All colleges will dance around that question, but my answer is yes.
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Harvard has a 4.9% acceptance rate. If if was 4.8% for CS majors and 5.1% for classics majors, is that really statistically significant? 19 of 20 are still rejected.
What they real numbers are is unknown to the public.
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As a first year Classics major (many decades ago) every single one of my classmates had taken Latin all through HS and had passed the Uâs Latin translation/composition proficiency test. It is very tough to fake that. I was the clear outlier not having had Latin. (although I had proficiency in a different archaic language).
So sure- pick an obscure major, go get proficiency in some aspect of it, and THEN apply to college and have an easier time than someone who claims they are pre-med and majoring in Bio.
But isnât that what the Greek Chorus on CC (sorry, couldnât resist a Classics pun) is always advising- find something you love and are good at?
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Google around for the presentation by Solomon ConsultingâŠthis is pretty much their strategy as I understood. They supposedly know which colleges need kids in which majors and they tailor your activities and application likewiseâŠit sounds like a pretty effective strategy and I do think many colleges would be quite interested in a kid with a likely major in X, if they have a department with few kids in that major. Even if they realize the kid might change majors.
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If a student has multiple interests (and thereâre many of them), and if her/his activities are consistent with those interests, is it wrong for her/him to select a major that gives her/him a better chance of admission? We have to look at it in the context of colleges shaping their classes without telling applicants how that might affect their chances.
Personally, however, I would still select an intended major that is more likely to be my primary interest at the time of application, if I were an applicant today. My S was equally gifted in STEM and humanities but he chose CS, perhaps the most popular major, for all the colleges he applied to a few years ago.
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My daughter applied to a few t-20s as a physics major with most of her ECâs revolving around physics (SSP astrophysics and some Fermi lab stuff). I am wondering if this will be a boost as the number of women in undergrad physics programs is 30% ish. We will see. She did get in to one ea school thatâs t-20.
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I have no particular insight into it, Iâm sure some CC experts could tell you more (for example, how much the top schools want to balance genders in physics studies) but it sounds right on, with your daughterâs ECs matching her declared interest.
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Well one issue with the statement is, you cannot major in business as an undergrad at Harvard. Thatâs probably a good thing.
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When submitting my applications, I just defaulted to the assumption that every college takes in to account e v e r y t h i n g and then I donât drive myself crazy guessing what they look at.
At this point, I am who I am, and only strive to be a better version of myself as I continue my education. If they donât want me based on me, I donât think I want them either.
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It could backfire if the student does not carefully check how difficult changing major to a more popular major is. For example, a student undecided between CS and philosophy applying to CMU may have a better chance of admission as a philosophy major. But if the student is admitted and matriculates to CMU, the chance of being able to change to CS later is very low, because the CS major is âfullâ.
I think thatâs a separate issue and is well known. OP also seems to be well aware of it.
San Jose State University does not dance around that question. See the link in post #10.
I think the OP is looking at âhighly selective schoolsâ.
The Harvard lawsuit does provide real numbers to some extent. It includes a regression analysis that compared the chance of acceptance for applicants with similar hook status, similar reader ratings, similar âŠ, for different prospective major groupings â CS, engineering, math, biology, social sciences, humanities, and unknown.
If you donât use any controls, then it better corresponds to the raw acceptance rate. However, without controls, these acceptance rate difference can reflect applicants in a particular major being stronger than applicants in another major on average, rather than the college preferring applicants from a particular major. Without controls for the application and only controls for hook status, the relative chance of acceptances were:
Physical Sciences â 1.4x increase
Math â 1.2x increase
Humanities â 1.15x increase
Social Sciences, Engineering, CS â Not statistically significant difference
Biology â 1.3x decrease
Unknown â 1.8x decrease
However, after controlling for the reader ratings of the applicants, I donât think any of the chance of acceptance by major differences reach statistical significance. One grouping that is noteworthy is applicants who did not specify a prospective major. With full controls they had an average 3.6x reduced chance of acceptance among similar applicants. However, the standard error is very large (small sample size may contribute), so I donât think it reaches statistical significance.
We used Solomon. But unfortunately the results are terrible. Their positioning strategy does not work!
Thatâs a terrible strategy!