HI JHS: not really. You have to apply to a specific 1 of 7 Cornell’s Colleges and may list a second choice school. The college of Arts & Sciences you don’t need a major selected; for CALS you must specify which of the majors you want and how you know exactly what you do and why.
You can apply up to 2 colleges now (has been the case in the last few years). Applicant would not be offered admission at a school he/she didn’t apply to. Each school has its own adcom. “Fit” for those schools is very important, there is no way a potential CS major would be offered a spot at CALS or ILR. They turn away so many applicants who would love a spot at CALS and ILR, why would they want to fill it with people with no interest in what their schools have to offer.
Hmm…No.
The second choice was dropped from the app this year. Getting off topic:)
Is the OP’s kid admitted to Cornell? If not maybe you folks can move your discussion to a new thread.
This is not the first the topic has drifted on CC.
I was not aware the second choice was dropped from the application this year.
I’m always happy with a digression but I’m wondering if the OP said that her kid was admitted to Cornell on another thread and I missed it. OP- are we talking about Cornell and have you called admissions to see if this was an error???
Cornell is not the topic for this thread, but when there is incorrect information that’s given, I think we should correct it, which I have see @blossom done many times even when it is not specifically related to a topic. One criticism people had of CC for a long time is that there is a lot of misinformation on CC. I think it has gotten a lot better in the last few years, but we still see many posters just arbitrary give out a piece of information without a lot of validation.
If I had given a bad piece of information about U Chicago, I would hope JHS or other posters with first information to correct me.
What you said is correct for somes schools at Cornell (A&S/Eng), but @JHS is correct on the others. I think we should just move back to the topic.
I stand corrected that a student couldn’t be considered for a school he/she didn’t apply to at Cornell, as JHS was nice enough to point it out to me (Cornell supplement) via PM, but it is highly unlikely a potential CS major would be admitted to ILR or Human Eco because those schools very much care about fit.
Ok, I will let it rest.
@blossom " I’m always happy with a digression but I’m wondering if the OP said that her kid was admitted to Cornell on another thread and I missed it. OP- are we talking about Cornell and have you called admissions to see if this was an error???"
Sorry, I don’t know how to properly quote posts, no it’s not Cornell.
Have you researched the suggested major’s courses and requirements on the college website?
For example, the computer science college at Carnegie Mellon is extremely selective. The Department of Philosophy is very math, logic, and computing focused. It is part of the College of Arts & Sciences. This is the page for the BS in Logic & Computation: https://www.cmu.edu/dietrich/philosophy/undergraduate/logic-and-computation/index.html.
I would hesitate to enroll in a college with the hope of enrolling in my preferred major, when there were other offers on the table with the proper major.
Hmmm, sounds like a “We can’t admit you as Musical Theatre major but would love to have you as an Acting major”, except substitute CS for MT.
A phone call is definitely in order. (Heck, my child’s acceptance letter states an entirely different year- one which had already passed".
CMU comes to mind (off topic).
A non-update … son emailed the admission office Wednesday evening, he has not yet received a response.
What’s the big deal? If he likes the school, he can go and then switch majors. If his grades are too low for him to switch majors or colleges, then he rightfully was not a computer science major and should consider something else.
@CaliCash The problem is that the requirements for switching majors vary greatly by school. So while it’s perfectly possible that it’s only a matter of getting decent grades in certain classes and filing some paperwork, there could be some restrictions that otherwise prevent him from being guaranteed to switch into CS. The biggest example I can think of is if there’s an enrollment cap for the major. In a case like that, it isn’t unheard of to get good enough grades in the prereqs to qualify for the switch but still not get into the major because there just aren’t enough seats to accommodate you.
That’s why people are saying to look into the school’s policies for switching majors. If it really is as simple as passing some classes and filing some paperwork, it may not be a big deal. But if it turns out that there’s something like limited enrollment where he might not be able to switch despite fulfilling prereqs, it’s probably in his best interest to go to a school where he’s directly admitted to CS.
I haven’t read all of this thread so pardon me if this has been addressed.
The VAST majority of students switch majors multiple times while in college. Is your son required to pursue this major as a condition of some merit financial aid? If not, what would be the problem in switching majors?
The best answer would come from the college directly. Maybe he can"switch" to something that would allow more time for him to take courses of interest,
In addition, if he is wedded to the idea of CS, he needs to find out if students can transfer into that major. If not, he needs to consider other colleges.
Switching majors can be easy or difficult depending on the school. For example, at two schools commonly abbreviated as “UW”, the difficulty of switching into the CS major is quite different. One requires just a C grade in a CS course. The other requires a competitive holistic admission process with typically only about 40% of applicants being admitted, and most admitted students have 3.4-4.0 GPAs.
https://www.cs.wisc.edu/academics/undergraduate-programs/cs-major-requirements
https://www.engr.washington.edu/current/admissions/admitstats
So a student with B grades in his/her CS courses and overall would declare the CS major easily at one UW, but would be unlikely to be admitted to the CS major at the other UW.
“A non-update … son emailed the admission office Wednesday evening, he has not yet received a response”
College admissions officers are just coming back from the Winter/ Xmas break- tell him to give it a few days and then call.
@ucbalumnus - great post, you speak the truth. 
The admission director at UW (dub) told me in person that those admitted to the CS major when applying as a sophomore or junior typically have a 3.8 or above. And 97% freshman are admitted as pre-major, not direct admits into their major so many are competing for those spots. Not so easy.
^ Definitely “not easy,” but there are around 700 CS and CE majors currently enrolled at UDub who made it in, and around 250 degrees are awarded each year.