1. certificate is not a major; it has only 4 courses. you retain whatever major you have. so it's an orange-apple comparison when one tries to compare it with other undergrad biz programs. however, one can argue it is really a 11 or 12-course program if the pre-reqs are counted.
2. the pre-requisites for certificate are significantly more stringent and quantitative than any other undergrad biz programs (pretty much all others require only a semester of calculus).
3. the four courses are very intense. your first course, finanical economics, is two quarter MBA finance courses squeezed into one (it's available to MBA students as Turbo Finance)!!
Turbo Finance, Finance Department this is why they give preference to those who finished the honors sequence of the pre-reqs; the idea is if they can finish the honors sequence with good grades, they can probably handle this.