Transferring from one college to College of Engineering

Hypothetically speaking, is the only difficulty the GPA needed? How hard is it to transfer?

Almost impossible

https://engineering.berkeley.edu/admissions/undergrad-admissions/change-college

@ProfessorPlum168 is it possible to just take courses of engineering and get enough credits for a major in x engineering major without ever being formally accepted to the college?

You can certainly take courses in Engineering (you will undoubtedly have lower priority for registration) and you can certainly go for a minor. But you can’t get an official major unless you’re registered in the school.

@pandawang16 I understand your desire. But did you read the reference posted by ProfessorPlum? here is the quote from there:
“Change of college applicants should note that because most programs in the College of Engineering are heavily subscribed, seats in our courses are reserved for engineering students. It is difficult for non-engineering students to get a seat in many engineering courses. This makes a change of college application even more challenging, as one requirement for admission is completion of the prescribed engineering curriculum. Since availability in these courses for non-engineering students is very limited, it may not be possible to meet the minimum requirements for consideration.”

I’d say totally possible. I’ve done it before and I can share you more experience if you private message me.
Taking courses in engineering and getting ~3.5 GPA would be a solid basis, but I think the more important factor is writing a convincing statement of intent why you want to transfer to CoE explaining why didn’t you apply in the first place.
The courses that typical freshman engineering students would take are the math, physics, R&C, E7, etc. which are not limited to just engineering students. Also considering there are also a number of engineering students who drop out of college of engineering, transferring to engineering is entirely possible.

If attempting to go to EECS, this is not possible. 95% of the time it’s usually kids who attempt to do this - get into an unimpacted major and then try to go to EECS. That’s why they have in place this rule, which is stated at the end of the article -

Effective Fall 2017, the College of Engineering will not accept change of college applications for any of the following: EECS major, EECS/MSE joint major, EECS/NE joint major.

Well yes, if you want to transfer to EECS, then you are out of luck.

Yeah, that’s a common question (the transfer to EECS while in school) asked for both UCB and UCLA and both schools have closed this option. Yes, for other Engineering majors it’s possible to transfer but still very tough.

Those current frosh who now decide that they are interested in EECS or IEOR should consider the CS and ORMS majors in L&S. Although they do have GPA minimums (3.3 and 3.2 respectively) in their prerequisites, they are more realistic to change into.