My daughter is currently enrolled at Berkeley for Fall 2019 as an Econ/Pre Business major. She was thrilled at first.
However, as we peel the layers of the onion back on Berkeley’s Haas Program, we have discovered some major complications. Only 30- 40 percent of the kids who are apply in their Junior year actually get into Haas. You also have to develop a killer resume, write a killer essay, and interview. It’s like she reliving the dog eat dog college application process AGAIN!
Our fear is, if she experiences academic blips in her first 2 years, like illness, bad teachers, etc, she could be limited to declaring non impacted majors like Native American Culture studies or Anthropology. Those are fine majors, but do not support her career goals in the least.
Has anyone had experience with these issues with HASS or Berkeley - are my fears unfounded? We are staying on NYU Stern waitlist - and honestly, even though it is crazy expensive, spending her first 2 years in a pure learning environment with a " one and done" application process is sounding really good ( assuming she’s lucky enough to get an offer)
There’s nothing wrong with simply staying in Economics if things don’t work out with Haas - Berkeley is one of the top 5 schools in the country for Economics.
No doubt its a great program, but after reviewing all the upper level Econ classes, they are all math and statistics and she wants a creative take on business - marketing, branding, media and promotion. SShe has considered changing into mass communications and media studies, but even that is highly competitive and impacted. She’s had a successful film and media business for 3 years and thats her passion.
@wondering2233, have you spoken with an academic adviser about your concerns? I know they were available when my D did the overnight program a few weeks ago.
@wondering2233 I would share your concerns: if your daughter is interested to pursue “marketing, branding, media and promotion” type business programs at college, she would be better off as pre-admit at a well-known undergraduate business program. The Econ route might not be for her, in case admission to Haas should not come through and it might, at that stage, become difficult to transfer. Did your daughter have other business school direct/pre-admit options she possibly could reactivate?
So far, we have just watched all the admitted student videos for parents on navigating the colleges and read a lot of literature. I have been waiting for finals to be over to begin contacting the advisors directly - I am sure they are overloaded right now.
It appears that a lot of students are hired for marketing, promotions and branding jobs from the mass communications and media studies major - however, even that requires a 3.2 average at the end of her sophomore year and it is also heavily impacted. Why would Berklely admit 50 - 70 percent more students than can be successfully admitted to the major of their choice - it seems like a shell game!
Just to give a small sense of comfort, of those 60~70% who are rejected, these include folks who didn’t meet the minimum GPA or the required courses but applied anyway.
@UpMagic - It would give me comfort, if the required classes for any given major were always available for the students who needed them or if the deflated grading system wasn’t in place - An A- is a 3.7, not a 4.0 and a B- is a 2.7 not a 3.0 and so on. It seems very overwhelming at the moment.
@wondering2233 My cousin just completed his first year at NYU Stern Business School. He was a very good student at high school (Mostly A’s with a couple of B’s). He is struggling at Stern. He has a bunch of B- and some C’s. There is no guarantee your daughter will do well in any school she attends. She should stick with her initial decision and stay at Berkeley. Just imagine what would happen if you would second guess every major decision you make?
Yes, but at least he’s in Stern - he’s admitted from the very beginning. And he’ll stay there until he decides to leave or graduate. She expects it to be tough, but only about 30 percent of kids Berkeley admits as pre-business majors even get into Hass their junior year - the other 70 percent are scrambling to find another major. No student is admitted directly into HAAS.
The economics major’s upper division requirements are 100A or 101A, 100B or 101B, 140 or 141, and five electives. Note that the required courses do use math and statistics, and are typical requirements for economics majors (and the business major has required courses similar to 100A and 100B), but less math courses can be chosen for the electives: https://www.econ.berkeley.edu/undergrad/current/major-requirements .
However, the marketing and branding courses in UGBA (106, 160-169) do not have obvious analogs in other departments that can be taken as electives, unlike some other business courses (e.g. UGBA 105 and Sociology 116, or UGBA 103 and Economics 136).
No, your fears are not unfounded. It happens a lot. I dislike schools that do not allow easy transfer among departments. One of mine has been burned that way.
@cptofthehouse Yep, I’m afraid she fell victim to the current group think that is so prevelant that if is a school is difficult to get into - it’s must be perfect.
It’s not the only such program. My one kid got into a top school but had to apply and audition into the program he wanted the next year. He didn’t want to take the chance of not getting in there and chose a school where he was a direct admit. It was a good thing too because he did horribly in college, just on the brink of flunking out. Lost his scholarship. But that he was in the only program he wanted to do was instrumental in him getting through.
My other kid was turned down for a program that was described as an easy transfer until you researched it carefully which we did not do.
FWIW, it’s also pretty difficult to get into Ross at UMich, so Cal isn’t alone. Ross does admit 100 inter-college transfers each year though, which isn’t alot.
Lets put it this way 60-70% of the UCB students who are currently attending UCB (and are most likely very good students since they were admitted to UCB) and want to transfer to Haas will NOT get in. This is a bad program, and hoping you can get into Haas is a bad idea, better to attend a school were you can be in the program that you actually want to study. Personally I would have her go to UCB for one year and barring a 4.0 GPA transfer to a school with a business school she can attend.
The thing is, it often doesn’t turn out as expected. Most kids change their majors. Multiple times. Engineering, premed lose half their students before graduation. Look at how long it takes for the average student to finish college.
Absolutely, there are going to be issues. OP is smart to see it right off. We want to be optimistic and force it at these times butbthe fact of the matter is that things do go wrong.
Yes, if you are in a program that requires no applications once you are there, it’s gets rid of the pain of going through the process again. But even in a program, kids bail to a more general major if things go south.
^ That is a very common thought on here but it isn’t true. Most students do not change their major. I saw recent national stats and it was only around 33% that do. Go for direct admit or a low risk admit. Haas is neither.