<p>I am really poor informed in UC apps, so here are the questions:</p>
<p>-Do majors matter when you apply to UCs? I thought they won’t base the admission on your major…
-What does it mean by an impacted major?
-What are the impacted majors in UCSD, UCLA, UCB?
-So is it true if you apply for a competitive major that you might not get in whereas you apply for an easy major?
-Then why not just enter as “undeclared”?</p>
<p>I think if you don’t get into an impacted major, but you get in, they’ll just put you in some un-impacted major which you could change anytime anyway.</p>
<p>^if you dont get into the major(s) you apply for, you dont get in. period.</p>
<p>For UCB, it depends upon the college to which you are applying. If you put down an engineering major, then those are impacted and set a higher bar for admission. On the other hand, if you are not admitted to engineering, the process to switch into that college is a bit difficult and far from guaranteed. If you have no major, or one like English or Math or History that is in the College of Letters and Sciences, then it does not affect admissions. All L&S students come into Cal as undeclared, regardless of what you select on the application, with the same chances for admission. Over your first two years, you satisfy requirements and formally declare your major. A very few of the majors are impacted, which simply means that you are not guaranteed to be accepted into that major after spending a couple of years in L&S. If you don’t maintain the high GPA at Cal, you would then have to pick an alternate major. However, the fact that it is impacted doesn’t change your admissions chances since L&S takes you in as undeclared. </p>
<p>However, other UCs are different. For example, UCD sets different cutoff point values by the major you declare, thus one might find that an English major needed more points than a history major to be accepted. Some make a distinction by major, some only do it by engineering vs everythign else, some have a fixed cutoff for all applicants. </p>
<p>One downside of the single application process is that you have to pick one choice that goes to all the UCs that will evaluate you, rather than picking majors separately for each school. </p>
<p>Similarly, there is one set of essays that go to all the UCs. For Cal and UCLA, it is read holistically, like an essay sent to the ivies, but for UCs like UCSD, UCD and UCSC, it is read only to look for facts that give you points in their arithmetic admission formula, but otherwise ignored as literature. Facts that score points for UCSD may not matter at all for UCD, which means you have to gamble - use the essay to stuff facts for the schools you want or write a holistic essay and hope to get into UCLA or Cal.</p>
<p>“One downside of the single application process is that you have to pick one choice that goes to all the UCs that will evaluate you, rather than picking majors separately for each school.”</p>
<p>Are you sure about this? When my son submitted his UC application last year, he was able to specify a major and alternate major for each UC he was applying to.</p>
<p>^Yeah you’re right. You pick your major for each UC.</p>
<p>rider730 that was awesome, now does anyone know about UCSD and UCLA in particular?</p>
<p>Link for UCSD impacted majors
[Impacted</a> Majors](<a href=“http://www.ucsd.edu/current-students/academics/majors-minors/impacted-majors.html]Impacted”>http://www.ucsd.edu/current-students/academics/majors-minors/impacted-majors.html)</p>