I know that several top universities (besides Ivies) are pretty notable for several of their humanities department, like English, but I was wondering if it’s harder to get into them majoring in humanities compared to majoring in a STEM program? I am interested in majoring in English and I’m curious about the number of undergraduates actually majoring in this field because of the change in prevalence in recent years. However, I’m also interested in a science and am interested in minoring in one. Thanks beforehand for the replies!
Nope. And most of the Ivies do not admit by major.
^^^^ The “conventional wisdom” that I have heard is different. I’ve heard multiple admission officers say that unless it is a special school/program (ex. business, engineering etc.) that they don’t consider intended major in admissions decisions. The exception might be if a student can demonstrate a documented history of interest in an area he/she puts down as the intended major in the application. This is because half of the applicants apply undecided and half of the applicants who apply with an intended major end up changing majors while in college. Colleges are wise to the game of students applying to an “unpopular” major to try to get an edge in admissions and then switch out into something else.
I’ve done alumni interviewing for a very selective college, and I welcome candidates who are interested in the humanities and the arts. It seems like everyone I talk to is interested in STEM these days.
I think admissions is more competitive for STEM majors. And even if schools don’t admit by major, they can often tell what you are likely to major in by your essays and ECs. The kid who does a science fair project and writes about wanting to cure cancer less likely to end up in English. The kid who edits the school paper or literary magazine but isn’t on the math team is most likely not going to major in physics. Many top schools offer a wide array of programs and they need students for all departments. They do not want to become tech schools. The number of English majors seems to have declined considerably over the last decade or two, so I would guess that if you have an interest in English and ECs to convince them that this interest is serious and longstanding, then it might be a bit of an advantage.
You can see this for instance at Duke, where admissions and stats are separately published for Arts and sciences vs. Engineering.
A&S
SAT reading 690-790
SAT math 700-800
SAT writing 700-790
ACT 31-35
ENG
700-790
760-800
710-790
33-35
What you see is that engineers have higher scores, not just the expected higher math scores, but also even slightly higher reading and writing scores (and the Arts and sciences does include a significant fraction of STEM majors as well, so I suspect the differences might be even higher if you could see the numbers split out). It’s simply more competitive to be STEM.
It’s not.
Duke is not in the Ivy League. (Great school, though, of course.)
It may not be so much being “wise to the game” as the fact that if a college has higher selectivity for a given major, it is because the major is filled to capacity, and the college needs to keep it from overflowing. Therefore, the “game” of entering the college as a different major or as undeclared and then changing into that major later runs into the secondary admission barrier placed in front of the major to keep it from overflowing.
The same can also exist at a division level (e.g. the engineering division, business division, or arts and sciences division) at the college.
In terms of the Ivy League, Penn, Cornell, and Columbia have frosh admissions by division. There may be limited-enrollment majors at other Ivy League schools, though they may be limited only in terms of secondary admission if the school admits all students undeclared (e.g. visual environmental studies at Harvard).
The OP was also discussing “top universities (besides Ivies)” and while most of the Ivies don’t break out their scores, the scores of Duke students are in the same range, probably higher than some, i didn’t check, and I bet most of them applied to some Ivies and were cross admits. Feel free to research this for Ivys. I tried to check Cornell but they were surprisingly unforthcoming with the data and I lost patience looking.
Yes, I also suspect it helps to be demographically under-represented in your intended major. I would think the schools want diversity within the classes, not just in the school as a whole. So while I think it’s likely you would get a small advantage as an English major, if you are also female, that may evaporate. Likewise, if the school is overwhelmed by STEM majors, this may not be so bad for you if you are female. I can’t prove this is true, but I suspect it is.
I would imagine that it would be an advantage at Kenyon to not be applying as an English major. They have so many of those. I also think it might give you an advantage to apply to Case Western Reserve as an English major, because hey probably don’t have many of those
STEM is not uniform in this respect. Female students are around 60% of biology graduates but around 40% of math and physical science graduates and just under 20% of engineering and CS graduates. If you include psychology, that major’s graduates are about 75% female.
Looks like women in CS went from 5% around 1970 to about 35% in the early 1980s and then went into the 25-30% range in the 1990s. In the early 2000s (coinciding with the tech bubble crash), women in CS fell to just under 20% and has stayed there since then.
It does appear that physical sciences, math, biology, and psychology also had decreases in women in those majors during the 2000s, though not as large in magnitude as in CS.
As much as people don’t like to admit, I am under the belief that applying “unpopularly” relative to your ethnicity, gender, race, and college helps you a bit. Of course, you should be genuine about your interests.
This is an extremely narrow view of college-bound seniors that most admissions officers, thankfully, do not take. It assumes that students know exactly what they want to do from age 13 or 14 and follow a neat, orderly path from middle and high school extracurriculars to college interests and majors. There are lots of students who love to write creatively or do art projects and want to major in science; there are lots of students who explore science fair projects and scientific inquiry and end up majoring in the humanities. And on top of that, most savvy counselors know that students change their mind between application time and enrolling time.
That’s the reason why many top colleges that don’t have separate undergraduate divisions don’t admit by major. It doesn’t matter, and the FAQs for a lot of Ivy League and other elite universities will say that straight up.
There is no data to support this, and no reason to believe that this is true.
Or we could just stop using the term “STEM” altogether, since when people say “STEM” what they really mean are engineering and computer science in most cases. People are rarely talking about biology, chemistry, and psychology.
No, it doesn’t assume anything. Of course I know that students often change majors and that colleges know this also. I’m sure they also can estimate how many will switch from and to what departments. There’s usually a flow of kids out of STEM because of the weed out type classes. The study done at Duke showed that students coming in with weaker backgrounds are more likely to switch out of STEM. Hardly surprising. It can be difficult to switch into STEM because of the usually more progressive nature of the prerequisites.
Yes, a lot of changes happen, but the majority of major changes I have seen have been from one discipline to a related discipline. My daughter is saying kids she knows changed from chemistry to chem/physics or from math to computer science, or from one type of engineering to another type of engineering. She started as a CS major but it’s still possible she might switch to physics or applied math. And I think all these things were clear from her application.
“That’s the reason why many top colleges that don’t have separate undergraduate divisions don’t admit by major. It doesn’t matter, and the FAQs for a lot of Ivy League and other elite universities will say that straight up.” Not sure where you get this. Stanford has said that they want more humanities majors. Yale has said that they want more STEM majors. Cornell engineering sent likely letters to every single woman they admitted. You think they don’t care?
8 of the last 15 kids I’ve sent to Stanford ended up in comp sci, and almost all of them went in assuming they’d major in poli sci, econ, or a humanities subject like comp lit.
I don’t agree with that at all–I believe all of them were very top draws. Ironically, the two “surprise” admits I know were both STEM from the jump.
(And “hypothesis contrary to fact” assertions are fallacious by definition. There is no “if” in history.)
Wanted to add: Penn, college of arts and sciences
Area of Study RECOMMENDED subject test(s)
Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences Any two Subject Tests
Science, Technology, Engineering, Math (STEM) Math Level 2 and a science test (preferably Physics for Engineering Applicants)
More evidence that even colleges of arts and sciences do pay attention to intended area of study. Here, Penn asks for testing dependent on intended major in STEM vs. not STEM. The chart is right there on their website. If they firmly believe that high school students have no idea what their major is probably going to be, why would they do this? If it’s just random who ends up where, why bother with different testing?