Sometime before the early '00s, changing between SEAS and the College used to be so easy it was an administrative formality. Only requirement was one was in good academic standing after a year and filing some pro-forma paperwork.
This factor was exploited by many alums of STEM public magnets like BxScience, TJSST, and Stuy during my HS years and before as a “backdoor to Columbia College” and its perceived far greater cachet.
Especially considering SEAS used to accept students with HS GPAs so low (Between 3.0 and 3.3 with it leaning much closer to the former.) they’d not only be rejected outright by the college or Barnard, but also schools like SUNY Binghamton and NYU-Stern. Students in such a position would apply to Columbia SEAS, get admitted, take one year of Gen Eds and make sure to be in good academic standing, file pro-forma paperwork for an administrative transfer to the college before the end of their freshman year, end up at the college, and graduate with a Columbia College degree.
To be fair, this only worked if one’s HS grades and SATs were strongly lopsided in favor of STEM*. Columbia’s admins probably put an end to this sometime in the early '00s partially to close this loophole which was an open secret among STEM lopsided students, especially those at the STEM public magnets.
- This was very commonplace at STEM centered public magnet's like BxScience, Stuy, etc.
That wasn’t true for the older friend who attended Princeton as an engineering major in the '80s. He merely had to declare the major in engineering and likely show he had the math/STEM chops for it in his HS academic record/SAT scores.