When applying to schools that admit by major, the admission rate for competitive majors like computer science or engineering is much lower. Is this because of the large amounts of students applying for the major, resulting in them needing to reject many people, or is it because of the high ranking of this major? For example, if I were to apply to uiuc physics, which is ranked top 10 in the nation, but is a not popular choice and less competitive, would the acceptance rate still be very low, ie. 15%?
It is because of the volume and strength of applicants. A high ranking of the major may attract more and stronger applicants, but if it does not, it will not cause the major to be more competitive or selective.
Note that undergraduate physics programs tend not to be ranked by national publications.
UIUC doesn’t release acceptance rate for most majors, just school specific acceptance rates (and CS): Admit Rates, Undergraduate Admissions, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
UIUC majors will also have higher acceptance rates for in-state vs OOS students.
Beyond volume and strength of applicants being part of acceptance rates, so is the number of students that are allowed to be in the program. Many schools cap the size of the CS major because of the difficulty in hiring CS Profs/adjuncts. Other majors can be capped too, commonly some engineering majors, business majors, and nursing majors are.
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