Does intended major really not matter at schools which do not explicitly admit by major?

Parent Cafe
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<p>In this thread: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/17128957/#Comment_17128957"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/17128957/#Comment_17128957&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Now, we know that some schools explicitly admit by major (or division, e.g. College of Engineering versus College of Arts and Sciences) in order to avoid overflowing popular majors. Such colleges, and some other colleges, may also have internal admission barriers for students wanting to declare or change to popular majors that are at capacity.</p>

<p>However, some schools do not explicitly admit by major, and have no internal admission barriers for students wanting to declare or change to any major. For those schools with holistic admissions processes, is it likely that the applicant's intended major is a significant consideration, particularly for majors rapidly increasing in popularity (faster than departmental capacity can be added) or those where departments are begging for students to enter?</p>

<p>Obviously, awareness of differences in selectivity by major and the existence of internal admission barriers to some majors can be relevant to students making their application lists and selecting between schools that admitted the student. For example, a school which may appear to be a match based on overall stats may really be a reach if the student is interested in popular majors. A student who is undecided about his/her major may want to consider more strongly schools where there are no internal admission barriers to the majors that s/he may pursue.</p>

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<p>Since you quoted me, I’m happy to weigh in.</p>

<p>I don’t think Yale is parsing “will she major in History or end up in Comparative Literature”. Both because it’s unpredictable, and because it doesn’t really matter for any meaningful metric.</p>

<p>But I think that given their renewed interest in investing in science and technology, they keep a running tally at least informally, of kids whose HS tracks and interests suggest that the sciences are not off their radar screen. And that all things being equal (which they never are) a strong science type kid may have a slight edge over the history kid at this point in time at Yale. 10 years from now if they’ve built their cadre and rep in the sciences that slight advantage will go away. But you can’t walk down a street at Yale without hitting dozens of history majors and I imagine that the admissions department realizes that the gravitational pull once a student is at Yale right now tilts towards history (and literature, and poli sci, etc.) </p>

<p>Does this answer your question? </p>

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<p>D1s fr roommate applied to UG as a Classics major, she had extremely strong credentials in the discipline both academically and ECs. She was heavily recruited by Y, B, UChicago, and UMichigan (recipient of largest merit scholarship) and maybe others. </p>

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<p>I just read that very comment and asked myself that very question. In fact, wasn’t her point also that there are so many female premeds that it’s tougher to get accepted as a female premed? </p>

<p>I am most familiar with Brown admissions, and while it asks for what you might major in, it also does not accept students into a specific major. And everyone from top administrators on down knows that once you are at Brown, students switch in almost all directions. Biology majors end up doing film studies and engineers become geologists and pre-meds major in literary arts and Classics majors concentrate in neuroscience.</p>

<p>OTOH, I also know that Brown wants female engineers. And I’ve always had the impression that a female IR concentrator is a dime a dozen. And when all is said and done, in the press release about admissions they always break down what general areas students said they want to study, so it’s clear they track it. </p>

<p>I don’t know if it’s as cut and dry as Blossom says, at Brown anyway. I think they assume that by sophomore year there will be enough biology and IR and history majors. I think the real benefit might come from declaring an interest in your application in a less popular major and then proving it. That might catch their attention more than the umpteenth female bio premed (from the northeast). </p>

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<p>Fire- I’m a Brown alumna and although I no longer do admissions interviews, I did in the past.</p>

<p>My regional rep ALWAYS asked us to get a feel for potential concentration. Not that the student was committing (because of course, he or she could get to campus and do whatever the heck was of interest) and not that the college was admitting by department (which they didn’t do) but because “it may tell us something new about the student”. Which to me was code for, “We have a Classics department, it’s nice when there are undergrads majoring in it. We have a Religious Studies department, etc.”</p>

<p>Whether this was a quirk of the area I was interviewing in or not I don’t know.</p>

<p>But to be crass, I think claiming to be pre-med at a college which doesn’t admit by school or department is a bad move no matter your gender or race. There are doctors with a wide range of intelligence, academic ability, etc, but the process of getting into med school (and staying there) is just so brutally competitive, that I think you’re signaling something that you don’t intend if that’s the highlight of your application. Talk about your interest in eradicating smallpox or developing synthetic plasma (i.e public health or chem/life sciences ) if you must- but to be gunning for med school at age 17???</p>

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<p>My suspicion is that what you say you want to major in has a lot less impact than what your application package suggests interests you. Thus, if your applications reveals that you are the president of the classics club and won a national Latin contest, it will help you get into a school with a classics department–while saying you are interested in classics probably won’t help much if there’s nothing like that in your application.</p>

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<p>Hunt- of course. And a kid who hasn’t taken Latin at a HS which offers it-- don’t bother pretending.</p>

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<p>What if the student only became interested in classics and literature relatively late, after being enrolled in Spanish or French 3 as a high school junior? Should s/he take Spanish or French 4 versus Latin 1 as a high school senior?</p>

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<p>I’d rather focus on what the student is looking for in a college than what the college is looking for in a student.</p>

<p>A student with a serious interest in classics (or any other major) should be able to identify schools with strong departments. This sort of student may be already familiar with the publications of professors at different colleges. The student may be ready for upper level course work, or graduate courses. This is a very different sort of application. imo Sometimes the admissions office sends these applications to the department to be read and professors contact the students. This is probably rare. I don’t think someone goes down this path to get into HYP (or whatever) They get into HYP (or whatever) because it has the best department in their particular area of study and they look like maybe the best future scholar of their generation in that field.</p>

<p>imho</p>

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<p>I think it varies. My older son knew what he wanted and told the schools that asked. I think it may have helped to be a comp sci guy at Harvard which that year had announced they were starting an Engineering School and hiring 100 new professors. They even had the head of the comp sci department calling him urging him to attend. Younger son was interested in IR, but had no activities on his high school resume that made it look like he’d been thinking in that direction. He applied undecided everywhere. It probably helped not to be yet another IR major in the making at Tufts!</p>

<p>I’m sure there are some schools where coming in as a Latin major might be a plus - probably the LACs more than the research universities. The German Department at Harvard last I looked had only 4 undergrad majors, but they have no trouble filling their language classes. Music majors, linguistics majors, comparative literature majors, and students like my freshman year boyfriend who discovered he could fulfill his humanities requirements with language courses that didn’t require papers (not allowed anymore!), or people who just think it would be fun, will all be those classes. And they seemed to have plenty of grad students.</p>

<p>I think a student who is interested in classics should take Sp or French 4 and Latin 1 and possibly write an essay about how they got interested in learning Latin. </p>

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<p>Note that many college departments offer many “service courses” for non-majors who need them, even though they may have relatively few majors. Examples:</p>

<ul>
<li>Math – lots of majors need calculus or other math courses</li>
<li>English – English composition courses are common graduation requirements.</li>
<li>Foreign languages – as graduation requirements, or for majors like comparative literature, international relations, etc…</li>
<li>Chemistry – biology majors and pre-meds</li>
<li>Physics – engineering majors, biology majors, and pre-meds</li>
<li>Economics – business majors and some other social studies majors</li>
</ul>

<p>However, teaching “service courses” may be less interesting to faculty than teaching advanced undergraduate or graduate level courses to students interested enough to be majoring in the subject.</p>

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<p>I am going to have such a swelled head next year when the media reports that thousands of kids have decided they want to be Classics majors.</p>

<p>UCB, I can’t plan every kid’s HS class schedule. And plenty of kids major in Classics without ever having taken Latin in HS. But a kid with zero evidence of a particular passion for the culture of ancient Greece and/or Rome, who has never taken a relevant course (even self-study) and has shown no particular skill in this area, who has the audacity to claim they’re going to be a Classics major just for Blossom’s theory that this will make them a desirable candidate for Yale or Brown… well, geez. Swelled head indeed.</p>

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<p>About the time my kids were applying to college a rather single-minded Latinist was accepted to colleges where many hadn’t thought he had much chance. Suddenly that was the “hook” everyone was going for… it was rather wild to watch the parents encourage their kids to study Latin. </p>

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<p>Some of it may also be institutional history and/or needs. Columbia University started up SEAS as a separate division sometime in the mid-late 19th century. </p>

<p>In Columbia’s case, overflowing majors in SEAS didn’t seem to be a major issue in the '90s and before as shown by the fact SEAS actually admitted students with far lower stats than their college counterparts at the time. </p>

<p>The difference was such that it was an open secret students with strong math SAT scores from schools like TJSST and BxScience without a chance to gain admission to the College from HS would apply to Columbia SEAS, spend a year, and undergo a internal transfer process which just required some pro-forma paperwork back then. </p>

<p>Sometime in the very late '90s or early '00s, Columbia probably eliminated this practice and made it so transfers from SEAS to the college were treated no differently than transfers from other colleges partially to eliminate this very loophole. </p>