<p>I’m not sure that’s entirely true.</p>
<p>I would assert that it can’t hurt your chances - after all, we’re 16 and 17 years old and can’t make decisions for our futures. However, if a student writes an essay about his or her fascination with a specific Harvard professor and the work that he is doing to bridge achievement gaps, and then ties that into their own personal experiences with working in underprivileged areas’ educational facilities to get across a strong desire to transform the education system, I’d assume that that student’s chances have been significantly bolstered by their intended major.</p>
<p>In other words, take two identical students: USAMO, Intel/Siemens (with math projects), math summer programs, math math math math math. Now if one declares their intended major as math and the other as history, I really do think the first would have a better chance of getting in.</p>