<p>Do courses you take in high school and how you do in them affect what you major in during college? For example, would not taking a course in Economics (or taking it and doing poorly in it), although Economics, AP Macroeconomics, and AP Microeconomics are offered in my high school, affect the possibility of me majoring in Economics in college?</p>
<p>In my experience, there isn’t really the kind of early academic “specialization” that you’re hinting at. Thinking about it from an admissions angle, a lot of universities don’t even admit by major, but by college - e.g., the admissions standards for becoming any sort of liberal arts/social sciences major would be different than the ones for becoming an engineering major.</p>
<p>So, in a word, no. For example, doing poorly in a normal high school Econ class would make you a weaker applicant because it lowers your overall GPA, not because it shows any specific weakness in the study of economics. Of course, it’s best to just get As in the hardest classes available, but I think everybody knows that that’s not always realistic. You mentioned not taking Econ at all in high school - I don’t really see why it would matter, because it’s more important that you’re a strong student in general.</p>
<p>On a practical level, I was a Business Economics major at UCSB (it was more of an econ degree), and I took AP Microecon and Macroecon - my only feeling was that it was useful to have taken the AP courses when my UCSB professors for the introductory econ courses explained some topics poorly.</p>