<p>My child, who is presently a sophomore, with an excellent freshman year academic record, and currently enrolled in a Honors program, has a dilemma of which choice is better for the long term:</p>
<p>a) graduating with a double major in Economics and in Mathematics (non honors program for both),
VS
b) graduating with one major (Economics?), and one minor (Math?), while attending Honors College</p>
<p>That is, simply put, the question is, is it better to:
a) graduate with two majors, from regular program, vs
b) graduate with one major, and one minor, from a Honors college</p>
<p>My child is evaluating the "return on (time, effort, money) investment" on either option, wants to know the possible consequence of either decision for the long term.</p>
<p>That is, which choice is better, for the long term, in terms of
a) Future admission to Ivy League colleges, including maybe a transfer during my child's bachelor's degree program, or for a Master's/Doctoral-Law program as a next step, and
b) employability (as to how employers will look at prospective recent-college-graduate
candidates who have done one vs the other option)</p>
<p>If you have some experience in dealing with the above, please let me know your inputs/views.</p>
<p>If he wants, or might want, to do graduate work in Economics, then the Dual Major is better. If the Economics degree is just a precursor to a law degree, then the Major/Minor is probably a safe bet.</p>
<p>Not an expert, but I would think that what matters is the actual substance of the degrees. So that if what makes math a minor in the honors scenario is that he has to do an honors thesis in the major, and he can only do one…well, to me, the honors thesis is far more significant than the math major label. If, on the other hand, the math coursework is significantly different, then I might go the other way.</p>
<p>In general, for elite/Ivy transfers, honors is going to be better. In general, for grad school admissions in a specific discipline, an honors thesis in that discipline is going to be better. For law school, it is grades that matter. </p>
<p>Could you elaborate a bit on exactly what the differences would be between the two courses of study?</p>
<p>Would the graduate level goal be PhD programs in economics, or law school?</p>
<p>For PhD programs in economics, an undergraduate combination of math, statistics, and economics is preferred; for law school, any major with a high GPA and high LSAT score is the goal (though math and economics majors tend to do well on the LSAT).</p>
<p>All,
Thank you very much for your valuable inputs, which is adequate for now.
Should I need anything else on this topic, I will repost on this thread. I appreciate
your responses.</p>