I am not sure if I should apply as a B major, history, or lang (whichever is easiest to get into). If I apply to history or lang, I would like to switch to business immediately in the following schools:
chicago, cornell, vandy, berkeley, bc, usc, nyu, and umich. Which is the best idea?
Look…you can’t really game the system like that. Your ECs and other high school accomplishments are supposed to line up with your future major, if you know what it will be. How are you going to fake passion for something else? And don’t you think that’s pretty dang dishonest?
@bodangles ive read in a lot of places that people switch majors all the time, and colleges even expect them to. Ive never heard of accomplishments having to do with my future major. all I have is gpa, great EC’s (sports), and sats. so basically I could fit anywhere
People switch majors because they want to go into a different field than before, not because they want to lie to the college in order to get in!
@bodangles how would I be lying if I switch from engineering to business? Its not like I am going to write how passionate I am about engineering or something. Its more of an attempted clever trick if you ask me…but Ive decided to not apply to engineering based on the extra research that i did.
many people apply as undecided even though they know exactly what major they want to get into. Their only doing this because they wanna increase their chances of getting into college. would that be lying to the college?
“Why College X?” type essays are supposed to include stuff like that – how the insert-major-here program at that school fits your interests, how you plan to take advantage of the insert-major-here things offered. So if you have to write any of those, yes you do have to write about how passionate you are about insert-major-here and why you want to go to that college FOR insert-major-here.
It’s attempting to game the system, yes. Probably a less annoying way of doing it. They expect that undecided students will pick a major eventually.
I think it’s wrong. You seem to have no such qualms, so do what you like, I guess.
I’m confused; if you don’t think you will be accepted to the college if you say that you will major in business in your application, what makes you think that you will be admitted to the business school after you’re enrolled as something else? For at least some of those schools like Cornell, admissions to their business school is extremely competitive even if you are already a student there. It’s not as easy as just filling out a ‘change of major’ form.
I’m not trying to tell you what to do, but I think you might be kidding yourself at least a little if you think that you can apply as an Undecided and then just change your major to business and do an end run around their admissions process. Remember, you won’t just be switching majors but changing departments; it might be easy to move between programs within the College of Arts and Letters but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to move between the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Business.
Boston College is the same as Cornell in this regard – my understanding is they basically take zero transfers into Business.
Schools where it is harder to get into the b-school as compared to the liberal arts school generally make it exceedingly difficult if not impossible for students to do internal transfers (ex. start off in liberal arts and transfer to the b-school). Schools have been wise to that game even decades ago when I applied to colleges . If you want to study business I’d strongly suggest you apply to the b-school of your choice of colleges and go to the best one you get into.
I would also suggest you to apply directly to business school. I transferred between business schools but as a part of the larger pool of incoming transfers, I met a lot of students from other fields, and even internal transfers from a liberal arts background. It’s one thing to transfer after genuinely discovering you are more passionate about business than major X, and another to apply as a major simply to get into another.
- You are reducing your chances as most schools only take a limited number of internal transfers. If you are truly a competitive applicant then you are more likely to differentiate yourself as a part of the larger external transfer pool.
- Admission departments literally look through thousands of applications and essays each year and will see through your "story."
- If you aren't able to transfer into the b-school of your choice then you are stuck pursuing a major you dislike or another field that you are unsure of.