UCLA Communications Major

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of California - Los Angeles
1

Hello. I was looking into colleges to apply to next year. I am interested in communications majors. Naturally, I looked into the major at UCLA. I noticed that there were classes that I would have to take over at UCLA in order to apply to the major later on. I have two questions:

  1. What major would I initially apply to for undergraduate admissions?
  2. If I do not get accepted into the major later on, what happens? Do I just choose another major?

If anyone knows, or if you have gone through this before, please help! I am so confused. Thanks.

2

  1. It doesn’t matter what major you apply to initially. Since the Communications major is in the school of letters and sciences, I would apply to the school with Undecided listed as your major and if you are accepted // choose to attend UCLA, just take care of your general education / prereqs for the communications program.

  2. If you don’t get accepted you can always apply the following year (you can apply to the program starting junior year) or just choose another major. I’m entering UCLA next year and am also interested in communications, but I will mostly likely double major since I was accepted to UCLA under Design | Media Arts listed at my major (which I would definitely look into, because I’ve been told that a lot of students interested in communications also go into DMA, which you do have to apply for and is just as hard as communications to get into with a 5% acceptance rate, and have an incredible experience and are now working in marketing, branding, pr, etc). Basically if you aren’t accepted to the communications program, it’s not like they will kick you out of the school - you just try again or choose another major. But I would definitely consider the other programs at the school and get a back up in mind seeing that it is such an incredibly difficult program to get into.

good luck!!

3

Thank you for your response. It was very helpful

4

How hard is it to get accepted into the Comm major?

5

UCLAhopefull - If you are coming from high school you can come in as undeclared with the right gpa.SAT/ACT etc. If you are out of high school you can only apply as a transfer and you must attend a community college first and have a certain amount of completed (general electives, lower division pre reqs) classes (units) to begin the app process. That said, what you do is take your GEs and check to see what prerequisites the major you are interested in requires and you take those classes. You cannot enter or even apply to UCLA without a declared major. There are certain majors you cannot change to once you get in (ie: you come in with one, use one major to get into ucla and hope to change to another you know you would not have been able to get in with in the first place) If you are confused see a counselor at your high school or community college and tell them what you want to do.

Communications is one of the least respected and easiest as far as majors go. It is what it is; there are certain majors that fall into this category. Not many but there are a couple. It is only competitive because it is an easy major. It is evident in the description of the class offerings. With so many people trying to enter college with it that drove it to competitive status but not on the same level as say psychobiology and engineering (they are competitive and classes are more difficult).

I have seen the majors change. I could bet money on what are going to be the next bonafide majors fairly soon. That has happened with many majors. Fifteen - twenty years ago history and sociology were not impacted majors; now they are. Psychology has always been impacted. Then we saw the addition of gender studies. women’s studies, global studies. Sadly, classics and some foreign language majors are less popular and dying out. Now we have a disability minor, lgbt minor, civic engagement minor.