The act of formulating a clear and decisive program is as valorized in the higher admissions process as it is in nigh other realms of American life. Highly-selective colleges practice generally give an edge to students who profess to have figured out their whole professional person life by the tender of age of eighteen and possess a rails record of activities and achievements consistent with those stated plans—hence, the pressure felt by applicants to list an intended major on their application even if, internally, the compass guiding their time to come path is spinning like a pinwheel in a windstorm.

In an attempt to elucidate all aspects of awarding-stage major declaration, we will respond the following questions:

  • Am I immune to change majors afterward beingness accepted?
  • Why do some universities forcefulness me to apply to a specific college/schoolhouse?
  • Volition certain majors give me an admissions border on my college application?

Nosotros begin with an overview of whether or not you lot are locked-in to the major you list on your college awarding. Spoiler warning: The respond should immediately ease some of your anxiety.

Am I allowed to change majors after existence accepted?

Permit'southward go right to the source on this 1 and hear from a few uber-elite institutions who know that their applicants are having dark terrors and heart palpitations about this very subject. MIT states that: "Students utilise to MIT for general admission and select a major at the end of the first year with the help of their first twelvemonth advisor." They do ask applicants to listing a "course of interest" but explain that this has no bearing on admissions decisions, acknowledging that "a large percentage of students at MIT stop up majoring in something other than what they listed every bit their field of interest as applicants."

Princeton similarly does non bind students in any manner to the intended concentration that they declare on their application. In fact, they freely share that 70% of Tiger graduates earn their degree in an surface area different from what they listed four years prior on their application. William & Mary also doesn't await your intended major to translate to an actual expanse of study—rather, they come across major exploration equally a two-year process. Due west&M captures this sentiment on their website, explaining that the "courses yous take in your showtime and 2nd years will explore a diverseness of academic disciplines and give you a better sense for where y'all want to focus this function of your undergraduate studies."

While many schools, even the nigh academically demanding in country like MIT, Princeton, and William & Mary aren't expecting y'all to chart your bookish class prior to even setting foot in a college classroom, other institutions will crave you lot to select a particular undergraduate schoolhouse on your application—and that's where things get murkier and more strategic.

Universities that crave yous to employ to a specific school

At a liberal arts college, moving between departments is typically quite easy; at a larger academy housing a number of schools/colleges, especially ones with highly variable admissions standards, this may be quite challenging.  Large flagships similar the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Michigan, or the University of Wisconsin-Madison as well as big private research institutions like Cornell Academy, Boston University, or Washington University in St. Louis, require you to apply direct to certain schools or colleges. For example, Dyson (Cornell), Questrom (BU), and Olin (WashU) business schools are all "direct acknowledge" institutions, meaning that students employ specifically for entrance into that school. The 3 state universities referenced above all require yous to use directly to their colleges of applied science. For an assessment of how difficult information technology is to transfer internally into applied science schools at peak colleges, click here.

Fortunately, even at these highly-selective universities, switching majors within your given higher is unlikely to cause trouble. A student at the University of Pennsylvania'southward vaunted Wharton Schoolhouse of Business concern tin can freely change their surface area of concentration from Accounting to Behavioral Economics. On the other paw, switching from Penn's College of Arts and Sciences into Wharton involves another harrowing admissions process after one'due south freshman year.

Can I declare major in an underrepresented area to gain an admissions advantage?

In some cases, the backstairs admissions strategy of pretending to be interested in a relatively unpopular major can, in fact, be a viable maneuver. In other instances, such a motility can prove disastrous. These two examples should illustrate the point:

Scenario #1 (When the strategy makes sense)

Larry is a loftier-caliber student who is 100% that he wants to exist an engineer. Georgia Tech is his top choice school and he is aware that the mid-50% SAT range is 1400-1520 and that the average GPA is a 4.07. Larry, or 50-Train, as his water polo buddies affectionately phone call him, has a 1410 and a 3.viii GPA. In other words, he's a certifiably borderline candidate at Georgia Tech and is desperately searching for whatsoever kind of admissions advantage. Through a fiddling bit of old- fashioned research, Larry discovers that 59% of the degrees conferred at Tech in 2020 were in applied science, eighteen% were in information science, and ten% are in business; withal, just i% of Yellow Jackets major in math making it a truly undersubscribed major. He then reads on the school's website that the admissions department makes clear that they "expect to see evidence of your interest in and training for the major/college that y'all list on your application." This actually works considering L-Train was on the Math Olympiad team and scored a 5 on the AP Calc BC exam. Larry applies every bit an intended math major and sneaks into his dream school, with the option to transfer into applied science at any fourth dimension.

Scenario #2 (When the strategy does not make sense)

Janice, who despises h2o polo and has an Uncle Larry who obsessively builds model ships in bottles, wants more than than annihilation in the world to study computer scientific discipline at Carnegie Mellon. Her 1360 SAT score is crawly simply well shy of the 1500-1570 mid-50% range of admitted CS students. Ever a cunning one, Janice finds out that Higher of Fine Arts students have a 1290-1490 mid-fifty% SAT range and a scheme hatches on the level of an Ocean's Xi-style heist—Janice is going to pretend to masquerade through the awarding process equally an artist, gain acceptance, so rip off her mask, revealing to those robber barons, Carnegie and Mellon, that a computer science major has only Trojan Horsed her way into their exclusive club. Months later she is shocked when her plan is foiled—the admissions committee was perplexed as why an bidder to the art program stopped taking fine art equally a sophomore and struggled to cobble together even a basic portfolio—she was rejected.

College Transitions Final Thoughts

In short, almost students need non fret near what major they list on their higher application. If you lot choose to list an intended surface area of study, you should exercise so in an area that makes sense given the other particulars of your application (i.e. the focus of your extracurricular involvement, grade choice, honors and distinctions, etc.). Mostly, yous volition be able to easily modify your major at a liberal arts college, but are probable to encounter more than difficulty transferring into a highly-competitive school at a larger university. Listing an underrepresented major on your application is a sound strategy just if a coherent and compelling example can be made for your selection.