Applying for a school like MIT or Pomona College for a humanities major. Does that give you an advantage while applying/higher chance of getting in?
MIT has a mid-single-digit acceptance rate. Even if a humanices major gets a boost (which I doubt), that would increase your chances to - what? - 8%? Not statistically meaningful. Then, assuming you get accepted and attend, you still need to take a host of STEM Subjects to graduate. And we’re talking taking the same Physics/calc classes as the card-core STEM kids. No “Rocks for Jocks” courses. at MIT.
This post, along with several others, seem to me to be what I call the “Let’s throw crap against the wall and see what sticks” approach to college admissions. Folly, IMO. Look at this post:
https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/applying_sideways/
Other blog entries on the MIT webpage (or other colleges sites) although offer some insight on application strategies.
1 Like
@IwantIvy25, both schools will be incredibly tough to get into. I know four 4.0 UW GPA, 1500+, excellent extracurricular students who were denied by Pomona in the past several years and students with similar stats denied by MIT. Pomona is a small college that works really hard on a diverse balance in its student body. Wishing you the best in your application process!
are you calling Pomona a STEM school? It’s an extremely selective liberal arts college.
@donnaleighg not necessarily but I see a lot of people going there for stem
@whidbeyite2002 Thank you so much for the positivity! Yeah for sure they are reaches for everyone!
@skieurope You really put things to perspective thanks
I went to JHU a long time ago. They have excellent humanities with small departments. When I went there it was much easier to get in as a humanities major, particularly than premed. I heard a story about someone who went with a friend to an interview and when he told admissions he wanted to major in classics, they wanted to interview him, but he declined.It had a crazy competitive atmosphere then, and I wouldn’t really recommend it although it is a great school.
I would assume there are a lower percentage of humanities majors at top schools than back then.At many schools, certain career oriented programs have too many applicants. I would think it would be an advantage to be a humanities major at many highly competitive schools.
At Pomona, I do not think applying in the humanities will give one an edge. At JHU, I think there’s a strong possibility. At MIT, I’m not sure. My husband graduated from there too long ago to compare.
At JHU there were almost no humanities majors. Those were mostly English majors, and mostly career oriented like everyone else, pre-law or pre-MBA. It might not make much difference at an engineering school or liberal arts school, like the ones you mentioned. However, at general universities with low humanities enrollments it probably helps. Some places have schools of this and that. In that cases Art and Sciences is probably easier to get into to begin with. Some career oriented Ivies like Penn and Cornell might be like Hopkins that way, not having many humanities majors and looking for them.
MIT doesn’t accept by majors. I know someone who did creative writing at JHU and loved it. I also know someone (eons ago) who was at Caltech and ended up being a humanities major which I didn’t even think was possible. She thought she would go into science writing. Don’t know what ended up happening to her.
Pomona isn’t known particularly as a STEM school.
@intparent yeah I addressed that already I meant to say other schools too
@mathmom wow! That’s really interesting. I have thought of taking this route.
While Caltech also doesn’t admit by major, I doubt that they would admit someone who applied saying they wanted to major in humanities or a social science as an undergrad. (They do have grad students in humanities and social science fields.) See their admissions essay topics for evidence.
Their humanities majors are designed as 2nd majors to be combined with a STEM major. Someone who ends up with only a degree in humanities from Caltech decided they didn’t like STEM. (Though they still had to pass at least a year each of math, physics, and chemistry/bio.) Caltech wants to admit undergrads who love STEM and will advance a STEM field.
And as I recall this young woman fully intended to major in a science, but didn’t actually prefer one over the other, and did not feel she was good enough to be doing graduate level work in any of the options. I did not know her well, just had an interesting conversation at a party.
I would think being a humanities major would be an advantage at most schools except engineering schools and LACs. Engineering students are looking for STEM students and LACs have plenty of humanities majors. Top state schools and others are oversubscribed in certain majors such as CS, engineering, and so on. So it is an advantage to be anything else.
Hopkins has good graduate departments in humanities. Woodrow Wilson got his PhD in history from there. Most humanities majors are English or Writing Seminars. It is sort of European style where you go there to study one thing, not a liberal arts environment. Some departments are not looking for undergraduate majors.I would recommend applying though if you are looking to get in easier as humanities. It is advantage there not being premed, which attracts many lemmings (it isn’t a good school for high GPA).
@sattut Wow! I never thought of Hopkins. I would like to do history as a major and if not that then either international relations or something unique like middle eastern studies. Thank you for the great advice.
About 10% of students majored in International Studies when I went there, 3rd after premed and EE. They have a graduate school for Advanced International Studies, but that is completely separate. I am not sure if it would be considered humanities. A lot of it is studying politics of different countries.
Hopkins’ history department is oriented toward economic history. I didn’t like it, and they don’t have many undergraduate majors, but it is highly ranked.
In general, the humanities is great, but small departments. English and History were big departments. However, Classics, German, Romance Languages, and History of Science were tiny. English and Philosophy were really good.
When I was there, the atmosphere was very intense, competitive, and career oriented. People were mostly in certain career oriented majors.Everyone seemed to act like premeds, interested in grades and what the best career move was. Just to warn you a little, since I was recommending it sort of.
You couldn’t major in middle eastern studies as an undergraduate when I was there.If you want to do that, then you might research schools that have that.
Hopkins has excellent humanities, but the orientation is towards developing writing skills for law,business, or professional writing or journalism. That is true for the popular English and Writing Seminar majors,but also for other humanities departments. I am not sure if you can still take a humanities area major, but that is a good option to take whatever good humanities classes you want, and would also probably be oriented towards developing writing skills.
I mentioned Hopkins as an easy admit for humanities. However, it probably isn’t a good fit for history and area studies.
Mideastern studies and similar topics are probably available at top state schools, maybe like Berkeley or Michigan. Maybe some Ivies and similar. I wouldn’t expect it at LACs. Oxford has oriental studies, with options including Arabic studies and Chinese studies. There are probably other British schools with programs like that. I heard about someone enlisted military being sent to study Arabic studies in the mideast, but presumably they already talk him Arabic. Certainly you could do area studies in whatever country you want to study about. However, foreign programs tend to be rigorous and rigid, where you study whatever is in the program.