applying as an english major and then switching to biochem?

hi gang
honestly i know this sounds super unethical but i want to convince my girlfriend that she can’t do this and it’s not right bc she’s taking someone else’s place.
her test scores are like average high? 33/34 i think? and she’s always been a good student so I assume good gpa. She takes all honors and stuff, but she thinks her EC’s arent “good enough”. she has a spike in english but she doesn’t want to major in english, so she says she is going to apply to Princeton and Stanford as an english major and then switch to biology once she is accepted.
Can she even do this??
thanks

I know that MIT ignores your intended major when deciding whether or not to admit you. If you are admitted then they select your freshman year advisor based on your alleged preferred major. I think that the same is probably true at Stanford and Princeton. The Stanford web site includes the following text:

“When you apply to Stanford, you apply to the university as a whole, not to a particular major, department or school. We encourage you to indicate prospective majors and career interests in the application, but please know you are not bound by these selections in any way.”

https://admission.stanford.edu/apply/freshman/apply.html

Of course this is for undergraduate admissions. It is quite different for graduate admissions.

Similarly, Princeton states:

“Students apply to Princeton University, not to individual departments, programs or schools.”

https://admission.princeton.edu/academics

Once again this is in their undergraduate admissions web pages.

It looks like the only consequence of applying to the “wrong” major is going to be that in the unlikely event that she is accepted she will end up with a freshman advisor who is in the wrong department. Otherwise it really does not matter. It will not help, it will not otherwise hurt, and it will not cause any ethical violations.

I might note that when I applied to MIT, my extracurricular activities had almost nothing at all to do with my intended major. Apparently this did not hurt me at all. It appears that admissions wants to see that you did well in whatever activities your participated in. I don’t think that the point is to show you wanted to be a biologist since you were a kid. I think that the point is to show that you are someone who can excel in whatever you do.

You can’t convince her. it’s her application so just stay out of it.

Sometimes you can, sometimes you can’t.

Some universities do make you apply by major. Switching “colleges” within the university later will involve varying degrees of difficulty (anything from minimum GPA requirements up to a near repeat of the whole application process, etc.). In many cases it is easy to switch to an easier major, but impossible (or extremely difficult) to get into the engineering or computer science programs after starting out in a humanities college. In these types of universities it is absolutely possible to get “shut out” of your major. Also, if you don’t start in your major early, especially in a field such as engineering, there can be a bigger risk you won’t graduate in four years.

Other colleges don’t care what you want to major in coming in. Surely everyone accepted at MIT, for example, will be successful in whatever field they want to study. MIT doesn’t loose any sleep worrying that it’s students are mismatched. Some colleges will require X GPA in certain classes and/or approval of an advisor in order to declare into a particular college.

I suspect your definition of a “spike” is a lot more liberal than mine is. However, ECs should still be relevant to her hoped-for major. She will need to do careful research in terms of knowing what high reach schools such as Princeton are looking for, in addition to research on how and when to declare a major.

Rest assured, it is not the AO’s first time around the block. If she has what they’re looking for, she will get in, regardless of her major, and if she doesn’t, she’ll get rejected, regardless of her major.

At S or P, they may say you don’t “apply to a major,” as in a particular program or a College of Engineering. But that does not stop them from considering your stated major interest(s) against your background, courses/prep, strengths, ECs, etc. They didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday.

They see your record, where you lean, what you did or didn’t do to pursue what you claim to be interested in. If the gf’s transcript is loaded with stem, they see. But no math-sci activities, oopsie. They can doubt an interest in English. Happens often. Adcoms know some kids try to manipulate.

What most kids think of as spike isn’t. Just isn’t. Even thinking the way she is just signals she really doesn’t understand what they look for. I doubt she will magically have some big “it.”