<p>I am applying to Yale early action. As of now, I want to major in Biology. However what will increase/decrease my chances of getting in:</p>
<p>Declaring my major in Biology on the application</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>Going undecided and declaring my major after I am admitted (provided i do get in)</p>
<p>There are many threads on this topic. Do an Advanced Search. Short answer: It doesn’t make any difference for admissions purposes whether you list Biology or Undecided. Yale knows that most kids, even those who think they’re decided, change their minds about a major once they get to college. Declaring an intended major will neither increase nor decrease your chances of admission.</p>
<p>well, i think in some cases declaring a major might increase your chances.
If a large number of your EC’s are related to the major you intend to do, i think it would be beneficial to declare the major. The univ would recognise your passion towards that particular thing and that might subsequently increase your chances of getting accepted.</p>
<p>achiever: what you state is contrary to what Yale consistently has said in the past. I declared “Chemistry” although I had no science related ECs and as a matter of fact, had gotten two “Bs” in Honors Chemistry my Sophomore year. It didn’t alter Yale’s view of me. I eventually majored in Econ.</p>
<p>I understand where you’re coming from – the whole consistency thing – but Yale easily looks past that for other attributes.</p>
<p>About 40% of incoming freshmen indeed stated “undeclared”</p>
<p>I think it might possibly make a difference if the major in question was something undersubscribed (like Classics, maybe) AND the rest of your application backs up your interest in that subject. But for a major like Bio, or English, or Poli Sci, it won’t matter.</p>
<p>how do you list a dual major on the application? on the drop down box there’s only single-selections</p>
<p>You could be right, Hunt. But it’s also arguable that in that situation, what gives the candidate the edge are his/her tangible achievements in the particular area, not the declaration of intent to major in it. But yes, if you’re interested in an exotic major, or one that the Yale is trying to build up (I’m thinking here of engineering) AND you can back up your professed interest with real accomplishments, list the major. It may not make a bit of difference, but it certainly can’t hurt.</p>
<p>I accept that declaring a popular major like English is not going to <em>help</em> an applicant. But could it actually <em>hurt</em> to declare English as your intended major? </p>
<p>Are they likely to go “Oh no, not another English major”?</p>
<p>Yale admissions has repeatedly stated that declared major is a point of curiosity only. Of course they’re all human so maybe there might be an eye-rolling “not another history major” but I tend to think that it’s well known that Yalies pull up to a stocked buffet (major-wise) and who knows what entree they’ll leave with? Given that reality, why invest anything in what the 17 year olds are listing as intended major.</p>
<p>Of the incoming 1308 freshmen: Life sciences (172), Undeclared (171) Engineering (140) and Econ (90). </p>
<p>Undeclared was the second biggest category…</p>
<p>Only 41 listed English.</p>
<p>^^ Do you have a link or reference for those figures? I ask not to challenge you but because I’m interested.</p>
<p>The info is in a newsletter sent to alumni volunteers. I don’t think the data is a state secret so here you go:</p>
<p>Class of 2013 Academic Interests:</p>
<p>Of the 1308 matriculants, 171 did not indicate a probable major. The most frequently listed majors requested by matriculants are:
Life Sciences* 172
Engineering 140
Economics** 92
Political Science 78
Ethics, Politics, Econ. 72
International Studies 65
Mathematics** 58
Chemistry 46
History 44 *
English 41
Physics** 35
Philosophy** 30
Psychology** 27
Classics (Greek and Latin) 19
Humanities 17</p>
<p>*Includes Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology; Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry; and Environmental Studies.</p>
<p>**Includes combined majors.</p>
<p>i may have said this somewhere before but when an admissions officer came to my school they did some “studies” (similar to CC result posts only more specific) and sometimes they put lesser weight on a subpart SAT subsection (i.e. 600s in math) because the applicant wanted to be an english major, or something not heavily math-intensive if at all.</p>
<p>also, how do you list a double major on the application? or should i just list one and then mention it in why yale?</p>
<p>^nahh you can only list one major</p>
<p>chair2, I have no doubt that what you say is generally true, but it probably doesn’t have anything to do with what major a person lists on his application. If someone is primarily a literature person, and is even in the ballpark of Yale acceptance, his application is going to have 20 things that indicate his interests – course selection, grades, recommendations, ECs, prizes, and of course essays. It’s in that context that a 650 Math SAT I might be discounted. I doubt it matters much what hypothetical major the person chooses, as long as it isn’t math or engineering.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting that list, T2. I’m kind of surprised that music doesn’t make the list, given the strong interest in music among the offspring of Yale parents on CC.</p>
<p>Back to the main topic: Please, don’t devote more than one minute to worrying about what major to list on your application. If you have a genuine interest in majoring in some area, an interest that makes sense in light of your accomplishments to date, list it. Otherwise, say you’re undecided. There are so many things to be concerned with when preparing an application. This isn’t one of them, IMO.</p>
<p>I am just beginning to digest how surprising that list is to me. It reflects a complete sea change from the olden times (mine).</p>
<p>Of course, I have no idea what prospective majors my classmates had before we started, but the majors we actually had when we graduated were very different from this list, and I can’t believe the opening bid was a lot more like this. I don’t have the information handy anymore, but I am relatively certain that the top four majors in my class, in descending order, were History, English, Psychology, Biology. If you aggregated related fields (i.e., History plus American Studies; English, Literature, Comp Lit, Classics, Humanities, and various other literatures; Biology and MB&B), those four groups had to represent close to 40% of my class. </p>
<p>I can’t remember ever meeting a Math major, and Engineering and Economics were relatively fringe majors – I doubt either had as many as 50 people in it. Political Science was also popular, as were Sociology and Anthropology. And Art History – I think my roommate the future real estate mogul majored in Art History. Architecture, too. (Is that part of Engineering now?) Physics and Chemistry were about the same as represented here. And I suppose that a lot of the (many) Russian majors and the History majors, too, have their counterparts in International Relations. Still . . . that list as a map of interests is radically shifted away from the humanities compared to 35 years ago.</p>
<p>Of course, if all those undeclared are really humanities types, the real picture could be different.</p>
<p>JHS: Things haven’t changed all that much. Click the link below and follow the link to “list of degrees conferred by major”. The most popular majors are still the ones you mentioned, with the addition of economics.</p>
<p>[Yale</a> > Office of Institutional Research > Introduction](<a href=“http://www.yale.edu/oir/open/index.html]Yale”>http://www.yale.edu/oir/open/index.html)</p>
<p>Thanks, vicarious parent. You are right that the actual list is much more recognizable. But it shows some definite trends over the past ten years. There’s a pretty sharp decline in most humanities majors. Nowhere near as sharp as the entering students’ preferences imply, but not necessarily inconsistent with them, given that the entering students will show up in these statistics four years in the future.</p>
<p>Other puzzlements: Economics and math are pretty constant, but political science seems to be zooming. Computer science is much less popular than it once was. Chinese Studies seems less popular than I would have expected. And the lines between MB&B and the Molecular Biology track within Biology are still confusing.</p>