<p>On college-specific pages of the common application, colleges often ask you to list up to three majors or potential areas of interest. As someone who is very much "undecided," do I need to emphasise this by choosing undecided for one of the options? Or do I make use of all three spaces and put in my areas of interest (say German, history, theatre) to show that I do have some academic interests?</p>
<p>How is this different from someone "applying for" a particular major at a college? Does the order of listing matter? </p>
<p>Does listing “history” for example, put you in a group to compete with other applicants who wishes to study history?</p>
<p>It depends on the school. At some schools, you apply to a specific major, while at other schools, you enter as an undeclared student and declare your major later (although in some cases, students have to apply with a high college GPA to get into a popular major). At some schools, a mix of these methods is used. For example, in the liberal arts and science division, students may enter undeclared, but in the engineering division, students apply to specific majors. Or students apply to specific majors; if not admitted to the major, they may be admitted as undeclared (but may have to apply again with a high college GPA to get into a popular major).</p>
<p>Because this is school-specific and is not reported in a standardized fashion, you need to dig around each schools web site to see how it is handled. Or ask on a forum specific to each school.</p>
<p>Thanks so much @ucbalumnus for your thoughtful response. I’m applying to arts and sciences division to some universities and liberal arts colleges. In this case, how should I go about picking these areas of interests if I have many. For example, would it make sense to history if I started a history club at my school, which goes to show my interest in it. </p>
<p>When deciding between which ones to pick, is it useful to select the one that is less popular (therefore less competitive) at a particular college? For example, picking German instead economics at Chicago, etc…</p>
<p>At schools where choosing a less popular major makes it easier to get admitted, changing into a more popular major later can require going through another admission process.</p>