I saw in another thread that an admissions officer told an applicant that applying with that particular intended major would be a no-go, but applying with an “undecided” major, the person would have a 50/50 chance. This got me to wondering if declaring your major interests (as opposed to declaring a major while you’re there later) might be a bad thing and might limit one’s chances to be accepted at many LACs? Maybe it doesn’t matter at the least selective LACs but possibly does at more/most selective ones…?
Obviously, if you apply to a LAC with “mechanical engineering” as your intended major/interest and the LAC doesn’t offer that, then it would make sense. But what if that intended major (or particular academic interest) IS something the school offers – are you better off keeping it to yourself? Does it matter what the intended major is and which specific LAC your’e applying to?
An example from my D17: She’ll most likely major in some natural or physical science, though which exactly is still up in the air, eg. physics, biology, maybe even neuroscience or geology… something. That’s why she wants a LAC with strong basic sciences. She’s been filling out all the interest forms with both physics and biology and sometimes a third thing, and of course she discusses her interests when she interviews which gives a more well-rounded view of wha she may like to pursue at their school.
Should she not list anything though? When she shares her interest/intended major(s), is she limiting her chances of acceptance and good merit aid, or is she limiting herself??
I think honesty is the best policy, but there is a facet of gamesmanship to college admissions for sure. My daughter was being courted by Fu School of Engineering at Columbia because of her Math ability, but she really prefers to study languages. When they learned this, it appeared she got “dropped.” Women who put down an interest in STEM and engineering, may have some type of advantage getting into those majors over men with similar stats.
@preppedparent, I agree that women might have a slight advantage over men in many (most?) engineering schools, but I wonder about non-engineering LACs and the natural and physical sciences…? My kid’s not as interested in engineering or all-applied-sciences, mainly because she feels she may be limited in what she ends up doing (what if she decides to pursue graduate school in basic science research, etc…).
Anyone who meets her will quickly learn her passion for sciences, as well as some of her other passions (music, art) that they’ll learn about when meeting her. It just hadn’t occurred to me that she might ever consider NOT sharing those on all the other stuff…
They had gotten her SAT scores, and she had several invitations to Engineering open houses by invitation only, and an invitation to do 1:1 with faculty.
If the desired major is a more selective one for frosh admission, it probably has a high GPA requirement or competitive admission process to get into it later. So a student who goes to the school undeclared faces the possibility of not getting into his/her desired major. (This applies whether or not the school is a LAC.)
Example: a student who enrolls at UCSD as undeclared but who wants to get into the CS major may need a 4.0 GPA in college to get into the CS major: http://cse.ucsd.edu/CappedMajor .
Thanks, @ucbalumnus. At the small mid-tier LACs that my D17 has interviewed at, the issue of “applying” to a major (in physics, or biology or…?) wasn’t mentioned, and I don’t think she asked if one had to apply (and I know I didn’t). The AOs said things like “you don’t have to declare a major until sophomore year,” etc. Hmm. I guess we should be asking more specific questions about this, then…?
In general most LACs don’t require you to state a preference for your major, or make kids apply into majors. That’s much more common in large public universities than in LACs. My D was honest on her apps, because that is who she is, but it also made sense when looking at some of her ECs that she was interested in STEM. It didn’t hurt any of her applications.
Many LACs are small enough that their capacity is limited by the size of the school as a whole, rather than by the size of each department, so that they may be less likely to have selective or restricted majors than bigger schools. But you can try doing a web search for “[college] [major] change major” and “[college] [major] declare major” to see if there is any mention of the major being selective or restricted at the college. Or ask the college directly if that is the case.
Regarding specific majors, usually, biology is more popular than physics, since biology attracts many pre-meds (even though pre-med does not require any specific major). Also, female students are overrepresented in biology, but underrepresented in physics, if you think that is a possible factor in admissions.