Ds (a junior) has not decided on a major or career. Seems fine for his age, but I am wondering how to handle this during the college application process.
Won’t his essays involve answering questions about his passions and goals as they pertain to a specific major or career?
Also, several of our instate schools, like Texas A&M and UT require students to apply to specific colleges, such as business or engineering, that are extremely difficult to transfer into later.
I was thinking about having my son do some personality profiles, career testing, job shadowing, etc. I keep hearing that it is too early for that.
How do we handle the application process if he has not decided on a specific major?
He has expressed an interest in business, math, and engineering. He’s going to take his first computer science course this spring so we’ll see if there’s an interest there. He currently goes to a classical homeschooling co-op and has said he has no interest at all in advanced studies in humanities or liberal arts.
Perhaps favor colleges where all of his possible majors of interest are noncompetitive or not very difficult to declare or change into from an administrative and capacity standpoint.
But he still needs to pay attention to prerequisite sequencing for all of the possible majors when selecting courses in college. Engineering is the most obvious example here.
So, if your son doesn’t have a major, you can still
look to see what classes and experiences he has enjoyed or done well in. Many kids are particularly interested STEM, humanities, or the arts from an early age. Some majors are simply out of reach - too late to be a music major if you haven't been taking lessons since childhood, for example. But also his grades -- if he's always struggled to write a paper, history would be a poor choice of major. If he's never done well in math, engineering would not be a fun major. What does he love to do so much it's almost annoying? Some baseball-obsessed kids go to the batting cages every chance they get, others collect baseball cards and pages of stats. That would be a simple example of a hands-on learner versus a more logical, data-oriented learner.
visit large and small schools to see what kind of campus he is comfortable on. While there, ask about the support and advising they give to students who come in undecided. Walk around in the STEM, humanities, and business buildings. See if there are students to talk to. Look at what's on the department bulletin boards.
read college websites. Read course catalogs to see what classes you have to take to get a major in X. Do they sound interesting or awful?
do prep for the best possible ACT and/or SAT score.
figure out how you will pay for college
Money and test scores are limiting factors in college selection probably more so than desired major.
No, college applications do not usually ask for your life and career plan. Here are the current common app essays for example
If he has just a little bit of interest in engineering, I’d recommend starting on that track right away. He could end up loving it and won’t be behind, and will probably end up with most of his math classes done if he decides to switch to a business major or something else.
Talk to the professor/teacher in your favorite class and see what they think
Pre-med/sociology/public health/psychology are majors where you want to help people directly.
Business/engineering/comp sci are majors where you want to solve technical/organizational problems.
Which is more appealing to you?
A huge proportion of kids switch majors after freshman year anyhow. It’s nice to have a plan going in, but the beauty of American colleges is that you can postpone choosing at most places. Some few colleges have a very particular curriculum - St. John’s Annapolis & Santa Fe, for instance. Or there are colleges that encourage exploration - Brown comes to mind.
I am sure he has passions. At this point they don’t have to be specific. As long as he can write essays about himself and he knows what he likes to learn and doesn’t like, he probably has a good range of choices.
Many…MANY kids apply to college as undeclared in terms of major. Many others apply with one major in mind and switch once or twice or three times…or more.
For someone undecided…pick a college with a nice variety of majors…and perhaps a core course requirement that makes them take a variety of courses across a lot of disciplines.
Many kids don’t declare the actual graduation major until the very end of their sophomore year of college.
Math is the underlying theme to the potential majors you described – business, math, engineering and computer science, since these majors all have a strong quantitative component. I recommend that he start out as a Mathematics major, and if he wants to transfer to another major at some point, he will have completed relevant courses that can apply to the other major. Math can be a very diverse major nowadays, depending on the university. For example, at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, math majors can choose to focus on general math, or on Actuarial Science, Computer Applications, Mathematics Education, or Mathematical Biology: Genomics or Physiology.
If he majored in math, he could also choose to add a minor in something more specific like Accounting or Marketing or Computer Science.
Another idea would be to declare a major in Systems Engineering. That is an area of engineering that applies mathematical modeling, simulation and statistics to complex systems, solving a wide variety of problems for businesses. He would also get to develop and use computer skills in these tasks.
A lot of jobs will accept a wide range of majors. If a job is quantitative in nature, it is common for a job ad to list a variety of possible majors that will be considered, as long as they have a strong quantitative component. The above two majors would not box him in, but instead would give him skills that he can try out in different ways through summer internships and other activities during college. By exploring his interests in internships, possible research with professors and extracurricular activities, he should be able to figure out which direction he wants to go with his career. Either of these majors would allow him to take a variety of career paths.
Our S19 is undecided but has ruled out a few things, engineering and comp sci. I think sometimes ruling some things out is easier than choosing. In our case, it’s super helpful because engineering especially requires applying to engineering programs so we know he’s not doing that.
I fully expect him to be undecided while he applies and probably will be undecided until he has to declare a major. I agree with taking him to larger schools, smaller schools, urban schools, etc and see if he has preferences. For us, S19 likes smaller. Wants small classes and mentoring of professors. We’re able to narrow it down to liberal arts schools. Then, we got his SAT score and we can start making a list. He’s visited six LACs within driving distance and decided what he liked and didn’t like about them. We’ve extrapolated from there to include a few other schools that require a plane ride.
Good luck! Honestly, I would be much more worried if our son was very specific in his major ideas right now. What if we set him up for a degree in business or education or engineering and then he wants out after six months? Then he may need to transfer. These kids are only 17 years old. Most don’t know.
If he is thinking engineering at all, I’d apply with that in mind. It’s easier to transfer out of engineering to other things than it is to transfer into engineering without losing time. The engineering major can be difficult/impossible to transfer into after freshman year in some places. Just make sure his schools have other interesting non-engineering options.
It’s very common. If a college allows an undecided major, then apply as an undecided. Or write down a major which best correlates with what he’s good at. My kid has no idea what he will major in college because he’s going there to find out what he likes and doesn’t like. That’s perfectly fine. This is why it’s always good to select a college that is strong in many areas, not just one or two areas.
Alas, as you realize, the State flagships in Texas ( and, in fairness, a few other states) don’t really permit transferring between majors or colleges within the University. Engineering, business and math are all separate colleges, and computer sci tho within the college of natural science is a highly competitive admit as well. Texas A&M offers more a bit more flexibility than UT Austin Alternatively,UT Dallas has much more flexibility and is an up and coming school. The alternative is private.
Ps- you’ll want to investigate each school carefully. I don’t believe any of the minors proposed by @mommyrocks could be added to a math major at UT, for example. Other schools would allow it
Can he do some things this summer and in ECs to explore this interests? Maybe robotics (this is literally the week he should contact his school team if there is one and see if he can get involved) or a business oriented EC like Junior Achievment?
Agree with @roycroftmom that large public universities often do require this decision upon applying. Don’t totally reject the idea of private schools if he has good stats and grades – he might get good aid at one that makes it affordable.
You might want to look into LAC’s or smaller colleges that have a full slate of majors including engineering which don’t require applying to a particular school. My DD was exactly the same way and that is the way we went.
It’s really not a big deal. Apply to colleges where you don’t have to declare a major right away. No one needs to major in business as an undergrad - major in Econ if that’s your interest. I went off to college having loved art, math and history in high school. I considered majoring in history and lit, I think in retrospect I would have enjoyed being a History of Science major. (Though I had a lousy science background from high school, I was good at it.) In the end I stumbled into a major that allowed me to take design, art and film courses along with a huge dose of architectural history and then I went to grad school in architecture. I got a broad undergrad education and then got to hyperfocus in grad school.
Some colleges (Northeastern for example) actually have an undecided program where you explore options until you decide. My daughter applied to most school undeclared, where she had to decide she picked something (don’t remember what.) Use his lack of direction as a basis for judging the fitness of colleges - do they have a program for undeclared, do they let you apply to the college instead of a specific major, how is their academic advising, etc.
We are in Texas also so I feel your pain. My Junior son is in the same boat. He thinks maybe computer science or mechanical engineering but is not sure. I think A&M and UT Austin are great schools but I worry about him getting to one of those and not having options. We will get no financial aid and even though he is pretty high stats he is not high enough to get a private schools down to instate price range. Leaves us looking at UT Dallas, UT Arlington, Texas Tech, AR and maybe OK. These schools may not be as highly ranked as A&M or UT Austin but does not matter to us -We just want him to be able to end up doing what makes sense for him.