.

It should not have a negative impact. For any transfer student your classes would have to be evaluated by the incoming school.

I am an accountant and don’t know why it would be a bad choice of a major to transfer into in general – but if you are going to be a junior and haven’t taken intro to accounting yet, then it would be a hard major to do even at your current school as those intro classes are generally required before you can start to take upper level coursework in accounting.

Fact is it is hard to predict what classes may pose an issue when you transfer colleges. When I transferred many years ago (after freshman year) I found that econ became an area of problem for me as the intro classes in my first college did not cover nearly as much ground as they did in the school I transferred into and that made an upper level class banking/finance class that was econ based very very difficult for me.

bump @Hanna

Thanks for the reply others!