Degree requirement for Double majors:

<p>I was wondering if students planning to double major are required to take at least 19 courses which is out of the major. Does course taken to satisfy major requirement satisfy distribution requirement or any other requirement?</p>

<p>courses in a major count toward distribution requirements. think about it this way, most students have no idea what they are going to major in initially and therefore take many intro level courses. these courses fulfill the distribution requirements regardless if the student decides to major in them. the only exception is freshmen writing seminar will not count as both writing and field distribution requirement (unless it explicitly says so, most lit analysis courses do). and 1 language course cannot be used to satisy both the language and humanities requirement. </p>

<p>if that were the case, all double majors would have to stay five years (most majors require at least 11 courses: 11 x 2 = 22 + 19 = 41 - 32(4 year requirement) = 9 extra courses.</p>

<p>p.s. double majoring is VERY hard to do at haverford. there's bound to be inumerable schedule conflicts (unless your fields are extremely divergent i.e.. english and physics (a student is actually doing this)) and the course load would be unbearable. good luck if you go through with it though.</p>

<p>Thank you mazoo for your quick reply..Is physics and economics divergent in Haverford??</p>

<p>I'm thinking of double majoring in architecture and sociology at Haverford. Is this something that is particularly hard to schedule, especially since architecture is at Bryn Mawr? Also, are the classes at Bryn Mawr any easier than at Haverford? And would a major from Bryn Mawr hold the same weight as one at Haverford for graduate school admissions?</p>

<p>Bryn Mawr does not offer a degree in Architecture. They have a "Growth and Structure of Cities" major which ocuses on the trends of urban development, spatial organization and the social, economic, cultural and political trends with respect to built environment but not so much on the design aspect. </p>

<p>Scheduling changes every year. I know some Intro Cities courses are MWF and Intro Soc courses are TTh. I won't be able to go into more detail regarding upper levels since i have lost my course catalog. Take Intro Soc with Mark Gould. It will really determine whether or not you'll want to major.</p>

<p>Bryn Mawr classes vary in difficulty. I know their Language and Classics departments are harder than Haverford's but their Science and Math departments are a lot easier. </p>

<p>In terms of Grad School admissions, a lot of institutions don't particularly care where the degree is from. For example, Johns Hopkins Medical School (argueably the top in the country) rejected a lot of kids from Harvard, Williams, etc. and selected students from no name schools. </p>

<p>There was a very detailed and incendiary debate on Haverford's bulletine board regarding Grad School placement. Because Haverford is a very difficult school, grades are not very generous (again depends on the department, harder for math and science majors, etc.). Many grads who aced standardized tests (GREs, LSATS, MCATs,) were refused admission based on their low Haverford GPAs (usually around 3.3). Med schools are very particular about GPA and with 10,000+ applicants, etc. will often eliminate an applicant based solely on their numbers (med schools usually want 3.8+). I'm not saying that it's impossible to get into a grad program, it's just harder to get into a TOP grad program. Several Haverford students do end up at HYPSM, but not as many as you would think (13 got into top programs in 2003 i think?). </p>

<p>I've actually been finding out a lot about recent Haverford alums via the Facebook (you'll get to know the Facebook very well) and a lot are either working a job they hate (one alum is working in a Pet Store...definitely worth the $150,000+) or working low paying jobs in the public service sector.</p>

<p>I, myself, know for sure that I want to go into education. Part of the reason I chose Haverford was because of it's focus on learning rather than achieving numbers. If i were Pre-med or Pre-law i would not have matriculated. If you are considering applying to a top grad school program, you'll have to work your ass of here and seek career advising immediately (we have an excellent Career Development office). but it's worth it :)</p>

<p>In reference to the above poster: the statements about grad schools/grade deflation don't seem to match what I've heard. First of all, Haverford is not one of the notorious grade deflators that everyone hears about (like Chicago, Reed, and Swarthmore). But, most significantly, Haverford placed 18th IN THE NATION amongst all colleges and universities at getting its graduates into the top five med, law, and business programs. It placed above schools like Bowdoin, Rice, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Wesleyan, Vassar, University of Virginia, UC Berkeley, University of Michigan, Bates, Barnard, Tufts, Bryn Mawr, and Colby. It was also one place beyond Georgetown and two places behind Penn. This is not shabby at all.</p>

<p>Go to <a href="http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/college/feederschools.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/college/feederschools.htm&lt;/a> for the study.</p>

<p>that's the same study where i read about the 13 student stat i mentioned in my previous post (it's porsted in the haverford campus center). i realize that haverford has such a rank but i've heard many a rant from some discouraged seniors (check out the GO board archives if you matriculate). what i'm saying is don't take those rankings too seriously.</p>