I’m currently looking to apply as a computer science major for colleges, but looking at how competitive the field is, I wanted to also consider some alternate majors that could benefit me in a similar way. I’ve looked a little into data science, cognitive science, statistics, and information technology so far, but still not sure what would really be a good option. I’m also not sure if applying to other majors over computer science could also affect my admissions chances into a college? I don’t think I’m extremely competitive compared to a lot of students applying for computer science so I was also looking for a major that would be easier to get into while also being similar to computer science.
If your first choice major is CS, then apply to schools where your stats are at or above the 50th percentile of admitted students.
CS is a very marketable major and you do not need to attend a prestigious or a top school to do well post graduation.
My younger son would have loved to attend some CA UC’s like UCLA or UCSB but his stats did not make him competitive. He ended up at a Cal state where he thrived and after 2 1/2 years post grad is making great money and doing what he loves.
He was not willing to compromise on the CS degree but willing to be flexible on the schools.
So what are your stats? What schools are you targeting ?
I am sure that are many CS schools out there for you if that is what you want to study.
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I agree with @Gumbymom that you are probably better off looking for a university that you can get accepted to for your desired major, rather than a different major that you can get accepted to at your desired university. A CS degree is indeed highly marketable from any one of a rather long list of universities.
However, to answer your question, one option that you could consider is being an applied math major with a CS minor. This is pretty much what I did but with the minor not being official (at the time it did not occur to me that there was such as thing as a minor – I just took the classes).
There are different types of CS jobs. I got a first job (a long time ago) that did include a lot of math as well as a lot of computer science. I suspect that this was not a coincidence. It was also the type of CS job that I would have wanted anyway. Whether you would want the same type of CS job I do not know.
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A lot of potential CS students are probably pondering the same or a similar question. The answer depends on what you intend to do with a CS (or similar) degree and how good you’re with math. Are you more interested in the programming aspect of CS, or the mathematical and/or statistical aspect of CS? What do you mean when you say you aren’t “extremely competitive”? Are you competitive in math?
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If your goal is to work as a computer programmer in the industry, you don’t really need a CS degree. Of course, that means that you’ll have to learn some programming by yourself. My viewpoint might be distorted (since I have a CS degree), but I don’t think that programming is hard to learn outside of college.
Almost any STEM degree would be fine. In fact, the one of the best summer interns I had BS in psychology (he was in a Ph.D. program for CS though). The best candidate I interviewed while still in industry was a history major.
From what I have seen, those who move into computing from other fields are more likely to come from a math-heavy background (e.g. physics, math, statistics major), while those moving in from biology (the most common STEM major) are rare. There are, of course, those who came from social science or humanities college majors, or no bachelor’s degree at all.
However, most people who want to go into computing learn it better with the aid of instructors and a structured curriculum as one would find as a CS major in college.
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Be careful about assuming that you can take CS courses as a non-CS major. If the CS major is limited enrollment with higher admission standards to get into (either at frosh admission, or to declare or change into after enrolling), that means that the department’s instructional capacity is full. That means that, after filling up CS courses with CS majors, there may be no space left for non-CS majors to get into those courses.
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That is definitely true, but I know some excellent bioinformaticists that have degrees in biology. Frankly I was shocked how good the people I mention were. But they exist.
I guess I don’t value my own degree much, but IMO for most programming jobs, you don’t really need a CS degree. Needless to say, for my job I think you do. 
“Don’t really need” is not the opposite of “most people would find it useful”. Those with strong ability and motivation can and do self-educate CS as needed for computing jobs. But most people who would be perfectly capable of doing computing jobs would find it much easier and faster to learn CS as a CS major in college.
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I agree. But it looks that everybody and their dog wants to get into a CS program, so I wanted to point out that there are viable alternatives outside of a CS degree.
And one of the reason those alternatives are viable is that it is very easy to demonstrate competence in CS: just make a reasonable contribution to one of the many excellent open source projects and the quality of your code is publicly available for everybody to see.
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Here’s my advice, don’t ever let a college tell you what to major in. You’re paying them tens of thousands of dollars to set you up for success. If they’re not going to let you study what’s in your best interest, it’s not worth going there. The great thing about tech is that prestige is meaningless. CS is ridiculously employable and after about 2-3 years experience, employers don’t even ask where you went to school.
CS can be competitive at certain schools, but it’s really not. Most employers hire locally or regionally because it’s cost effective. You would be fine just attending your local university.
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