Does Harvard admit by major?

<p>Just wondering if Harvard admits students by major (e.g. do they admit a specific number of chem majors per year, etc?) Any input would be appreciated!</p>

<p>The do not</p>

<p>No</p>

<p>Most colleges don’t.</p>

<p>I doubt that there is a certain number places for kids in each major each year, but I do think that admissions officers try to keep a general balance in the incoming class. In the highly unlikely event that every single of the top 2,000 applicants that all “should” be admitted to the university are all intended English majors, I seriously doubt that they would admit every one of those kids instead of admitting a variety, even if the others weren’t as “good” of applicants. Now I use this scenario for only demonstrative purposes and I’m in no way suggesting that there are only 2,000 applicants that “should” be admitted. (I have talked to a couple of the admissions officers at my school, Yale, who have said that they could admit all the waitlisted kids and waitlist all the admitted kids and no one would know but them. They also said that out of the ~30,000 applicants, only around 5,000 are NOT academically qualified, leaving 25,000 applicants to seriously consider. I add this only to show that there are so many competitive applicants that it would be hard to not have a reasonably balanced class and that AdComs probably don’t have to spend much time worrying about the mix.)</p>

<p>I applied as an english major and have had people dismiss my acceptance, claiming applying for the humanities was the reason I got in while others from my school who applied to concentrate in prelaw/premed/STEM-type fields were waitlisted or rejected. Is that even a little bit true? Just curious. </p>

<p>^^ Harvard and other colleges asks about your “intended major” to gauge an applicant’s interest, but they do not recruit by major, or select applicants based upon those choices, as more than 50% of all students switch majors at least once during their 4 years of college. So the majority of students graduate with a different major than the one they selected on their application, and therefore the “intended major” data is unreliable and unusable for admissions purposes.</p>

<p>More than half of those (incoming freshman) who claim interest in the humanities ultimately choose a different major at Harvard. Presumably the same cannot be said the other way around. My own opinion is that high school kids are under the impression it will help their chances to claim humanities interest, true or not.</p>

<p>Harvard has expressed interest in getting more students into humanities majors, but I don’t think they are likely to fall for the banana in the tailpipe of application promises. They know enough and more of what those promises are worth.</p>

<p>@brm114341 Obviously, nearly all admits are hardworking and truly deserve their acceptances. But I have read online somewhere that being interested in humanities helps in that the opportunities for humanities kids to explore what they want to study at the HS level is easier. In contrast, those interested in STEM can do research/internship and maybe a club here and there. And with thousands of students applying to STEM, odds are that the majority will have research/club experience. With the humanities, it’s easier to find unique ECs to make you stand out, imho</p>

<p>It’s not like a university that requires an app to a specific program, but you can bet they know which depts are reaching capacity, based on kids who did ultimately declare certain majors, which programs need more students, etc, and what to do to achieve what they need. You can’t account for changing majors, but you can try for the right balances up front, per the current snapshot. (Similarly, how do you think they know they need a bassoonist or two?) And, from the outside, there is no telling what those needs will be, in advance. </p>

<p>The old line is: male classics majors. But hey, unless you took plenty of classics related classes in hs, how will you look real? and what if they got a nice handful in the last few years and they are all sticking?</p>

<p>Yale getting 30k apps and 5k are not qualified? My own guess is that it’s far more than that, courtesy of the Common App. </p>

<p>I suppose that like many questions regarding admissions at highly-selective schools, the answers are not clear cut, not admitting of either a “yes” or a “no.”</p>

<p>I think it comes down to two basic issues: supply and demand; and the school’s image of what it should be.</p>

<p>Harvard has tenured faculty, and lots of them. Faculty need students. And students need faculty. Over a long time, the university can change the composition of its faculty to meet long-term enrollment trends. But, there must be a rough match between resources available in the short-term and demand as represented by incoming students. Even though a school may not give much weight to a declared major on an individual basis, the school must pay some attention t to the overall number of folks who initially declare in a particular field. If, by some quirk of fate, a university found that 75% of the students it wished to admit to its incoming class had the intention of majoring in medieval French literature, that would be problematic. Obviously, the university wouldn’t allow its admissions process to get into such a situation, but that means in a year where there are many more students expressing an interest in medieval French literature than the school expected, at some point, the admissions people will need to address the imbalance, and that may be partly by turning away some otherwise-qualified applicants.</p>

<p>To the degree that the school anticipates accurately its enrollment trends, it will be less likely that declared intended majors will have a bearing on who is accepted and who is rejected, except in unusual circumstances.</p>

<p>That’s if all things are equal.</p>

<p>But all things are not equal. The fact is that Harvard’s humanities enrollments are down considerably over time, and the university doesn’t think that’s a good thing. Harvard’s ideal self-image includes vibrant, flourishing humanities. It would be unsurprising, then, if in Havard’s overall holistic approach, folks who credibly assert an intention to major in the humanities may, in some cases, gain a small edge.</p>

<p>A “credible assertion” means something other than marking the checkbox for a particular field. A student who marks “classics” but who took loads of AP science and math courses, but who took neither Latin nor Greek during high school may strike the admissions committee as not credible. Conversely, the student with four years of Latin, a couple of years of Greek, and a range of high achievements on the National Latin and National Greek Exams looks more credible. If the university is keeping its eye out for realistic and well-qualified candidates in classics to keep the department thriving, or even viable, that student will have an edge. My impression is that right now, at least some highly-selective universities are looking to bolster their humanities departments, and thus, in some cases, there might be a small edge to those who credibly declare a humanities field.</p>

<p>I think all of that is true. But in recent years, Harvard seems to have been content graduating about 10-15 Classics concentrators per year, as compared to, say 250 each of various types of Biology concentrators and Economics concentrators, and 100 math concentrators.</p>

<p>It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Harvard got 200-300 (or 400) applications a year from credible potential Classics concentrators, since in my corner of the world about 100% of credible potential Classics concentrators with good grades apply to Harvard (among other schools). Which means that, at the end of the day, potential Classics concentrators aren’t going to be beating the average odds by much, if at all. Sure, maybe they have to over-admit Classics people because lots of them will get seduced by Economics, Social Studies, or Physical Chemistry, but even taking that into account the chances that any particular applicant will be admitted remain horrible.</p>

<p>A number of top tiers need well-prepped humanities kids. No, you can’t really fake it. Nor do you do yourself any service if you, say, want stem and think humanities prep is your ticket in- you may be missing some vital stem edge for your own work there. But there are kids who prep and do well in everything, get appropriately engaged, and can express their interest in various directions. Bless 'em.</p>

<p>As for classics, if Harvard is content with x/year and staffed for that (and have the gender balance they want,) then that’s different. Classics isn’t big all around the country, not all high schools even offer Latin, while some history and English are everywhere. </p>

<p><a href=“As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry - The New York Times”>As Interest Fades in the Humanities, Colleges Worry - The New York Times;

<p>JHS,</p>

<p>"…but even taking that into account the chances that any particular applicant will be admitted remain horrible."</p>

<p>This is why I said, “… there might be a small edge to those who credibly declare a humanities field.” I see it as something on the order of a tie-breaker in the admissions process, not as something that dramatically boosts one’s chances from around 5% to, say, even 10% (which is still a 90% rejection rate).</p>

<p>But, I know that some schools are looking for strong humanities kids. My older son was interested in both classics and engineering. Sometimes, the difference in reception by each department at the same school was striking. </p>

<p>“But in recent years, Harvard seems to have been content graduating about 10-15 Classics concentrators per year,…”</p>

<p>I don’t know that they’re content with the number of classics concentrators they have. I know that they have enough faculty to substantially increase their enrollment. I think there are some constraints on the supply side of the equation. It’s great for my son and his fellow concentrators, as few of his classes have had as many as 10 or more students (and they were all classes that could fulfill gen ed requirements), and he’s had a few classes where he was the only undergrad. Last semester, he took a class with two students - him and a grad student. But I sorta wonder whether Harvard might not have wished to have had maybe four or six students in that class.</p>

<p>I think Harvard views the current number of concentrators as the minimum to keep the department viable, and maintain its place in the academic world.</p>

<p>I think that there are not only much larger numbers of STEM kids out there than humanities kids, but I think that often, the STEM kids are better prepped in their respective areas of interest in high school. There are hundreds of high schools in the metro area in which I live. At least a dozen of those schools regularly offer math courses beyond AP Calculus BC. But not a single school in the region regularly offers anything beyond AP Latin, and nearly none offer any Greek at all.</p>

<p>My older son eventually dropped the engineering side of the equation, and is strictly doing classics. It’s his strength, and he loves it. His academic advisor told him, do what you do best and love. That’s the best advice for students as they apply to college. But, if what you love and do best happens to be a humanities field, and you have a history of very high achievement in the field, at least at some colleges, it may give a slight advantage.</p>

<p>@notjoe and @lookingforward make excellent points…in particular this point from notjoe:</p>

<p>

…there is a school out West that is dealing with this issue…even more so than here…</p>

<p>I think there’s a small exception: if you are a woman or URM with a long record of extracurricular achievement in math or computer science (NOT just a stated interest in the field and high HS STEM grades), AND the stated intent to major in math/CS, then that combination can constitute something of a hook.</p>

<p>FWIW: <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/education/as-interest-fades-in-the-humanities-colleges-worry.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0”>http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/31/education/as-interest-fades-in-the-humanities-colleges-worry.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0&lt;/a&gt;

</p>

<p>I wonder why folks drop out of the humanities. I’d wager that much of the loss may be due to extrinsic factors. My son’s initial interest in engineering was in part because the idea of designing and building stuff sounded like fun, but also because the career track for most engineers is pretty clear, and reasonably financially rewarding. In a time of economic uncertainty, it’s comforting to hear things like, “everyone of our civil engineers who graduated last year received job offers in the field, or significant support to go to graduate school” (actual quote from a large state university with a great engineering program).</p>

<p>I’m not sure there’s anything wrong with what Harvard is doing with their humanities students. I know my son is having a blast in classics, and has more or less accepted that the price for all the fun he’s having is a less-clear career path. But perhaps not every student - especially at a place like Harvard - can achieve equanimity in the face of the fact that his/her career may wind up peaking teaching Latin in the local high school.</p>

<p>@lookingforward‌ </p>

<p>The 5k/30k was an estimate straight from an admissions officer here at Yale in a very frank conversation we had, so I’d trust it. There are a lot more amazing kids than one might expect.</p>

<p>I looked at the NCES breakdown of Harvard degrees by concentration in (I think) 2013. The ratio was approximately 25% humanities, 35% STEM, and 40% social sciences. That doesn’t seem so awfully imbalanced. In my generation, the percentages for humanities and STEM were probably reversed, but no one was whining that math and science were dying at Harvard. (Engineering, on the other hand, had in fact died.)</p>

<p>That’s a very rough cut, however. I treated all History concentrators as humanities, including all History and Philosophy of Science and Medicine concentrators (and there were a bunch of those). I also treated all African and African-American Studies concentrators as humanities students, but if you look at the prize-winning theses in the department last year you get “Evaluation of a Service Provider Short Course for Prevention of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome: A Reanalysis and 22-Month Follow-up Study” (a joint concentration with Statistics) and “Increasing the Effectiveness of Health Care Delivery in Rural Areas: A Case Study of Village Health Teams and Childhood Malnutrition in Rukungiri District, Uganda.” Which gives you a hint that Harvard humanities concentrators aren’t all contemplating their navels.</p>