Hey guys!
I have a question :
Lafayette College has several popular departments with 50+ students enrolled each year,
but its CS department has only 16 students! I do not know how to interpret this: Is the department extremely hard to get into, or Is it just unpopular ?
CS is a popular major right now. A relatively high percentage of computer science majors, however, will switch to easier fields of study. Some get weeded out, others have trouble with the higher level math involved, a few have difficulty thinking like a machine and translating accordingly. Ask the college if you have concerns, but it isn’t unusual to see a very high number of freshmen in a CS program, and much fewer upper classmen still hanging on a year or two later.
Oh okay, thank you.
Do you think that applying as a CS major will hurt my chances?
I would always encourage students to be honest about their intended majors. At many schools, it is extremely difficult to transfer IN to CS or engineering from another college/major. It isn’t worth taking the chance of being in a college, but shut out of the major you really want to be in. Also, often CS and engineering start with different requirements and more specific classes. If you aren’t on that path from the beginning of your college years, you risk not graduating in four years. That may or may not be problematic depending on your family’s finances.
You should check with Lafayette specifically on how easy it is to change colleges/majors. Talk not only with admissions but with the chair of the CS department. I would not assume it is necessarily easy simply based on the low number of students in that CS department. As I mentioned in my previous post, colleges expect a large number of students to switch out of CS, so they may not have the resources and space for more students, especially in the junior and senior level classes. A little more research now will prevent a lot of possible heartache later.
Thank you so much for your answer!
The thing is, I’m still undecided between two majors: maths and CS. I’m very interested in both fields and I have no preference between them.
Lafayette’s mathematics major is very popular (100+ students).
Would majoring in maths give me more admission chances?
Again, I wouldn’t list a major thinking it will increase your chances of getting in. You could look at the requirements of both programs, and pick the more restrictive of the two (a good strategy if you must graduate in four years for financial reasons) or you could keep your options open and apply to the more restrictive as your major and the less restrictive as your minor. That gives you the maximum flexibility as a student. You could list your major as “deciding between the two”, or as a dual major, as long as the college will let you choose later.
Anyway, at this point, I would think in terms of maximum flexibility to decide later vs. admission chances. Otherwise you could find yourself having second thoughts about one or the other and finding yourself shut out.
Seriously, asking about this flexibility issue is a great question for the chairs of the CS and math departments. You are likely to glean some information from the conversation that could be incredibly useful when answering the “Why Us” question, as well as gaining confidence you are making the right decision.
Lafayette admissions officers understand that you are free to change your major once you step on campus. I don’t expect your chance of admission would be helped or hurt by declaring any particular major that makes sense given your profile or applying undecided.
guys i have applied to Lafyette through ED 2 and these are my stats.
SAT 1280
gpa 3.20/4
essay on my best friend as my greatest achievements and reason behind my personal growth
honors:
see batch topper
school representative at NCSQC
initiator of a public speaking platform
chaired 3 MUNs /won 5
highest math scorer of school
winner at National Youth fest 2019.
community services include
member of AISEC
VOLUNTERED AT gpyl
- 300 hrs of community work and enormous extra involvements.
Efc -6000$ only overall coa
major-env science
and i am from NEPAL
do i have any chance?
i know my stats are very low but i hope things work out.
Today at 3:41 pm