Suppose a student is admitted undeclared to a college and can afford it. But his/her major is oversubscribed, so that there is an admission process (either a college GPA > 2.0 and/or college grades higher than C and/or competitive process) to get into the major. (Or stay in the major in some cases.)
At what point does it become a concern? For example, if the major requires only a 2.25 college GPA, then it may not be much of a concern. But if there is a minimum college GPA of 3.67 merely to apply into a highly competitive admission process, that may be much more of a concern.
Doesn’t it depend on the major? If it’s something like engineering, where you’re either in or you’re out, I imagine it’s a big concern.
If it’s something like my daughter’s case - where the major is honors-only and requires a 3.6 minimum GPA, but is also a major that can be mostly “cloned” through the right course selection - then it’s less of a concern.
I am only familiar with this from discussions here. For example anecdotally, application to UW Seattle is discouraged for CS if you can’t get admitted to the CS program directly because of the difficulty of declaring the CS major after admission to the university.
OP- the requirements for admission to a major you list may not mean too many students/not enough space when the gpa requirements are 2.0/C. That just means needing to be satisfactory before hitting the upper level classes. If a student can’t get better grades they shouldn’t be majoring in the field.
With competition for limited spaces (understandable for getting needed classes and lab space) some students who are confident they would be accepted into the major but are undecided would easily still choose the school. Otherwise it may be best to go elsewhere. Some students really, really want to go to school X regardless of getting the first choice major or not. Others really want the major and should choose a school they can do that.
I understand the popularity of CS at U Washington with the tech industry in Seattle. Society benefits when top students choose a field. Hard for the competent but not as good at something students. Gets me thinking about how we parents would have fared in today’s market in fields we have done well in. But then, we would have had a different HS experience leading up to our choices.
Since most nursing majors aren’t direct entry, I think it’s a pretty common problem for those students and many others in similar situations. I think it’s a concern when the average GPA of admitted students is pretty close the hopeful majors high school GPA (and grades, in general, drop a little in college).
2.0 GPA / C grades generally means an open major. What I am referring to is the situation where the minimums are a GPA greater than 2.0, and/or grades higher than C, and/or competitive admission, like in the given examples in the second paragraph.
Other CS examples include UIUC and UCSD, where students who do not get direct admission find it difficult to get into the CS major if they enroll as undeclared students.
All competitive fields have weed-out mechanisms, whether or not they are explicit. There are law schools where virtually anyone with a pulse and a checkbook can be admitted- but their pass rates for the bar are terrible, and if you can’t pass the bar, you can’t practice law. So- weed-out. It just comes three years and tons of money too late.
Are you worried about a kid not getting admitted to a program where he or she WOULD be successful, or a kid getting admitted to a field where ultimately he or she wouldn’t be successful (i.e. a kid getting into engineering with weak math skills who gets advised to find another major).
Perhaps more than a little in many cases. If we assume that colleges generally get students who mostly range from A to B students in high school, and redistribute them across the A to C grade range in college, some students will see more than a little drop. Super-selective colleges may get A+ to maybe A- high school students and redistribute them across the A to B range in college.
Yes, definitely. I’d say more often than not, but I didn’t want to be bombarded with replies stating, essentially, “well MY d/s found college easier did better in college than high school!”
At what level of competitiveness or GPA/grade threshold would you be concerned about a student not being able to do his/her desired major at the college?
More of this – an example would be a student who would be capable of completing the desired major with (for example) a 3.0-3.3 college GPA, but is weeded out of the major or not allowed in because the minimum college GPA was (for example) 3.5 to get into or stay in the major.
More concrete example: if a student who wants to major in CS were admitted undeclared to Washington, UIUC, and/or UCSD, would you recommend that s/he attend one of those schools (assuming no other things like cost prevents it), or would you recommend that s/he more strongly consider other options where getting into the CS major is less competitive?
I’ve known kids who got forced (their words) or encouraged (their parents words) to apply to a major they only had modest interest in- nursing, comp sci, engineering, finance/accounting. Those kids don’t necessarily have the drive to power through when the courses get really tough (sophomore and junior year) or the weed-out classes (freshman year).
A kid who is highly motivated to study what he or she wants to study? Sure, the prospective nurse can take a gen ed and discover ethnomusicology and drop nursing at the earliest opportunity… but that’s not what you’re asking.
Kid is well prepared for college and for the prospective major? I wouldn’t worry. Kid has a 2.9 GPA and a 580 math GPA in high school and is getting pressure by the family to apply as a mechanical engineering major? I can predict few things in life. But I boldly predict that this is the kid who will NOT graduate with a degree in MechE.
I would be wary of sending a kid off to a college with a 3.67 minimum to get into their desired major.
My younger son, had his GPA permanently depressed by his freshman year Arabic grades. It prevented him from getting internships and at least one study abroad program. It didn’t help that he got straight A’s junior year in study abroad programs and his school only counted them as credit/no credit.
My older son was on the Deans List freshman year majoring in CS, minoring in physics. I never actually saw a transcript after that, but I know he got at least one C because he slept through a midterm and he was never on the Dean’s list again. Luckily there was no minimum GPA to stay in the major! I think he actually did very well in the courses he cared about, but not necessarily nearly as well in ones he thought were a waste of his time. In high school he just got straight A’s in his sleep and his scores were high too.
I majored in a tiny major you had to apply to get into. (Visual and Environmental Studies). I have no idea how exactly they made the decisions, but I think I had a recommendation from a freshman seminar that was related, I had my AP Art portfolio from high school and I think I had to write something up about why the major interested me. I did not go to college planning on this major - I thought I’d do something with history and literature.
I’d recommend attending the “less competitive” option if that would guarantee their spot and the classes needed to graduate in 4 years.
A broader question is why do schools do this? Assuming certain majors are oversubscribed why don’t they cap the number of admissions that they offer? Could it be that they over-admit then limit the number that get into the major (using higher GPA bars) causing some to switch over to other majors?
This is an interesting question. I think many parents, including myself, used to just think that if you got into the college, you could get into the major you wanted (with some exceptions, of course.) I only realized during this application cycle, with my son applying to colleges, that there is a difference between being accepted, and being accepted as a direct admit. So my son is already eligible to go right into his current stated major. He probably needs to read the fine print to see if any of his schools so far require him to maintain a certain GPA!
Some colleges do limit direct admission to those majors, but may admit some applicants as undeclared, since some applicants may prioritize attending the school rather than the particular major. But any among the latter who prioritize the major may not want to attend if getting into the major later is highly competitive.
In other cases, there may be admission to the division as undeclared (including first-year-engineering (FYE) programs at places like Purdue, Texas A&M, Minnesota, Virginia Tech, NCSU, Ohio State, Penn State, etc.), but some majors do not have the capacity to admit all interested students, so they have GPA minimums or competitive admission. Note that even Cornell engineering has a similar system, but it is rarely noticed because the GPA minimums to enter the major are in the 2.x range.
Wisconsin engineering overadmits directly to majors and then weeds out with GPA requirements that can be as high as 3.5 technical and 3.0 overall. UIUC also does this with some majors, but it is rarely noticed due to GPA requirements of 2.25 or so. Obviously, a prospective engineering student would be more concerned about meeting the 3.5 at Wisconsin than the 2.25 at UIUC.
As noted by another poster, it is common for nursing programs to have high GPA based or competitive admission to the nursing major after a student takes prerequisites as a pre-nursing student. Business majors at some colleges have similar arrangements.
For the purpose of this thread, let’s say that the parents are fine with whatever major the student chooses, and there is no parental pressure for a particular major, and that the major in question happens to be the student’s first choice.
Note that liberal arts majors like psychology, economics, art, or math may also be subject to admission processes for undeclared students who want to enter them. So the issues that this thread is about can affect students interested in liberal arts majors as well as pre-professional majors.
UCB- stuff happens in life. Kids get mono, break an arm, miss two weeks of classes. If you are looking for an assurance that your kid couldn’t, wouldn’t, get barred or dropped- that doesn’t exist. But I’d say all things being equal, a kid who is highly motivated (you claim it’s the kid’s first choice of major with no parental pressure) and solid academic prep in that area, should be ok. OR- not ok, and have to either transfer schools or pick another major.
@ucbalumnus I would advise my child not to attend a school where the major they intend is an impacted major, like CS or Engineering - and they didn’t get direct admit. Due to such demand for CS and lack of space, UW changed their admissions to more direct to major for CS, advising that if that’s what you really want to do and you didn’t get it, you go elsewhere. Our tour guide the other day at UCLA went in undeclared, decided on engineering, and couldn’t transfer (he’s now a math major). Now, if your child really wants the school over the major, that’s a different story. But for at least the top UCs, UW, Cal Poly and probably others (I haven’t researched), it sounds practically impossible to get CS/engineering later.
Privates generally haven’t limited major selections for their students historically. However, some of the most popular privates for CS majors apparently are contemplating setting up barriers of entry to the CS major. They have very little choice as CS becomes ever more popular. Many of them are already discriminating against self-declared CS applicants but undeclared applicants are as big (and getting bigger) of a problem.