<p>I tried searching for older posts and I found a couple, but only dating back to 2005 and they didn't have that many responses.</p>
<p>Soo...</p>
<p>Here's the age-old question: do prospective majors (selected on the commonapp) affect admissions decisions? and how does selecting an "obscure" major play out?</p>
<p>Just wondering.</p>
<p>Depends on the school.</p>
<p>At some schools, your prospective major really matters, especially at universities that have different schools for different majors. For example, at Georgia Tech the competition to get into the school of engineering is much keener than getting into the college of liberal arts. Or at Columbia, the opposite is true -- the Fu Foundation school is easier to get into than Columbia College. There are a lot of schools under that model.</p>
<p>At other schools, they only ask you your prospective major to get a general demographic picture of how their freshman class will mete out, or to assign you an adviser, or to plan resources for the next year. At these colleges, in some cases an 'obscure' major can help a tiny bit -- if you show some background experience or a real passion for it and they're on the fence about you, then it can teeter you in. But in most cases at these schools, an 'obscure' or less-popular major won't keep you out and won't get you in.</p>
<p>You don't need to look that far back. Just look at a few posts a few days ago:</p>