How to Pick a Major for College Admissions
Jack Beecher, here.
Perhaps you’re like me: you’re approaching your senior year of high school and still have no idea what you want to do with your life.
You think that’s fine and common amongst your peers until you fill out the common app and see this:
Major!?!?! How am I supposed to mark a major if I don’t know what I want to do?
This is the guide about majors I wish I had when I filled out my common app:
First off, THE MAJOR YOU SELECT IS NOT BINDING.
I will repeat that because it is that important: you do not have to stick with the major you select on your common app.
Matter of fact, I’m going to be a sophomore in college and I still don’t have to commit to a major.
Now, one important caveat: sometimes the school the major is in is binding.
For example, to apply for a computer science major at USC, you apply to the engineering college. If you want to switch into comp sci or out of comp sci at a later date you have to fill out forms to transfer between the internal colleges. So first things first, find out if the school you’re applying to falls into that category.
If it doesn’t, here’s some more advice for selecting a major:
Pick a major that aligns with your story (even if you don’t see yourself following through with it)
For example, my application was heavily built around my interest in math (essays, activities, etc), so I should have marked math.
For some reason, however, I marked I was applying for computer science. Here’s why that might have harmed my application.
I had very few computer science activities on my common app
Computer science is a competitive major at the schools I was applying
Because yes. The major you select does impact your admissions chances. The more popular the major the harder it will be to get into the school.
Imagine this hypothetical:
Stanford looks at their applications and sees 50,000 CS (comp sci) students applied and 50,000 non-CS students applied. They can’t accept an equal number of both. That would fill up their CS department way too fast, so the kids in the first group have a lower acceptance rate.
Now, if your dream is computer science and your whole application is built around it, I’m not telling you to lie. Put down computer science.
I’m just saying if you don’t yet know, understand that at most schools you can switch your major around once you get in, so use some strategy in your application, picking a less popular major that still speaks to your story.
However, at the end of the day, your major will probably change, so don’t stress about it too much and just put down the one that fits you the best.
If you can’t decide on that, just mark it as undecided. It’s an option for a reason.
Best,
Jack Beecher
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