I know this is a subjective question that depends on the school, country, etc. But what would you say is the toughest major to get a spot in at elite USA universities?
Which majors require the more academically qualified students compared to others?
Thanks
Computer Science.
These majors seem be popular. Currently, they seem to have relatively good career opportunities. As usual, which majors employers are seeking will continue to change over time, as will the supply of graduates.
Many schools don’t have a “pre-medicine” major so not a lot of competition there.
Gotta second @Much2learn for the medicine and health care related major. I’m a PT major at a mainly science-based school (if you couldn’t tell by my profile pic). Health care and medical-related (e.g. biology, biochem, biomedical) major are incredibly hard. My starting class was 300 people, and now it’s roughly 175-200 people with the numbers probably decreasing again this year. This is because a lot of people are “filtered out” from general courses like math, biology, and chemistry.
I can only speak for those majors because I’m one of them.
@doschicos is right that for pre-med the hard part isn’t getting into the major, it is staying in and doing well enough to get into medical school. That is very difficult.
For getting into the undergraduate major, the hardest are commonly:
Computer science.
Most engineering majors.
Business majors that are seen as “elite”.
Health profession majors like nursing.
It is easy to be a pre-med. It is very difficult to be a pre-med who successfully gets into medical school.
While engineering is popular on cc: and the most used forum by major, there are still only a little over 100,000 new engineers graduating in the whole country.
That is not many of the total number of annual grads.
At “elite” universities I don’t think there is going to be as much of a distinction between majors as there will be at the large state research universities. There can be a big difference at say being accepted to UIUC’s Computer Science or Engineering college vs. the university in general. I would say at a schools such as Princeton or Cornell the difference is going to be less noticeable. Even at less selective schools the engineering depts. require higher stats. Anecdotally, I have a D in CHE. Some of her courses are taken with Bio/Chem majors and on the whole she considers them easy courses. She took a Biochemistry class where she received a 100% in the course where the average was in the low 70s. Most of her CHE friends did well in the class.
I agree with others when it comes to health sciences. They are not as selective but there are far more students who go into majors intended to prepare them for health sciences who are really surprised at the difficulty. The irony is that for most students it is unnecessary to major in those fields. They only need to take the courses necessary for applying to Med school, a DPT program etc. Those courses are challenging courses but more limited in scope than say a Bio major or Chemistry major.
In the medical fields Nursing is probably the one field that is a separate school and often has limits to those it accepts and is therefore “harder” to get accepted to. Like Engineering, a good student can expect to get a good job after completing her undergrad requirements.
@Much2learn : There is no such thing as a “pre-med” major. One can be “pre-med” and major in just about anything.
The correct answer to the question is Computer Science and most engineering majors.