EDed Cornell and now thinking about applying for some other Ivies. I know your “intended major” is non binding but is it hard to declare into another major? I’m talking about within a college. Will they pull our your application and try to keep you in your intended major?
And are all the Ivy school’s “intended majors” non binding? I’ve read that you’re majorless for the first year, but wouldn’t your courses need to be in your intended direction? So if you want to declare something else, would there be difficulties or are the first year courses just very similar?
Thanks!
Not sure about the other schools/colleges, but at COE and CAS, everybody is undeclared Freshmen year. You can take any classes you want then affiliate to a major before Junior year.
Yep, for arts & sciences and engineering, everyone is technically undeclared their first year. For CALS, my friend got accepted as one major and switched majors that summer before even arriving on campus. For Hotel and ILR there are only concentrations which I believe you don’t choose until later on. And I believe HumEc is also fairly easy to switch majors as a lot of the requirements are the same. Which only leaves architecture, and I assume that most people know going in whether their focus is architecture or fine arts, but I guess I could be wrong there.
Definitely not hard to switch majors. I got in as a CALS student, switched majors within CALS, switched to Arts & Sciences (switching majors a second time), then switched majors a third time within Arts and finally added a double major (that wasn’t any of my “original” majors), with little hassle.
As you can tell, I’m really indecisive, but I’m super happy with my current situation and hopefully won’t be switching again.
If you have legit reasons why you want to switch majors (and honestly, even if you don’t), switching majors within schools is very easy. Transferring schools is a little harder, but it depends on what school you want to transfer to. If you have something specific in mind, it should be easier since you’ll be able ot take classes in that major/school starting freshman year and own’t fall behind (which is usually an issue that colleges have re: internal transfer). I also have a friend who switched majors 4 or 5 times within the engineering school and she’s still on track to graduate on time.
In my case, I took a lot of general classes freshman year (intro stats, intro chem sequence, intro bio, calc II & other “intro math” classes, intro physics sequence, and classes that fulfilled a bunch of arts requirements) which really helped me stay on track/allowed me more flexibility in finding a major that interested me and that I could do & still graduate on time with.
Edit: typos, clarity
Big question is - if you applied ED to one college, are you aware that you have to accept that - unless you have financial hardship?
Next - changing major within a college is relatively easy for all colleges. Changing major across different colleges will depend on individual university policies. You need to check each college you are planning to apply.