<p>Hello everyone! I am a senior in high school beginning to fill out college applications and I was wondering if what I put in the prospective major spot will affect how my application is viewed. I will ideally double major in International Relations and East Asian Studies. IR is relatively common major, while EAS is not. Will filling out EAS make my application more unique? </p>
<p>Probably not, but maybe. Some schools don’t care what you put down for your major while others care very much - you have to be admitted to a particular school within the university. For instance, most LACs place no weight on preferred major, but a place like Penn cares very much if you want to go to Wharton or the UCs if you want engineering at Berkeley.</p>
<p>FWIW, IR and EAS probably isn’t all that uncommon - IR and Molecular Biology would be very unusual. And the language police are about to strike regarding your “more unique” phrase.</p>
<p>Most undergraduate colleges will not require you to declare a major. Do you plan to apply to any schools like the Foreign Service school at Georgetown? You should certainly mention your interest, but you probably won’t be committing to it. Where are you applying?</p>
<p>This is among the top ten most oft repeated questions here on CC. If you search, you’ll literally see this question asked 100s of times.</p>
<p>Sometimes it matters; sometimes it doesn’t. It depends on the school. In your case, for most schools, your statement why you want IR/East Asian Studies will matter a lot more than the actual choice. </p>