Hello guys, I am an international student from Eastern Europe applying this year to Ivies. My preferable majors are economics, business administration and sociology. But those are really hard to get in. I will be also asking for financial aid. Considering this information, what are least competitive majors and in what universities? (I mostly consider UPenn, Yale and Columbia) I know Yale has Cognitive Science major. Does anybody know the chances of being accepted there?
Thank you.
They do not admit by major. Apply to the program that you are most interested in and focus on other parts of your application instead. Many college students end up changing their major at some point in their college career, so it would be a poor tool of admission anyways.
I’m just going on perception, but I’d say the more liberal arts majors have less competitive applicant pools although it depends more on your profile than it does on the major you list on the app.
Thank you. In this case do you know what programs is less competitive to get in the field of business,economic and sociology?
If different majors have different admission selectivity at the university, changing major after enrolling may involve another competitive admission process if you try to change into a more selective major.
You may need to think about your grades, test scores and other information about your high school performance. Traditionally, under water basket weaving is easy. Schools aren’t grouped by major, or high school or other categories. Schools admit those students who at least meets all requirements. That is the floor. Schools also have a limit to the number admitted. Some schools only admit the tippy top applicants. Finally, schools admit the most qualified applicants and may have more challenging requirements for some progra
Me such as engineering. FYI, the very best students I ever taught majored in occupational therapy
If you’re interested in sociology and have the background for that field, I’d say it’s one of the easier majors to get into regardless of university.
For the Ivies, Cornell and Penn admit by different schools and it appears Columbia may have a separate admissions between Columbia College and Columbia Engineering (not 100% sure). For Penn, Wharton (business) is probably the most competitive of the 4 undergrad schools. The other universities admit you for the college as a whole, not by major. The other schools allow, in fact fully expect, majors to change from what was initially indicated.
The issue of whether or not “gaming” a major for admissions has been debated on other threads at length. I would say that the general consensus is that these schools are so selective that any differences in caliber of students between one expressed interest and another are slight. Where the differences are going to arise are applicants who are STEM focused are more likely to have higher achievement in STEM courses, tests and EC’s and humanities/social science focused applicants, higher achievement in courses, tests and EC’s related to their interests. At the level of applicants for these highly selective schools, you will also have a healthy number of applicants who have high achievement in almost all areas and can easily jump from say Physics to History. Further, there is the risk that if you try to game system in too obvious of a way, it will in fact backfire on you. E.g., you think Sociology is a less competitive major and you indicate that as your major, but your record shows that almost all of your electives and out of school activities involves CS, your app might very well end up in the circular file early.