Help choosing Emory major (natural science or social science?) based on stats

Colleges and Universities A-Z Emory University
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Hello everyone. Emory is one of the most selective schools I am applying to, so I am especially nervous about what to pick for my major. I am equally interested in sciences and humanities, so I’ve picked a different major for pretty much every school I’ve applied to dependent on what the school’s strengths are.

For Emory, from what I’ve gathered is its strengths lie in the science departments and with pre-law (correct me if I’m wrong). I would honestly be interested in either, so due to the selectiveness of Emory, I was thinking I should apply for the major that is “easier” to get into, or at least easier for my respective qualifications.

For my stats, I have a 4.5/4.0 cumulative GPA, will likely have a 5.0 GPA this first grading period, and had a 4.83 for last semester junior year. For the SAT, I got a 1490 (780 EBRW, 710 Math).

Obviously my EBRW is much more impressive, so that is why I am thinking I may be better off applying for social sciences on a pre-law track. However, I never took any AP English (although my SAT seems to indicate I probably should have). I really like researching social sciences in my free time, and have read over 30 fiction and classic books this year, but I haven’t really taken any courses to demonstrate that interest. I may be qualified in that I was nominated as a Girls State Delegate and got 5s on AP Seminar, APUSH, and AP Gov, but that was for my sophomore and junior years. Although I am not taking AP English this year, I am taking dual enrollment English and both AP Spanish courses if that means anything.

However, I worry they might find it strange if I apply for humanities when I’m mostly taking advanced math and science courses this year. I am taking AP Chem, Bio, and Calc BC this year and got a 5 on AB last year. While I understand math and science really well and always am in the top of my class, I worry that a 710 math is too low for science at Emory.

My extracurriculars are mostly leadership and community service based, so they could probably work for both majors. Girls State is the only one that is more humanities specific.

I’ve already written my supplementals and wrote one on a more feminist topic and another about my outlook on life and how it relates to community service if that information would help.

I know that it is ideal that your course load, extracurriculars, essays, and test scores all support your chosen major, so that’s why I gave all that information.

Here are the majors I was thinking I might apply to:

-Anthropology and Human Biology (BS)—> might perfectly combine both my interests…
-Environmental Sciences (less competitive science?, have a strong APES teacher rec letter)
-Philosophy, Politics, and Law
-Political Science (too generic of a major?)
-Chemistry
-Biology
-Psychology and Linguistics

My other main priority for majors is that I want them to be practical, so that I can actually get a high paying job if something happens and I cannot go to graduate school. That’s why I’m hesitant to pick something like Philosophy or Linguistics even though I find those pretty interesting. I also like the prospect of having the options for both med school and law school with whatever I major in, but I realize that’s difficult.

If you read through all of this I really appreciate it!! Thanks :slight_smile:

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@HSStudent5

All students who enter Emory or Oxford College come in as undeclared majors in the College of Arts and science regardless of what you put on your college application, so it really doesn’t matter what you put as your intended major. I believe the earliest you can even declare a major at Emory is during your second semester of Freshmen year.

The major you “declare” on your college app only serve as a way for admission officers to get a sense of what you might want to study at Emory, and to my knowledge, it has very little or no impact on the selectivity of the admission process since they know most students will end up changing their majors anyways and many try to “Game the system.”

Unlike for a lot of other colleges where you apply for a specific department within the school and the admission selectivity varies greatly based on it, Emory should be the last school you should be worried about regarding what you should put as your major.

I would recommend just picking a major you are actually interested in studying, whether it be STEM or Humanities, and not worry at all about what majors would most likely boost your chances of getting in, as there are none.

Hope this helped.

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Thank you so much. That is a relief to hear. I think I’ll choose Anthropology and Human Biology and try my best not to stress about it :slight_smile:

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@HSStudent5 : That’s right. Just be honest and put whatever you want. This doesn’t contribute to their decsions and as part of evidence that it doesn’t, they know and expect that like 1/2-2/3 of an Emory cohort often come in as expressing an interest in pre-med. The only time a major can maybe put the thumb on the scale is if your interest is associated with some talent (like the performing arts) that can be easily presented in essays or via an additional submission. In that case, then members of such departments may be invited to get involved in the evaluation process or reach out if they are interested in you coming to be a part of the department in some capacity (major or not). Emory is very selective, but it isn’t crazy like HYPS where they may be attempting to say…find and enroll future elite STEM academics (so they’ll chase after the International Olympiad applicants, and different national/international science fair finalists, etc).

And even those places look less at stats than EC profiles because the stats are so compressed in the upper ranges no matter the division that the person is interested in (As in, anyone with SAT/ACT solid enough for admission will be able to do fine in any arts and sciences division. Differentiators could be involvement outside of the classroom or the level of courses taken in a certain area. Basically evidence of subject specific excellence and ability to handle a rigorous course in an area will be more important than the SAT score. Like you don’t just take “generic math” at a place like Emory or really any college. A 710 on math is less competitive than many people applying but is by no means “too low” and is certainly at a level that indicates that you can handle intro. and other STEM courses at the most selective universities in the US. They will note that you have a 5 on AB and that’ll probably trump the SAT score).

The exceptions of this are places like what a user above alluded to where they admit directly to a conservatory, business, engineering school (and even here, the AP calc. score and experience will be more important as they’d be partial to those strong specifically in calculus which is a bedrock of engineering curricula), etc. Emory just admits people to one of its two colleges of arts and sciences and lets people figure it out from there.