Do most students and parents consider difficulty of declaring/changing major?
At many schools other than the very wealthiest ones that can afford to have excess capacity in all departments, majors which are more popular than the department’s capacity to enroll all interested students have some sort of admissions gate in front of them. Sometimes, it is just completion of prerequisite courses with a high enough GPA. Other times, it is a highly competitive holistic admission process to enter the major. Some departments at some will admit a small percentage of the major directly in frosh admission, then fill the rest later with competitive admission for sophomores who want to enter the major. Others with direct frosh admission fill the major to capacity, so that the only space for others to enter later comes from those who change out of the major.
But when a high school seniors and their parents are looking at colleges and admission offers, are they likely to consider these things when selecting among colleges? If the student is undecided between several majors, is s/he likely to consider these things for all of the possible majors that s/he may be interested in?
At the other end of the situation, how often is it that sophomores are filling transfer applications because they did not get into their desired major at the school that they are attending? Or is it more likely that such students settle for some other major, even if it is not really what they want to study?
My daughter knew she wanted something in the sciences, but she did not know exactly what that would be. We picked a school that was strong in the sciences, however I am sure that is true for many schools and not just the one she chose.
She started as a Public Health major which meant a separate application process where everybody does not get accepted, and switched to biology which has an automatic entry. She will eventually be in grad school.
This is absolutely something we considered carefully. While my daughter had an idea of what she wanted to study, I don’t like the colleges that lock kids down in a major during their senior year of HS. She didn’t apply to any colleges that don’t let kids change, or ones that make it very difficult. She is at a LAC and doesn’t even need declare her major until late in her sophomore year. In talking to friends with HS kids, I have heard that it’s definitely something many of them considered, although some ended up with kids in colleges that make it very tough to change.
It definitely good to think about what will happen if the student wants to change majors, and not just because some majors have limited admissions.
When my son, who wanted to major in computer science, was applying to college, I actively discouraged him from applying to tech schools because I knew that if computer science didn’t work out for him, he would want a liberal arts major. He belonged in a university. As it happened, he did complete the computer science major, but I think the precaution was worthwhile.
And a generation earlier, I planned my freshman schedule so that I would complete the prerequisites for two majors because I was genuinely uncertain about which one I wanted and because one was considerably more difficult than the other. I knew that paying for a ninth or tenth semester was out of the question for my family, so planning ahead was essential. I ended up majoring in the more difficult subject, but I could just as easily have chosen the other one.
At our state flagship, getting accepted is the first hurdle. Getting into your major is the second and much bigger deal. If you don’t get you major as a freshman, the ability to get it as a sophomore usually requires very high freshman grades for the more competitive majors - 3.75 and up. You’re allowed to apply to change majors a maximum number of times (usually 2) and it must happen before you accumulate a certain number of hours (usually 90).
Our advice to our S and others is if you can’t major in what you want, go somewhere else. Some will take any major they can get for a degree from our flagship and some will play the internal transfer lottery. We know some who make it and we know some who transfer out. YMMV.
Our one kid did check ease of switching majors…because hers was a tough one.
She wanted to be an engineering major, but knew she wouldn’t get accepted directly into the college of engineering. So…she applied undeclared. But before she accepted the admissions offer, she checked very carefully to see if switching to engineering was possible…and it was. She was required to take the same course sequence freshman year as the engineering majors. With a certain GPA, she was allowed to switch to engineering…which she did at the end of her freshman year.
And then she added a double major in arts and sciences on top of that.
But she knew in advance that this was all possible.
I learned the hard way with son #1 to totally pay attention to this exact issue with son #2.
Son #1 wanted engineering, but was accepted to arts and sciences. He tried to get into the engineering program, but couldn’t get in for the kind of engineering he wanted. Fortunately, he had a plan B that both my husband and I thought he was much better suited for. So he stayed at the school he loves so much in the plan B major. But the whole situation was stressful.
Son #2 thinks he wants accounting/ finance. Well this time we looked hard for schools that are very flexible with taking courses across all disciplines or schools with direct admissions to their business programs. If he doesn’t like business, it will be easy to switch to a science or other liberal arts major, but getting into a business program later is quite tough at a lot of colleges. I do not want to pay north of 50k and my son can’t pursue the intended course of study. I would prefer to know that before matriculation, not sophomore year or later.
When I transferred, I did consider how easy it was to change majors as well as take courses from other colleges in the university. However, I knew that I had no interest in studying business or engineering (those seem to be the most competitive majors at many schools), so ease of switching was not a top priority.
At the school I transferred from, a wealthy institution, students were not allowed to declare a major until their sophomore year.
Definitely. My daughter knew she wanted to be a nursing major and rejected any school that didnt have a 4 year program where once you were admitted that was IT. She thus outright refused to consider many schools which originally were strongly in the running, including Mizzou which she loved as a school, UCLA ( which had been her dream school before she realized found out that they didn’t have a 4 year program and Wiconsin which she really loved too.
^We didn’t either, but my kids weren’t looking at the kind of tech/professional majors that it tends to be an issue for. I know that at a school I used to teach at, students were admitted into the nursing program after freshmen year, and the majority who were “pre-nursing” did not get into nursing. And the majority who did get in washed out. So in examples like that, more knowledge would have been better. There were a lot of students ending up in majors they really didn’t have the heart for because they didn’t get how insanely competitive nursing was.
Not a direct concern for D1. We suspected she’d stick with her interest within her major field and vetted that specific program at various colleges. If something happened, we knew she’d just change her focus within the dept.
But for D2, yes. She wanted pre-med and we knew she had to have a feasible back up.
I suspect this issue of changing depts is more critical for stem, especially engineering. And for kids who don’t have someone who can make them aware how requirements and scheduling can affect choices.
If I had a nickel for every time I state on the UW-Madison forum that students get admitted to the university as a whole, regardless of intended major or undecided… There are some fields needing admission to programs based on the college grades et al. Engineering, teaching, nursing, business all require good grades in related fields and for some an essay et al. This ensures that those in the programs can get needed classes. Some would go with Minnesota (tuition reciprocity so cost not a factor) to be assured of getting into business or such. But- top students are likely to get into their desired major and being able to decide on it after being in college is great.
Flexibility didn’t even cross our minds. I don’t recall needing to declare a major/get accepted into it being an issue for any schools on his radar.
Technically one needs to be admitted to one’s major for some courses I believe, but in reality as long as a student can take the classes it only matters when you want to graduate- you have to have a major on record. Son actually cancelled graduation a week or so before when he decided to add computer science to his honors math major and go the extra year when he overreached for grad schools. He started with math and physics but decided against physics eventually and had many CS credits. He was weak in programming skills when he got his first software job but his math background likely has helped him and he picked up the skills by doing it.
Some schools, like, IIRC, Northeastern, make it hard to switch. One of my S’s decided against some of the LACs he was considering b/c he wanted to keep the door open to engineering, which is what he ultimately switched to. So its a good thing. Other s didnt pay that much attention to it, but he ultimately did the same thing!
I wish more did, but that,s speaking as a freshman advisor, not a parent. At my institution, it’s not that switching is difficult, but the sequencing…
I think you’re fighting two separate battles here. One is that the sequencing can be very different for th major someone wants to switch to, but the other is an insistence that a kid pick ONE field walking in. Lots of our would- be doctors decide, hey, maybe that nurse practitioner route is the way to go and then they’re a year behind on a nursing major because of sequencing. If they felt comfortable walking in expressing some indecision (I can’t decide if I want to be a doctor or an NP), they could do what was suggested up thread and be able to keep both options open into the second semester, we ( parents, colleges, high schools, nobody is blameless) create our own monsters by “encouraging” kids to zero in on ONE field of study before they finish high school.
@ucbalumnus I was referring to Texas specifically business and engineering. Links to internal transfer requirements for both below.
Business page contains this statement: “It is not recommended that students enroll in another college at UT Austin on the assumption that they will transfer into the McCombs School of Business.”