<p>So here's the deal</p>
<p>I applied to berkeley as an Econ major before I decided that I actually wanted to do pure math. Unknown to me at the time, you cannot change your application major once you've applied to it.</p>
<p>Now the question, if I were to get into Berkeley, could I change my major once accepted or would I be locked in?</p>
<p>I've heard conflicting stories on both sides.</p>
<p>I think you can change majors, since Cal accepts by division so you’re not locked in as a ___ major. You’ll be admitted to the College of L&S and at CalSO you can declare your major. Cal students, correct me if I’m wrong. But I think it goes something like that.
good luck =)</p>
<p>I had a boyfriend who transferred to Cal as a philosophy major; he’s graduating in May as a history major. I know you can change your major within L&S pretty easily. The only problems my ex ran into were just trying to get upper level history classes before he was a declared history major. All he had to do was fill out some forms though and he was set. Just talk to an adviser in your preferred major as soon as you get there and you should be fine.</p>
<p>or get accepted into UCB first.</p>
<p>Well I need to know if it’s even worth considering, as I will not consider it if I’m stuck econ.</p>
<p>Yes if you have math prereqs done. Once you’re in the L&S department it should be easy to transfer majors as redheadx said.</p>
<p>Yup, you can definitely switch majors! :). Best of luck!</p>
<p>I saw several threads in past years of UCLA and UCB admits being able to easily switch majors with in L&S. Engineering, specialty and professional schools, however, are certainly another story!</p>
<p>Plus JetLogic, Berkeley needs more math (pure, especially) majors, and less (I imagine) economics majors (that think it’s the same thing as majoring in business).</p>
<p>At UCB, economics is an impacted or capped major. Here is [information</a> for transfer students](<a href=“http://emlab.berkeley.edu/econ/ugrad/prospect_transfer.shtml]information”>Incoming Transfer Students | Department of Economics).</p>
<p>On the other hand, math (pure or applied) is not capped and should be easy to declare when completing the prerequisites. Here is [information</a> of the math majors](<a href=“http://math.berkeley.edu/undergraduate_major.html]information”>http://math.berkeley.edu/undergraduate_major.html).</p>
<p>As the pure math major includes only 8 upper division math courses (you will probably take about 16 total courses in the 4 semesters of your junior and senior years), you could add some courses in an area of application (e.g. economics, statistics, computer science, etc.; see the applied math suggested lists) to a pure math major to improve your employability after graduation if you do not go to graduate school in math.</p>