They aren’t necessarily casting a major in concrete or declaring early, except for U’s with separate programs. But they do have to choose freshman courses, get prereqs done.
I know tons of students each year under great pressure to get a certain GPA to enter a certain program. Seems pretty terrible for them. I only hear about them when they are in jeopardy of not getting the GPA tho. There may be as many students for whom getting the GPA is no big deal-but I never see them.
Yes, it is a consideration for myself but not enough for my D. She has 2 great choices at this point, one has a higher rank for her major CS but transferring is not easy and she would not be able to take classes in her second love - art. The second school is not as packed and she could take classes in whatever areas she wants. The second school also has a great merit package so taking the time to explore would be possible. Unfortunately, its CS program is ranked but not in the same stratosphere as the first. I lean towards the 2nd school, my D towards the 1st. I just hope CS is her thing and she does not want to transfer and can compete. She sees no other future for herself, I see the possibilities of many.
Luckily, the 6 or 7 schools on my daughters list (all with engineering programs), didn’t have any major issues when it came to switching/declaring majors. All, like UW-Madison, admitted the student to the university and not to the college/major, though they all allowed students to select an initial major.
I really hate the concept of forcing an 18 year old student to select a major/college. Let them spend a year or even two, taking classes before settling into a major, even if it delays graduation a year. Of course, this level of flexibility raises challenges for highly selective schools, but they can be managed.
When our engineering grad was looking at programs, we found out that even within engineering programs, students could sometimes delay declaring their major within engineering until spring of sophomore year and still graduate on time. Frazzled kid was always aware of the flow charts, and the point at which it would be difficult to switch majors within the engineering school.
I also think that the student who is “undecided” between physics and engineering, or biology and chemistry, is in a position that is very different from one who is undecided between, for example, performing arts and biology, or chemistry and Japanese. In the former cases many pre-requisite classes will overlap. In the latter, a student will have little or no room to take “easier” gen eds to balance a schedule, and scheduling can also become a problem with small departments that offer only one section of prerequisite classes.
Early choice of a major can also help if a student would benefit from connecting with an adviser in the major, or if declared majors are given priority in registration.
@Gator88NE - Some schools limit students to eight semesters and require a student to stick with the major chosen at the end of sophomore year. By that time, a student will need to have completed enough prerequisites to be on track for completing the major on time, in order to be accepted into the major. Other schools strongly discourage students from considering an extra semester or two, and for many families this is prohibitively expensive.
OTOH, we have seen schools that offer merit money attempt to entice serious students with the possibility of being able to afford a five year course of study. This would also allow students who enter as “undecided” to take additional time to settle on a major.
@ucbalumnus
As usual, great topic. Following.
I learn so much from your posts.
No matter what the other choices, be very, very careful if chemistry is one of the possible majors your student is interested in.
Unlike essentially every other subject in your typical College of Arts and Sciences, chemistry is highly sequential. And at many colleges, chemistry courses are taught at several different levels for students in different programs. The chemistry courses that a sociology major takes to meet a distribution requirement will differ from the ones taken by pre-meds to meet medical school admissions requirements or the ones taken by chemistry majors to fulfill the requirements of the major.
Illustrative story: A friend of mine entered college with the intention of majoring in biology and going to medical school. But she fell in love with chemistry while taking the chemistry courses required for the premedical track, and she wanted to change her major to chemistry. Unfortunately, though, she had taken the wrong organic chemistry sequence. Although perfectly acceptable for pre-meds, it did not meet the organic chemistry requirement for the chemistry major. She had to take organic over – and it was a year-long sequence. And since she could not take any more advanced chemistry courses until she had completed the correct organic chemistry sequence, that meant taking an extra year to complete her degree.
My friend was able to do this without having it cost her parents any money (she became a part-time student for a year, got a full-time job for that year, and took the organic chemistry courses while working, then switched back to full-time status). But still, it delayed her graduation by a full year. Arguably, it was worth it in her case (she went on to get a PhD in chemistry). But still, it would have been better if she could have anticipated her interest in chemistry and taken the appropriate sequence the first time.
Earlier this year when my two high school seniors were fretting over having to pick a major so early, I did some research and found a government website (sorry, I forgot the link) with college graduation statistics. According to the site, 69% of the people receiving bachelor’s degrees in 2014 had changed their major at least once. While there certainly are some highly sought after schools/degree programs which make it difficult to switch majors, there are many other schools which recognize the world is rapidly changing and skills from two or more disciplines will be needed to solve the problems of the future.
The main reason we encouraged our kids to go to liberal arts colleges was because of the flexibility in choosing/changing majors. Very few kids know what they want to study for four years when they are 17/18 years old.
I really don’t think this is an issue for most students at most colleges. Of course, with that said, you should make sure especially if you want to go into a major that tends to require admission to a program such as nursing, engineering, or business.
Personally, unless my kids wanted to go into one of those very specific majors, I would actively discourage them from going anywhere where switching majors was difficult. In my college search, I never came across one of those.
It is not only specific engineering majors, nursing, and business programs that can have GPA requirements higher than the college at large, even for admission into the major.
Undecided students at many schools start in engineering with the idea that it is easier to switch out than to switch in, but one issue that sometimes comes up for engineering students is that by the time they are ready to switch, they often have a few semesters of bad grades that could preclude entrance into liberal arts majors outside of STEM. Some of these have a cut-off of 2.5, 3.0, or even higher. I think this catches many parents and students by surprise.
Sometimes, even if struggling students have taken pre-requisites for these liberal arts majors, their grades are low in these classes as well because they have spent so much time trying to shore up a grade in a STEM class that they have cut corners in other classes, or they have become depressed or discouraged.
^That’s interesting. I’ve never heard of a liberal arts major with an entrance requirement. I have heard of ones which have a requirement of minimum major class GPA, but not overall GPA.
Of course, all schools have a minimum GPA to graduate at all (generally, I think, tends to be 2.0), but to enter LA majors, is something I’d never heard of.
At some universities, you would have to do an internal transfer from the College of Engineering to the College of Arts and Sciences (or whatever similar name they call it), and that may require a minimum GPA. You may also need to meet a minimum grade requirements in the prerequisites for your new major as well.
Yes. A school would be different. And I should have added the prereqs, though probably in most cases, they wouldn’t be the pre-engineering classes that brought down the hypothetical student’s GPA in the first place.
“The main reason we encouraged our kids to go to liberal arts colleges was because of the flexibility in choosing/changing majors. Very few kids know what they want to study for four years when they are 17/18 years old.”
I don’t see how that’s any different if you’re in the arts and sciences division of a research university.
https://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/academic-planning/majors-and-minors/list-of-undergraduate-majors/ lists many majors that have entrance requirements higher than merely being in good academic standing. Some majors, including some liberal arts majors (e.g. biology, chemistry, economics, English., music), have competitive admission.
There are enrollment limits for some liberal arts majors at some universities. For example, at the University of Maryland, the limited enrollment majors include biology, chemistry, government/politics, and psychology, as well as several professional fields. If you are not directly admitted to one of these majors as a freshman, you might not be able to get into it later.
Are there limited enrollment majors at liberal arts colleges?
We were lucky our top tier flagship made it easy to do most majors- the only exceptions being a few that are so popular relative to demand they need to limit numbers to ensure those in the major can get the needed classes. This U also requires certain gradepoints in related courses to be admitted to the major. In the vast majority of cases this would be a moot point as students who can’t learn the material and get the good grades in subjects in their major shouldn’t choose that major.
Therefore, where we lived (retired OOS) many did not need to consider this change factor. However, because of reciprocity between Minnesota and Wisconsin there were some who wanted the sure business school admission from U of M. The top students likely didn’t need to be concerned about their competitiveness for their major.
I would say it would be more important to consider if you aren’t entirely sure on what you want to do. For me it wasn’t even something I consider because I’m positive in my major. I think it depends on the person
It was a consideration for my three. On the Cal Poly SLO tour they tell you up front that changing majors is hard and if you don’t know what you want to major in it probably isn’t the school for you. Whereas a lot of the UCs emphasize that the average student changes their major 2-3 times, and that is OK. My kids had ideas of what they wanted to major in but were in no way ready to commit to that at 17.