When one applies to an American University, how can they apply to a specific field? I’m a Canadian and American citizen who’s in grade 11 at a Canadian high school. In Canada, when I apply to a university I’d choose 1-3 majors, in order of preference. Is there something like that in the US? Because I don’t want to apply to so many BSMD programs if I’m stuck with only applying to that program in a given school. But if I had the option to apply to multiple majors, I’d feel safer. Like applying to Rice/Baylor medical scholars wouldn’t be logical if I’m only stuck to one major I can apply to, as I would rather get into Rice and not have that program than applying to the Rice/Baylor program but getting rejected.
It varies by school/program.
@Eeyore123 Umm could you be more specific? Like what does it vary between? And how can I find out?
You have to check the web pages of each college/university you wish to attend.
These are just some of the possibilities. Again, research is required so you know the specifics of what you’re getting into.
- Some schools do direct-admits into each department. When you apply, you list your choice of major, and that's the college (or "department") within the university that you'll attend.
- A college may admit you to that school, but put you in your 2nd choice major (or on a general parth). You may be given a chance once there to transfer to your first choice major (depending on space availability and your grades), or keep your second or third choice (if you really didn't know what you wanted to do at the time you applied).
- Some colleges do not admit by major, but once accepted, you can major in anything they offer.
- Some colleges do not admit by major, but in order to get in to popular or oversubscribed departments, you need to get minimum GPA overall/high GPA in department-related weed-out classes or you need to interview with the department and/or apply to the department (usually at the end of freshman or sophomore year).
Like if I apply to biomedical engineering at Carnegie Mellon, and have my second choice as like biochemistry. Would they look to my second choice if the competition is really tough that year for engineering specifically or straight up reject me? I’m asking this because I want to know if it’s worth it to apply for reach programs at reach/reach-target schools.
Few American universities allow a first and second choice. Most universities will admit you to the university, not a program. Combined BS/MD programs would be an exception. If you are denied admission you are denied admission to the university.
What does it mean to be admitted to the university, not a program? Also if BS/MD is an exception, how does it work for that specific case?
Again, you need to look at each university’s website for their specific policy. There is no one answer fits all. At some schools you admitted and it is easy to change major before enrolling. At others you are committed to that major until the end of freshman year when you can apply for an internal transfer which is often competitive. At Boston university for example if you apply for their BA/MD program and are denied you will not be considered for regular undergraduate admission. At least that was the way it worked in the past.
Examples:
For The College of New Jersey, you have to apply for a specific major, For this college, top NJ students who want to go pre-med all want to major in Biology. But they only can have so many Bio majors so they limit it.
For Case Western Reserve University, you apply to the University. They have a single door admissions policy. You indicate what you might think your major is, but you are not held to that. You can major in anything you want (obviously you need to be prepared for that major).
At Rutgers University, you apply to a "college’…e.g., Engineering College, Arts & Science, Business. Engineering majors would need higher math scores.
In the University of California colleges, they have “impacted majors”…(once again the popular ones)…they actually have these index scores you need to have to be able to get into that major.
So it really depends on the University.
Keep in mind that we use college in the following ways:
College can be used informally interchangeably with University to just mean “higher education.” “He’s going to college next fall”
College can indicate that it does not have a PhD program. The College of New Jersey doesn’t graduate PhDs.
College can be a subset within a University…College of Arts & Sciences, College of Engineering.
One more little twist. At some universities where you apply to a college (like the Rutgers example from @bopper ) you can only apply to one college. At others, you can apply to more than one and you rank your choices.
At Yale, for example, no student applies to a specific major, so everyone who is accepted enters as a student of Yale College. No student is even allowed to declare a major before Sophomore year, and some do not declare a major until as late as Junior year. Even after declaring a major, changing the major (as long as you are taking the required classes for the major) involves nothing more than a few mouse clicks.
The colleges my daughter applied to encompassed both those where you applied to the university as a whole, and ones where you applied to a particular school within the college (the ones she looked at mostly allowed an alternate choice of school). Some colleges allow the same or similar majors in more than one school. It really is something you need to look up for each college you are interested in, just like you need to check the different requirements /recommendations each college has for high school courses. There is no shortcut to figuring out who does what, and in any case for each school you’d generally need to know its policies to be able to write a sensible “why us” essay for those schools that require it.