<p>1) Is it easier to get into Harvard indicating an obscure major as your first choice? Say, Slavic Languages or Middle Eastern studies? I am wondering whether or not I should indicate Biology as my first choice major, but I wonder if indicating an obscure major will increase my chances of getting in.</p>
<p>2) (Assuming I put Biology as my first choice major)
The Harvard application wants to know how sure you are of your intended major. I know that Harvard is about 14% biology major, and if I indicate that I am very sure that I want to major in biology, I am afraid that the admissions officer might deny me if there are sufficiently many other people that are better than me in biology. </p>
<p>What I DON'T want to happen is the admissions officer to think:
"Well, we could admit him if he wanted to major in ________ (not biology), but he indicated that he checked off very sure under the indicated biology major, and we already have enough biology applicants that we want to admit."</p>
<p>I have heard that it can help, as long as you’re not trying too hard.</p>
<p>What I mean by that is that if you put down Slavic Languages or Folklore and Mythology, it might seem disingenuous since it’s less likely you would have been exposed to those fields in depth in high school. However, if one puts Classics (many schools teach Latin at a relatively high level in high school), it could look quite good on your application, especially if it is atypical of your “type” (perhaps, first generation of college).</p>
<p>With that said, I would discourage people from placing down majors that they are not actually interesting in. The admissions committee can piece together BS quite well - either through your writing or through the interview, during which your interviewer will certainly ask you about your academic fields of interest.</p>
<p>the application does not ask for intended major, but rather intended area of concentration (such as social sciences, natural sciences, engineering, etc.).</p>
<p>dont put something you dont wanna really do. it can reflect in your application that you really dont wanna do that and could work against you. after all, youre totally not binded into whatever you put on your application</p>
<p>Unless you have demonstrated interest in “Slavic Languages” or other obscure majors, I would advise against putting it down on your application. Admissions officer’s can easily see through the BS and it will most likely be more of a hindrance than an improvement to your chances.</p>
<p>Just curious, with the part that has “how sure are you about your future plans” (not exact quote but something alone those lines…) Will having the “certain” option about the field of medicine be a bad move? Since i’m sure many would be the same, and i fear having the highest certainty option they would feel you may be narrow-minded and only want to be doing that single thing, or don’t they think like that?</p>
<p>no, i can see why you would think it could come off as being narrowminded, but thats more of a detriment when youre talking about how you see things and stuff. if youre sure you know what you want to study, then feel free to say that you do.</p>
<p>on my app, i took the liberty of saying i had no idea what i wanted to study or do later on. sounds worse than actually having an idea, wouldnt it?</p>
<p>yoho- okay i see, hopefully being certain has no effect.
actually, saying you have no idea when applying to a school like Harvard doesn’t sound bad in the slightest considering all the different subjects you have to take and the easiness of experimenting with subjects.</p>
<p>I’ve heard they want to see your interest reflect what you’ve done in school. I get the feeling that’s how they weed out those “I just did this to get into Harvard” activities.</p>
<p>But the Harvard admissions officers wouldn’t really know what my interests are. They aren’t me. It’s common for people to do X in high school and want to do Y in college. They can’t expect everyone to keep doing what they’ve been doing in high school. And I feel it would only be detrimental for me if I picked one of the common majors as my intended major.</p>
<p>After all, they have to pick someone to major in slavic languages, don’t they? Otherwise they run the risk of having a major with only a few people in it…</p>
<p>Since most college students change their intended majors twice or more times, I really really don’t think they try to fill up “concentration quotas” when they’re accepting people. If you indicate Slavic Studies as your interest, the person reading it is immediately going to think “Gee, that’s interesting. I wonder what has prompted him to want to study that.” And then when he looks at your transcript, he’ll find no Slav-related courses. When he looks at your ECs, he’ll find nothing related to Slavic studies. Then he’s going to wonder why you have an interest that was not at all represented elsewhere in your application. More harm than good.</p>
<p>yes, some majors will hurt/help your chances. but if you are an econ person, it will still hurt if you apply for linguistics with no interest or background towards linguistics.</p>
<p>but if you like chem, bio, physics, and math. math will probably help you the most and bio will hurt you the most.</p>
<p>and i have to mention again that they only ask what general field you plan on going into (theres only 6 options, i put engineering, theres like natural science, social sciences, stuff like that). i think i mentioned this earlier, but maybe not, so you dont get an option of doing this.</p>
<p>stop trying to game the system. apply and see if you can get in.</p>
<p>"Unless you have demonstrated interest in “Slavic Languages” or other obscure majors, I would advise against putting it down on your application. Admissions officer’s can easily see through the BS "</p>
<p>Very true. Unless you have a strong demonstrated interest in a subject, don’t put down an obscure major because admissions officers probably will assume you’re lying in a desperate bid to get acceptance.</p>
<p>Also I do not think that the CommonApp allows you to put down really obscure majors, such as Folk and Myth. I don’t recall precisely, but I have had (EXTENSIVE) exposure to mythology in high school (and some to linguistics too! for all y’all listing obscure things it would be preposterous to do in high school) and so I was annoyed that I couldn’t be more specific about my intended major. I no longer intend to major in Folk and Myth, but will definitely be taking classes there. I do think that putting down “Slavic Languages” when all your ecs are in biology might hurt you–your intended plan of college (specific or general as you like) should match your transcript and extracurriculars, or have an essay about what you’ve done non-ec non-school-wise to pursue your interests.</p>
<p>What do you mean you wouldn’t just keep doing the same thing in High School? They want to see that you’ve been proactive in pursuing your interests. If you’ve done a bunch of random stuff that looks good on an Application but your true interest is “Slavic Languages”–even if you really do love Slavic Languages–that may be looked at as a negative.</p>
<p>It certainly won’t be a positive, at least. Why would they look positively on someone who has done nothing to pursue what they claim their interested field is? At best, they’ll just think you checked the wrong box.</p>
<p>I agree with Northstarmom that a claimed interest in an obscure subject had better be backed up with some strong demonstrated interest. My son backed up his interest in linguistics by identifying in his essay when and how it developed (very early) and what he had done either through school (taking Spanish and Latin to the end) or on his own (learning Esperanto and IPA and listening to college lecture series on linguistics and the development of the English language). IPA was also the subject matter of his IB paper.</p>
<p>If you have, for instance, always wanted to study Slavic languages, then what have you done to achieve that goal. If the answer is that it’s not available in my High School, that’s not a good enough reason. You could have studied Slavic languages in books from the library or on the various language study tapes available. An enterprising student will find a way to learn that which he wants to learn.</p>