<p>blossom, I hear you, but I’m not convinced. May be some colleges will ignore this, but I have to believe this is not the case everywhere. Every department is striving for growth. Like business units of a big corporation, if a department is shrinking, it just won’t receive priority consideration from the college. Every department will have to make its quota of new seats known to the adcoms, whatever the means.</p>
<p>So is what you are asking for acceptance rate, or the number of students applying for each major? Not that I know either statistic or where to find it.</p>
<p>Ive got to believe from reading this website that most students want into some sort of science or business major. It might be different at LACs. And I also have to believe that at top schools they are careful enough in admissions to know that a student who has participated in Siemens/Intel competitions, AME, and research for all four years of high school is not likely to be looking to major in Baroque dance.</p>
<p>I think the acceptance rate by major is a good indicator of where the college is looking to beef up or, at a minimum, to maintain status quo. I wouldn’t be surprised if two majors have acceptance rate difference in the double-digit range. For example, BME at JHU is known to be much harder to get in than Biology.</p>
<p>I also understand that these relatively under-subscribed majors are probably not popular, but they may fit some kids very well. If timing is right, you may catch a university adding a new school, a college adding a new department, or a department expanding its offering, and find an under-subscribed “popular” major.</p>
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<p>I believe Biomedical Engineering is the undergraduate major at Hopkins requiring separate admission. Yes, very tough.</p>
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<p>But that doesn’t mean said student isn’t passionately interested in same (or similar)… :)</p>
<p>^ Actually my son did put “dance” next to bio as one of the interests he’d like to pursue. I’ll tell him to consider Baroque dance ;).</p>
<p>Suffice it to say that a particular kind of dance is S1’s major non-major-related EC!</p>
<p>First of all let me say how happy I am to see this thread picking up again. The last day and a half have been so slow I was worried all the regulars had gotten jobs.;)</p>
<p>To the current topic, while I understand the thought process of trying to parley an admittance out of a new program I suspect that it’s futile effort at the established universities. They typically have all the departments they want and if say Harvard wanted to start a Department of Automotive Repair, I suspect the best and brightest mechanics would be on it in a New York minute. </p>
<p>I have to agree with blossom that most undergrads either come in as undecideds or something vague like “business” or one of the pre-s, law or medicine. They sample a few things then eventually choose a major. A few years ago I saw a presentation by the Dean of Students from the University of Miami. She said, “We fully expect nearly every undergrad to be a marine sciences major at some time during their years at Miami. It usually lasts about three weeks after they learn that it’s hard science and not just swimming with dolphins.”</p>
<p>I forgot that Steve Wozniak was on “Dancing with the Stars”.</p>
<p>In 6 years I have never seen any statistics re # of applicants by major for private colleges. I don’t think most colleges track it for the reasons that blossom gave. With the exception of the UC’s, at big U’s that have seperate “colleges” for different majors, like USC, the acceptance rate/ college is not published.</p>
<p>“Every department is striving for growth. Like business units of a big corporation, if a department is shrinking, it just won’t receive priority consideration from the college. Every department will have to make its quota of new seats known to the adcoms, whatever the means”
I think you are mixing up business strategies “Every department is striving for growth” with the reality of college funding in an Ivory Tower. There is little “competiton” between depts for students or funding every year. Tenured profs have job security, regardless of the number of students in their dept.</p>
<p>I am interested in the difference of the admit rates for different majors. I agree that we are not going to see wide swing in the elite colleges, but the difference should still be observable. It becomes useful if such pattern lasts more than couple years. As in the JHU example, if the ultimate goal is medicine via a Hopkins undergraduate pre-med preparation, then a “bio” kid applying as a Biology major would have an easier time than applying as a BME.</p>
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<p>But the weaker depts will get shoved aside when the more powerful depts need more space.</p>
<p>Weaker departments can often mean weaker faculty and outdated facilities. In pursuit of some perceived prestige at a generally higher ranked U, it may not be smart to angle for the one department that offers the lower quality education. If this can even be sussed out in advance. In fact, I’d suggest the opposite. We should be looking for very strong departments in slightly less selective (and therefore, often T50ish) colleges, where a student gets a meaningful education, great prestige-in-their-field, and often merit aid in recognition of GPA and SATs that, at this level U, make them heroes.</p>
<p>On the other hand, PCP, if you had in mind to have a student apply to a less popular major (the intent: a slight tip on admittance) in order to change majors later on… this approach might work, but only if the student had done meaningful research, ECs, and excelled at HS courses in that field. </p>
<p>The adcoms at highly selective colleges are looking for authentic kids and if the GC doesn’t talk about Jane’s avid love for forestry, and she doesn’t volunteer with the Forest Service each summer, and she hasn’t gotten an A (5) in APES, it’s not gonna work out for her to simply write an engaging essay and apply as a Forestry major.</p>
<p>On yet another hand, for kids with kinda out-there interests, I think those interests could make them stand out in a crowd of BME hopefuls.</p>
<p>PCP- you can be a small department at a prestigious school and have absolutely no fears of being shoved aside. If your three tenured faculty hold endowed chairs, and your four emeritus professors hold “university professor” or other named endowments, you can have enrollment of zero undergrads and you will still have no worries about getting tenure for your three associate professors.</p>
<p>College’s don’t operate the way you think. There are faculty people who are untouchable whether it’s for money, space, research facilities, or other resources. They can be in hot fields like nano-technology (industry and government grants by the dozens) or quiet fields like Egyptology (with an endowment equal to the GNP of a small country) and they don’t care about whether Jonny or Suzie think they want to major in their field. Doesn’t move the needle whatsoever.</p>
<p>Every year there are thousands of kids and parents who are disappointed that their newly discovered passion for X (where X equals a small and obscure department at their reach school) is rewarded by a denial. Look at the faculty/PhD candidate ratio at even the smallest department- if the faculty are bringing junior scholars along for the ride, there is typically huge endowed money designated for their field (and only for that purpose) and the Chancellor, Provost, President, Football coach can’t wrest that money away and “shove aside” a more powerful dept.</p>
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<p>I started a thread on the question of student quality versus teaching quality not too long ago. There are some interesting comments there.</p>
<p>I believe undergraduate study is the last chance for our kids to receive wholesome education in a somewhat sheltered and nurturing environment prior to real specialization and professional work. It is important that they are surrounded by high caliber kids regardless of their interests in college, because the education gained through peer interaction is just as valuable as what they can get from class rooms. So as long as the student caliber is there, a perceived “weaker” faculty ranking, is not a big concern for me, but I would be concerned if the situation is reversed. </p>
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<p>No. I don’t have this “changing major later” approach in mind. I was approaching it with the “end game” in mind, as in the JHU example. I would not have my son applying to a major that’s clearly not in his interest just so that he can get in. Whatever the approach, the interest has to be “authentic”.</p>
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<p>blossom, I’m not in academia, so I’ll take your word for it. I heard stories about departments fighting for building and lab space and the more “powerful” departments were always the victors in those stories.</p>
<p>True, but from the outside looking in, it’s not always obvious which departments have the power. My son was admitted to Harvard the year they announced a huge expansion of their engineering offerings. Some thought that it might have helped my computer science son. I really have no idea, except Harvard has stated over and over that they don’t care what your prospective major is. (I have to wonder if they don’t care why they insist on asking on their application though.)</p>
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ms, your S sounds like mine was . And the only thing that caused him to stop his procrastinating was when he felt a real sting when others [good friends and his mentor], who he did not want to let down, expressed their “disappointment” in him.
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<p>Then they are indeed alike. He has great respect for his research advisor in particular, who also teaches the class in which he’s currently getting a D, and who recently put him on notice that he’s screwing up. My kid has become noticeably more serious since then, and I think we’ll see an uptick in his grades by the end of the quarter. Well, I hope.</p>
<p>I assume only schools that force the applicants to specify which college/major they are applying to will even have internal data about major specific acceptance rates - such as, Georgetown, Columbia, U Penn, George Washington, etc.</p>
<p>Even these schools don’t publish the major specific stats (acceptance rates, SATs, GPA, etc). At least, I have never seen them. Have you? If so, can you provide a link?</p>
<p>If they are not making kids apply to a particular college (e.g., Georgetown SFS, UPenn’s Wharton, etc), how can they have separate stats for majors?</p>
<p>“I assume only schools that force the applicants to specify which college/major they are applying to”
the vast majority of schools don’t FORCE applicants to declare a major! There is a place to put "unknown"on the application, which is what most students do.</p>
<p>"how can they have separate stats for majors? "
those stats come from the # of graduating seniors in each major, which in the end is all that matters.</p>
<p>I think that this thread has verred off track. Unless a student is applying to an specific program with few openings, such as an engineering program or a music program, or a combined BS/ MD program, etc, etc, the anticipated major a student puts on an application has very little influence, if any, on a students admissions chances.</p>
<p>CMU has info on acceptance rates by school within the university.</p>
<p>I had an unexpected long talk with an Ivy league school’s assistant dean of admission, a couple days ago.</p>
<p>An academic review for a student is heavily done based on his rigor of courses and GPA. The course load and GPA are compared to his peer applicants in his High School and last 10-15 years of prior applicants in his High School. He said he can view all academic success in the college by prior years matriculated students from the HS. This is the most important part of the academic review. Then SAT is just checked if it is in the expected range, base on his GPA.</p>
<p>SAT score is highly correlated with GPA with degrees of rigor on course works. And level of parent income. Not good predictor of college success. Just selecting a high grader tends to have wider range of SAT scores. However, with high degree of rigor course work, the high GPA students have high SAT scores with narrow range. They have enough knowledge/data to control SAT statistics by the selection of students’ transcripts. </p>
<p>I asked an evaluation on a relatively lower grade students with high SAT score. </p>
<p>They have never started selecting any student from SAT score. The GPA and rigor of courses are the first cut.</p>
<p>He admitted that each student is, unfairly?, allocated such a short time for review. low grade student is usually and probably not given enough analysis of his grade history at all. So if the student has a good enough GPA against current and prior year peer students of HS, he is out. However, few students, but more than most people think, has some kind of influence and given an extra time. A student attended a summer camp in which a prof of the college participated. Or a student’s high school band director is a friend of the college’s jazz band director. The prof or the director contacted to the dean to watch the student out, with or without student’s knowledge. It is not a hook.so no push for the admission, but these students get an extra time…or get reviewed at the less-stressful period. Then, the dean seldom finds a reasonable effort on the student’s works and forwards his file to next stage.</p>
<p>(I asked if other ivy or selective schools employ the same method, but our waitress interrupted our conversation and our topic moved to another…)</p>