<p>So is economics a liberal arts major or a business major? I know that it's harder to get into a competitive school with any liberal arts major, so would selecting Finance or something in the business field increase my chances? (if Econ. is a LA of course) </p>
<p>azsxdc</p>
<p>Depends.</p>
<p>Econ at Wharton: business major.
Econ at Williams: liberal arts major.</p>
<p>Neither.</p>
<p>It's a social science.</p>
<p>What about these schools? </p>
<p>MIT:
CIT:
HYPS:
NYU:
Cornell:</p>
<p>I don't think it's a matter "that it's harder to get into a competitive school with any liberal arts major", it's more that most of the more competitive colleges don't offer a business major. At a place like BC, I don't think it's any harder to get in wanting to major in finance than economics (or the other way around). Penn, with the undergrad Wharton School, and NYU Stern are probably the main two exceptions to this where the business school would probably be harder to get into than the general college of arts & sciences.</p>
<p>MIT-Sloan School of Management: Business
MIT: social science
CIT: social science
HYPS: social science
NYU-Stern School of Business: Business
NYU-Arts and Science: social science
Cornell-AEM program: business
Cornell-Arts and Science: social science</p>
<p>Basically if you see an "economics" major in a business school, its a business major, and it's a social science if you see it in a liberal arts school (or liberal arts division of a university).</p>
<p>Social sciences (psych, anthropology, sociology, econ) are PART of the liberal arts, along with humanities (history, languages, philosophy, theology, poli sci--usually poli sci is a humanity... sometimes a social science), "hard" sciences (bio, physics, chemistry, math), and "arts" (music, acting, painting, dance, etc.). </p>
<p>There is a lot of overlap between the social sciences per se and "business" classes. Marketing has a lot of sociology and psych in it. Classes that deal with worker motivation are usually really applied psychology. I think a lot of "business" professors consider themselves social scientists. I know that my eyes glazed over in business classes in exactly the same manner as they did in psych and sociology classes. A distinguished professor of German I had as an undergrad (who had an honorary degree from Yale, so he had decent academic credentials) dismissed the social sciences as "the re-discovery of common sense." Indeed, it seems like a lot of psych and sociology involves labeling concepts of which we are already aware.</p>