<p>My son is interested in majoring in engineering in college. He enjoys math and does well in his math classes in HS (GPA 3.4) but did not do well enough on the SAT math for the engineering criteria for most of his colleges, he got a 520 in the math. (he's not a good standardized, timed test taker). </p>
<p>So our dilema is should he still list Engineering as his first choice major and list other more liberal majors as his 2nd and 3rd choices in the hope that the college will accept him for choices 2 or 3 if he doesnt meet their engineering criteria but meets their general acceptance criteria? Or do colleges look at the first choice and if you dont meet that criteria they reject you even if you meet the college's general acceptance criteria? </p>
<p>My wife is adament that colleges accept or reject you solely on your first choice major, so she feels he should not list engineering which will give him a better chance of getting in.</p>
<p>Colleges being applied to are Northeastern (Early Action), Syracuse, Purdue, UMass-Amherst, Temple, UConn, Rutgers (in-state), U. Rhode Island, Drexel, George Mason.</p>
<p>I sometimes hate that they have this question. What if you have a couple of interests? I understand that some majors may have a limit of students to accept, but many don’t. I almost wish they would just have a question like “what is your area of interest”.</p>
<p>kansascity53, what would be the goal of not listing engineering as a first choice major? Would there be the hope of eventually transferring into engineering? Or just deciding not to pursue engineering in college?</p>
<p>If you don’t start out in the engineering school of a University, for most schools it is somewhat difficult to transfer in later, and virtually impossible to graduate in 4 years. It is usually easy to transfer out of the Engineering school into the College of Arts & Sciences, and many people do drop out of engineering because they find it to be too challenging.</p>
<p>I think your wife is correct that the student’s qualifications will primarily be judged based on the 1st choice major. </p>
<p>Would your son rather study engineering at a school with less selective admissions, or study a non-engineering field at a more selective school?</p>
<p>He definitely wants to study engineering so the hope would be to transfer into engineering if he is not admitted directly as a freshman. </p>
<p>The goal of not listing engineering as a major would be to better his chances of getting into the university if not listing engineering gives him a better chance of getting in. If he can list undecided or Liberal Arts as his first choice and get in OR list engineering #1 and LA/Undecided #2 and not get in then he would not list engineering. But if colleges typically evaluate you on your 1st choice and if not qualified then evaluate you on your subsequent choices then he would still list engineering first. </p>
<p>He would rather go to one of his top schools as a non-engineering major and try to transfer into engineering second semester or soph year.</p>
<p>Some schools, eg UW-Madison, admit students to the university as a whole. This meaqns the declared prospective major, if any, doesn’t matter. Check on this for his schools. He should be looking at schools that are a good fit for his ability and desire to do engineering. If school X is terrific but he will never get accepted into its engineering program he should not go there. At UW prospective engineering majors get the summer advising and get plugged into the needed preengineering classes, they then need to sometimes compete for a limited number of spaces in their particular major based on their college performance. The way to list a major therefore depends on the school and he should find out how each school of interest handles things.</p>
<p>I agree with Wis. Also, at some schools you can apply as any major or undecided, and then change right after acceptance or a semester later. I saw a young lady inquire about changing her major during a summer college orientation and it was not a problem for her (parents were present at that part of it). At some schools you must apply to that college, so just because you are admitted to the School of Communications, does not mean that you will be admitted to the School of Nursing. Some schools admit you into the school as a whole, as Wis suggests, and you can immediately start taking a class towards engineering, business, or whatever the major, but you must have a certain GPA after taking certain required classes to be officially admitted into that major (ie: 2.5 or 3.0 in certain entry level classes required for that major).</p>
<p>Someone ought to say this; I hope the OP has said it to himself:</p>
<p>I am not a big fan of the SATs. But 520 on the math SAT I, and “not a good timed test taker” . . . that is not the ideal profile for an engineering major. Not because he could not get accepted to someplace that would let him try, but because maybe he will have a lot of difficulty with it. A lot. At the very least, he should be looking for colleges where he will be able to get lots of help and personalized attention. And everyone, parents and child, should be psychologically prepared for the possibility that college could initially be a train wreck, and that ultimately he may have to earn his bread in some other field.</p>
<p>JHS: Definitely hear what you are saying. S1 is my second child going to college. D1 was a 4.0 GPA honor student with 5 AP courses and SAT of 2150 and her Freshman year in college was the unexpected trainwreck. Her GPA was like 1.8 and it had nothing to do with excessive partying or the like reasons. She just had a hard time adjusting to the harder course work. So I am definitely guarded with S1 since he is not the 4.0 student that D1 was.</p>
<p>But to his credit, he likes math and science and does well in those subjects in HS. He works hard for his 3.4 where as D1 cruised to her 4.0, which I thinks is part of her downfall and why S1 will fair better as long as he does not go to a program that is over his head. He has always had to study hard so continuing to do so in college will be a more streamlined transition, D1 didnt know how to study hard since she never had to.</p>