<p>To be honest, my daughter has switched around what she had wanted to major in. And she is a great student with tons of extracurriculars and volunteer work, well rounded. But just about anything she tries or does, she loves. Then she wants to major in whatever it is she loves. And every time she loves something, we look at colleges from the point of view of that major. But now that the time is here to apply, I am starting to think that she needs to pick a college she loves, and let the major follow. She is currently on a major that I can really see her majoring in. But, I could have seen her in the major she liked a year ago. Now, the major she is on now, she did like last spring, for a few months. I thought maybe if we had all the majors she loves at a school, but short of going to a megauniversity and bracing ourselves to pay for years while she jumps from major to major and deals with the bureaucracy, we won't find that. I will look at a school that seems to have most everything, but then find out that no one actually majors in whatever was her interest. And not all her majors she likes are easy to find, such as environmental science (not studies).</p>
<p>A couple of schools she has found with what appears to be great programs in her current major interest are not ones she liked at all just a few months ago. Schools she loved a few months ago do not have her current major interest.</p>
<p>My advice to her was to go ahead and apply to the couple preferred schools she found with her major. But, also apply to those schools she simply loved. She will have until May 1 to decide and she may change her mind by then, or find other things she thinks are important. But she has plenty of time to decide, don't rule anything out yet. This would bring her total schools she applies to still under 10, with half of them having free applications and she already sent test scores to some. What do you think?</p>
<p>(if she had picked her major long ago and seemed to have a solid passion for it, I would not be telling her this)</p>
<p>The answer is not the same for each student. There are many kids who don’t settle on a major until well into their sophomore or even junior year. Other’s know their academic or professional passion.</p>
<p>The only reason she would have to pick a college based on her major is if her major is a very specific one that is not offered everywhere like meteorology or criminal justice. I would suggest that you look into some schools that have open curriculum (I can only remember Hamilton College and the University of Rochester as examples right now), especially since your daughter seems to change her mind a lot. This will allow her to explore her interests without being forced to take gen Ed classes. That way, she has plenty of time and plenty of opportunities to decide what she really wants to major in when her junior year rolls around in college. The open curriculum would also allow her to pursue other interests freely besides her major when she decides what it is. At schools with open curriculum, a student can take virtually whatever she wants (with minimal limits, of course) besides the classes required for her major. Good Luck!</p>
<p>A student who is very undecided may want to choose a school with good offerings for all of the possible majors that s/he may consider. This may be a more difficult task than for a student who has one or a small number of specific majors that s/he may consider.</p>
<p>Hamilton has fewer breadth requirements than most schools, but still has some. Rochester effectively has breadth requirements since at least a cluster (3 related courses) is required in each of humanities, social studies, and science. Amherst, Brown, and Evergreen State would be more open curriculum type of schools.</p>
<p>Bennington and Sarah Lawrence would be other possibilities. More interdisciplinary possibilities. Bennington doesn’t have majors, but students come up with “plans.” And every winter there is a field work term where students leave campus to work.</p>
<p>Honestly, I would tell her to stop thinking about a decision on a major. She can go to college as an undecided and have a couple of years to figure it out. She should just enjoy high school and follow her interests. College applications can go to any school she likes in terms of location, size, and vibe.</p>
<p>In my opinion, this is the better strategy for most liberal arts majors.</p>
<p>Here on CC, one sees a fair number of posts confidently asserting that for a specific major, college X is best, college Y is second best, college Z is 3rd best, etc. In fact, there is little good evidence to back up such claims about undergraduate department strengths. Moreover, many students change majors. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if you are considering small colleges, do make sure that for a couple of high-interest majors, the school has enough faculty and courses to cover the subjects.</p>
<p>D1 knew her major, needed a school that offered it and offered it well. She stuck with it but the actual program was structured for depth and breadth. It had various opportunities beyond the classroom. D2 just needed a college that offered stretch and the usual variety. </p>
<p>If a college doesn’t seem to be as strong in one major, IMO, the trick can be to look at the actual profs she could focus with (as an undergrad.) Not just how popular the major is with other kids. Depends in the major. And it is hard for hs seniors to pick a major when all they’ve had is hs, haven’t sampled the college buffet of subjects.</p>
<p>I think it’s both, but agree with Thumper, you have to choose a school where you will be well served if you change your mind. That said, my older son’s choice was fantastic in his major, but less so outside it. Since this particular kid has been interested in computer science and not much else (math, physics are on the list) it was easy to let the major be the decision point. Younger son looked at schools that were good in IR, but one of the reasons he did not take the merit scholarship at his safety was that if he changed his mind about his major the school was not nearly as strong.</p>
<p>I think its time for you to sit down with your daughter and tell her about the seriousness of choosing the right major and how it would affect her whole life… So she should think about it and choose something which she knows she wants to do the rest of her life…
Thats what I would advise you , make her think about it and stick on it good luck to ur daughter.</p>
<p>I come out in the middle on this one. There are 3000 schools out there and students need a way to pare down the 3000 to a list. I believe one of the best ways is to search for schools that, if possible, have the superset of the majors in which the student is interested … this likely will cut the school list down to a reasonable number and leave the options open.</p>
<p>Way back in the dark ages when I looked for school my criteria were … Northeast or Mid-Atlantic … strong students … and the school had math, physics, computer science, engineering, and architecture. This actually was a pretty short list … about the only paring I needed to do was decide which of the dozen of so state flagships to include and which to exclude. Then among this set I picked the school I liked the best … I did not rank the schools by the “ranking” of my current preferred major. Unless one of the majors is extremely rare and overly limits the school choices I do not see a reason to fathom major options from the start.</p>
<p>PS - Alternatively, a pure liberal arts experience might be a good choice also.</p>
<p>I was like your daughter - before college, I switched my potential major like 15 times. I wanted a different career every month. So personally, I selected a college that I loved that I also knew had strengths in several areas I in which I was interested. I settled on a major after I went. (And don’t worry: I took classes in my freshman year and I actually only officially switched my major once; I selected my major at the end of my freshman year of college and didn’t change it after that.)</p>
<p>I think the vast majority of students need to at least consider the possibility that they may change majors - even my husband, who had wanted to be an astronaut since he was a small child, changed his major from aerospace engineering (his intended major for YEARS) to mathematics in his junior year after guest teaching a classroom of elementary students and falling in love with teaching math.</p>
<p>I also don’t think that avoiding general eds is necessarily a good idea. On the contrary, for a student who’s interested in everything, a core curriculum or general education classes may allow her to explore areas that she wouldn’t have otherwise explored, and perhaps even consider majors she would not have otherwise. I cannot remember a single class I genuinely disliked in college. I’m one of those people who loves to learn about everything, and most good colleges have a wide range of classes within their general education requirements that they can take. I probably would’ve never taken Biology of Women without being required to take a science class, but it was one of my favorite and most memorable classes from college. I took classes like Women in Japanese Society to satisfy my women’s studies requirement (women’s college) and Making of the Modern World for humanities.</p>
<p>I also don’t necessarily think it’s “time” to sit down and have a serious discussion about selecting the right major. If she still can’t choose by the end of freshman year, the summer between freshman and sophomore year might be that time, but for now she’s got nearly 3 years left to decide. She’ll be fine.</p>
<p>It doesn’t sound as though your D is in a position to determine the course of her life at age 17 or 18-- and you shouldn’t feel as though she is doomed if she doesn’t. The choice of a major is really not as big a deal as many on CC make it out to be. I hire people for a living (hundreds and hundreds of people every year) and the correlation between college major and one’s profession is extremely weak.</p>
<p>In corporate recruiting we often joke “unless you want to fly 747’s or perform neurosurgery, you can learn on the job”. Which of course is a bit of an exaggeration, but not too much.</p>
<p>Your D should focus on finding a college which will support a wide range of interests (certainly most big universities) and then relax. You have the parental prerogative of telling her what your financial limitations are (and if that means 8 semesters only- let her know up front) and then back off a bit.</p>
<p>Four year grad rates do vary significantly by university- so that’s a metric that’s worth looking at and understanding-- but changing majors isn’t a major factor in that number either. A kid who is good at planning, stays on top of deadlines, and isn’t in an “impacted” major at a State U which is trying to limit the number of kids enrolled, is going to be able to graduate on time even without a plan going in.</p>
<p>What you want to avoid- a kid who is always registering late. A kid who won’t take a 9 am class so will wait a semester to take the 1 pm version. A kid who doesn’t read the emails from the registrar about add/drop deadlines. A kid who gets multiple incompletes every semester and is constantly using vacation time to play catch up.</p>
<p>THAT drives the extra semester from what I’ve seen among my kids friends- not the undecideds.</p>
<p>OMG, this. Has been happening with S2 since soph year.</p>
<p>OP, I’d go for the college over the major unless it’s a kiddo who has wanted to do X since he/she was in preschool. Our situation was very similar to mathmom’s.</p>
<p>Let her figure it out once she gets to college.</p>
<p>For many jobs, there is no one “correct” major. There are lots of ways to get to one’s goal. In addition, there are a million jobs/programs/majors your D doesn’t even know about yet. I sure didn’t go to college thinking I’d want to be a 401(k) plan administrator/benefits communicator, but my polisci/journalism plus native math skills were an excellent match.</p>
<p>Sarah Lawrence is not a great choice for an undecided student, unless the student is undecided between some subset of visual and performing arts, some humanities (not foreign languages and literatures), and psychology, or interdisciplinary or area/ethnic combinations or such, since it is rather thin for other subjects (see [Undergraduate</a> Catalogue](<a href=“Disciplines and Programs of Study | Sarah Lawrence College”>Disciplines and Programs of Study | Sarah Lawrence College) ).</p>
<p>I agree with the general comments here that for the kid with diverse interests, pick the school, but make sure they have what the kid seems likely to want. </p>
<p>As a caveat to that, talk to the departments and be sure they really offer the courses. </p>
<p>Many moons ago, I went to a LAC, hoping to take philosophy as a second (double) major. The catalog listed all the courses, and outlined what you would do to fulfill the philosophy major. When I took a course or two and then declared interest in my second or third semester, I was told that the department didn’t really want anybody to major, the long list of courses in the catalog were mostly not really conducted, and the department existed to present the same three or four courses that people took to fulfill distribution requirements, and an aesthetics course that fine arts majors were required to take.</p>
<p>The college, first and foremost. Something like 75% of freshman ended up graduating with a different major than that which they initially had indicated. Plus remember in the end academics in college are largely irrelevant in most cases - it’s the environment of the college you’re at that is the true benefit of college.</p>
<p>A person at a college which they are a perfect fit but with a major that they didn’t originally intend for or even that isn’t their ideal will usually do much better than someone with their initially desired major but at a school they aren’t a good fit for otherwise.</p>
<p>Certainly there are many exceptions, such as for those who are for some reason absolutely deadset on a certain path (and even then there’s still uncertainty for their desires may change once they explore the subjects more), etc.</p>
<p>Hone in on colleges she likes that are affordable to you. Keep in mind that it may take longer than 8 semesters to graduate if she bounces around a few majors.</p>
<p>Crystal. Those that study career trends will tell you that the vast majority of folks change career paths at LEAST once, usually more, in their lives. </p>
<p>In addition, there are many college grads who are working in jobs that do not necessarily relate to their college major.</p>
<p>Obviously some careers/jobs WILL relate to college major, but not all do.</p>
good luck to ur daughter.</p>