Reply to Anthropology majors

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Anthropology majors"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Your kid should just do whatever ECs they enjoy and will commit to. Schools are not looking for EC-major alignment—most don’t even admit by major! They are looking for passion and leadership and growth.[/quote]

While true, your application is "read" with the major you list in mind. For selective/T20 schools, your ECs do absolutely matter. Evidence for major matters. You can't credibly list a major in business or CS without certain "evidence" - from transcript AND ECs.

Here is what a national counseling firm said recently- remember anthropology is an underrepresented major:

A Simplified Example: How a Class of 100 Might Be Allocated

Priority Category	Approximate % of Seats

Recruited Athletes	                10%
Legacy / Donor / Faculty Kids	12–15%
Full-Pay International	                10%
First-Gen / Low-Income	        10–15%
Underrepresented Majors	        10%
Mission-Aligned Profiles	        10%
Academic Standouts	                25–30%
(These proportions vary widely by school, but the framework helps.)

If you’re not in a hooked group, your best strategy is to align your application with a school’s current priorities.

[/quote]

Correct. Those who claim to have interest in underrepresented majors get the most scrutiny at elites because it is a known hack to try to pretend you are a classics major (or anthro, english, many others). It became a bigger thing during TO, often pushed by expensive clueless counselors. Elite schools have talked about this on podcasts and interviews. This is why they look for depth of rigor across all areas in high school, in case they get fooled the person will still have a good chance to succeed as a secret pre-med. 
A slightly weaker stem kid (lets say 730 on Math and 4s on Stem AP) who has a genuine deep goal to study the ancient mayans, with years of corresponding EC, will have better luck than the kid who has scattered stem and humanities ECs, no clear focus, yet writes an essay on interest in studying a niche underrepresented field. The first kid will also have a benefit over the kid who has a deep passion and ECs in the ancient mayans yet did not challenge themselves with Stem APs/rigorous stem IB. 
With 50-70k applicants for each ivy level private, there are enough applicants clicking interest in underrepresented majors for the AOs to be picky. 
Mental health on campus is a huge problem. Many ivy/T15 if not all of them have had at least one suicide in the past 3 years, and the mental health resources are in constant demand. These are high pressure schools. The applicant pool is deep and talented: admissions does not want to take a chance on unprepared students whose true interests align with premed or econ yet they have a story that makes it seem as though they are all-in on anthropology. The kid can pick anything once there, remember. They want the lesser-demand majors to be full, sure, but they also want to avoid major misalignment causing mental health crises and transfers. They pride themselves on 96+% retention after first year.  [/quote]

It's why the strongest humanities /underrepresented majors come from private selective HS with those distinctive LOR to match the major.
See it in action every single year. These kids aren't switching to STEM or engineering either once in college (that's a public HS thing).
Perhaps a double major in economics with anthropology so they can secure a job. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics