<p>Does UChicago admit by major? Will applying to a common major hurt my chances?</p>
<p>No. I don’t think so.</p>
<p>No, UChicago admits to the undergraduate college as a whole. So don’t worry about what major you list.</p>
<p>KMAD, are you sure? I interviewed when I visited the college this summer and my interviewer admonished my plans to apply as an economics major, by cautioning me that economics is the schools most competitive major admissions wise. She was, however, an alumni working a part time job in admissions rather than an admissions counsellor, so she might have been wrong, but I doubt it. Why would she tell me that if she weren’t sure?</p>
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<p>I’m sure they don’t, I put a major on my common app that didn’t even exist for UChi. Still got in lol…</p>
<p>Chicago assumes you’ll change your major once or twice and does not require you to declare one at all until the beginning of your third year. I suspect your interviewer was simply responding to the number of applicants who are interested in economics. It might be a good idea on the “Why Chicago” essay to convey that you know more about the place than that it has a good economics department and that you appreciate those other strengths. But no, Chicago does not admit by major.</p>
<p>Officially no, but you would be shortsighted to think your application as a prospective biology or economics major is being read in the same light as someone who is interested in studying a dying subject that is in need of warm bodies. This is pretty much true at any of the open choice institutions.</p>
<p>At an official level, definitely not. There are no “schools of _____” at the undergraduate level. Everyone is a student in the same division of the University–The College. Does it matter at all for you application? Probably insomuch as they would like a well-rounded class. Especially at schools as competitive as Chicago is becoming, no one factor is the reason someone does or does not get in. It’s a complex picture. What you list as a major probably only matters insofar as it’s a major piece of your application. If you discus your desire to study a certain thing at length and tie it into the rest of your application, then it might matter. If not, then I’m not too sure they even look that hard at it. Chicago doesn’t really expect high school seniors to know what they plan to study, so I think they probably take the listed majors with a grain of salt, even if they are grounded in a thoughtful academic perspective.</p>