Are the majors you put down on applications a factor in the admissions process?
I plan to double major in political science and geography… and geography is incredibly hard to find at small midwest colleges. And even those schools that offer them don’t have HUGE geography programs. Would this either help or hinder my chances in getting in since I’m assuming they need more students to keep the department alive…???
<p>i don't think they are a factor in admissions, and i believe putting a major on your app is even optional at some schools. the reason for this is that colleges know most students will probably change their minds.
the only time i think it would come into play is if, say, you say you want to major in engineering, adcoms may not put as much weight on lower humanities grades/scores. or vice versa if you are a humanities major.</p>
<p>it is a very slight factor in admissions. If you plan to pursue one of the school's less popular majors, it will help.</p>
<p>If you don't believe me, look at JHU this year. The day before they mailed out, they took about 100 kids off their acceptance list, all of them indicated an interest in science.</p>
<p>I know that my small, well ranked LAC doesn't take prospective major into account. At all. (Except to fill their engin. program) Other than that, though, whether you say you're Asian Studies or History, Biology or Spanish--it simply doesn't matter. They say people change their "prospective" majors too frequently to take it into account.</p>
<p>It depends on the university. Many universities are divided into different discrete schools and colleges which administer different majors, and some of those schools/colleges are more competitive than others. For example, applying to the business administration major at UPenn is more competitive than applying to most other majors at UPenn because the bus-ad major is run by the UPenn Wharton School. So applying to bus-ad necessarily means that you're applying to Wharton. Wharton is arguably the most difficult undergraduate school to get into at UPenn.</p>
<p>What makes things more dicey is that generally you get only 1 shot at applying to the university as a whole. For example, if you apply to the undergraduate bus-ad major at Wharton at Upenn and get rejected, you can't just turn around and say that you now want to apply to the UPenn School of Arts and Sciences. You get one shot to apply to UPenn as a whole, and if you use it on Wharton and get denied, that's the end of the game.</p>