Which majors are hard to get into and which ones are relatively easier?
Cornell, Penn, and Columbia have separate applications by college, but the other Ivies do not. Even then, you can choose any major within that college. There is no “getting into” a major.
@Hanna Is correct for all typical majors once you are in you can choose anything.
Penn does have a few dual degree and special program majors that require an additional application, such as M & T, Huntsman, NETS, and DMD. They are more selective, but comprise a very small number of students.
While Harvard does not admit frosh by major, it does have one restricted major. That major is visual and environmental studies, which requires a 3.0 college GPA to enter, according to http://ves.fas.harvard.edu/concentrating-ves .
This is not entirely correct for Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, where you apply to an individual major.
Cornell is extremely confusing because its many undergraduate colleges each operate by different rules.
Cornell is confusing! My D is researching it heavily. There are a couple of majors that are offered jointly between CALS and the Engineering school (you can do the major from either school) but if you apply from CALS you must apply directly into that major, whereas if you apply to the Engineering school, you just apply to the school. When people think that CALS is “easier” to get into, they’re often in for a surprise, because some majors are very tough. And with the exception of Dyson/AEM which everyone knows is hard to get into, you don’t necessarily know what the odds are for the particular major you’re interested in.
Why would you be looking for “easy” majors if you are an accepted student at an Ivy. surely you don’t think you would flunk out if you picked a “hard one”.
History and Literature I believe is also still a restricted major at Harvard. There may be a handful of other ones that are little boutique majors. With VES they have limited space in the arts building and Harvard’s efforts to expand that part of campus have been fought tooth and nail by the locals.
The poster is not looking for an easy major, but one that makes admission more likely, I believe 
For your own good longterm, wouldn’t it be better to apply for the major you are interested in?
“easy” is not a very appropriate term when you’re talking 5% admit rate vs. 7% admit rate —
for instance, Yale really wants to attract top tier STEM applicants. They are looking to grab kids who otherwise might be snagged by top competitors like MIT, Caltech, Stanford, Harvard, Cornell, Princeton and some others.
But trying to gauge “easy” declared majors – is a fool’s errand. Colleges are savvy enough to sniff this out. But yet, this question comes up countless times on this site.
However, if the actual desired major is one that is harder to get into at a given school, then it likely has a secondary admission process for students who enroll but want to change into it later. The reason that, at some schools, some majors are harder to get into is that they are filled to capacity, so that changing into them later has to be limited as well.
Note that this situation is more apparent at budget-limited state universities, where many majors are restricted admission. Examples:
http://dgs.illinois.edu/declaring-your-major
http://www.washington.edu/uaa/advising/academic-planning/majors-and-minors/list-of-undergraduate-majors/
A major that makes admission into the Ivies easier? Really? Admission rates are 10% or so, some more near 5%. I doubt the ease of the major impacts admissions for the under 10% who are admitted to these competitive school.
OP,
I think yours is a legitimate question. When my middle son was applying to UPenn, he communicated with the head of the DMD department. My son was unsure of which major he should apply to: DMD, Fine Arts or Cinema. The DMD head said that it’s not harder to get into the DMD than other majors, but my son should apply to the major where he will be the stronger applicant. In his case, he was a weaker DMD applicant (weaker math scores, weaker STEM rigor), so it made sense to apply as a Fine Arts major despite his lack of any formal art class. (He’s interested in animation, and did submit a few animation samples)
He was admitted as a Fine Arts major, and plans to continue in that course.
HTH a little.
It’s important to reiterate: With certain limited exceptions, students do NOT “apply to a major” at Ivy League (or equivalent) colleges. They do not follow the model common in the rest of the world, where students are admitted to a particular course of study. The Common Application asks students for their intended major, but that is next to meaningless when it comes to Ivy League admissions. At most, admissions departments look at it as a general indication of where your principal interests lie. They do try to achieve some balance in the classes they admit among kids with differing interests, but I think any Ivy League admissions person would tell you they do that based on what applicants have actually done, not what they say their intended major is.
The exceptions all have specific applications. At Columbia, if you want to do engineering you have to apply to the engineering school (but I believe major within engineering is irrelevant). Cornell has five or six different schools, and you have to apply to one of them, and in one (maybe two) of the schools you have to specify the major to which you are applying. Penn has four schools, and you have to apply to a specific school (or two, if you are applying to one of its joint programs), but major within each school is irrelevant (except for the joint programs). And I believe that if you want to study engineering at Princeton, you have to specify that on your application and provide some additional materials.
@jhs “It’s important to reiterate: With certain limited exceptions, students do NOT “apply to a major” at Ivy League (or equivalent) colleges.”
Yes. That is the vast majority of majors and students, and we are all geeking out on the small percentage of exceptions.
“The exceptions all have specific applications. At Columbia, if you want to do engineering you have to apply to the engineering school (but I believe major within engineering is irrelevant).”
Yes, but there are exceptions to this also. A few majors do have extra requirements. For example, I think Operations Research or similar major in engineering for example. It pays to investigate the details.
“Penn has four schools, and you have to apply to a specific school (or two, if you are applying to one of its joint programs), but major within each school is irrelevant (except for the joint programs).”
I think they are all joint programs except the NETS program that admits about 20 students per year via a special application. It is not a joint program because it is entirely within SEAS. (http://www.nets.upenn.edu)
@sbjdorlo This gets into semantics. For your son, who has artistic ability, that may be true. However, for a random student, it could be impossible to get into DMD because they need to have both artistic ability as well as math and computer science ability. There are many students who do not have that combination of skills.
Do not make getting into an Ivy your first priority. Choose potential majors that interest you and research schools that do best in them- not always an Ivy. Getting a degree from an Ivy is not that important while doing the major of your choice is important. There will be hundreds (or even thousands) of better students than you who do not go to an Ivy.
Do not try to game the system. Research the best schools for your interests. Majoring in something other than your top choices just to claim a piece of paper is not in your best interest. And- “harder/easier” depends on the individual.
And “gaming” the system can have unexpected consequences. I’ve interviewed numerous students for Brown who claimed a strong interest for the fine arts/taking classes at RISD. They had no portfolio; the other colleges they were applying to didn’t have a particularly large footprint in the visual disciplines, and they were unable to describe their specific passions except “People tell me I’m artsy”.
Nobody is putting the finger on the scale for an “artsy” kid at Brown.
We mostly ignored prospective majors except when it helped explain a kid better.
ucbalumnus, I was just trying to clarify the question since some responders were discussing the issue of easy major (meaning, I guess, workload or level of difficulty) when the original post was about the major that would be the easiest to get into the school with. The original post was based on a false premise which others have/had more than adequately answered, so I only clarified the question itself as I saw it, to avoid a tangent.
I don’t think it is always smart to pick a college based on expected major (this is not in response to the OP, who doesn’t seem to be picking anything based on actual interest). Kids change so much at this age. I think it is good to choose a school where options are open for any interests that might develop. There are exceptions of course: the dedicated musician, the engineering whiz, others.
For a student who appears likely to change majors or who is undecided, choosing a college where the possible majors of interest are not restricted or capacity-limited majors with high admission requirements (i.e. it is easy to change majors, assuming that one takes and passes the prerequisite courses for the desired major) makes sense. I.e. not choosing based on a specific major, but choosing based on the ability to choose any major of possible interest.