Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 13:07     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What majors are least competitive at selective private schools? Assuming everything in the arts & sciences except for economics, math, bio, psychology and poli sci?


I've commented on this topic before but I have no doubt that some top schools are desperate for kids in certain majors and that will impact admission decisions. For example, Princeton has one of the best and largest Classics departments in the country, but it didn't have enough kids majoring in Classics to support all the faculty positions. I think it had fewer than 10 kids graduating with a Classics major for a few years. To drum up interest in the department a couple years ago it began offering Classics as a minor for the first time (so that the Classics faculty would have more than just Classics majors to teach). If a school is taking concrete steps like that to draw more students to the department then you can assume Admissions will be aware of that need and tend to more readily admit viable applicants that are considered likely to major/minor in an undersubscribed major.


Aren't all majors offered as minors? I know all minors are not offered as majors.
What are other concrete steps that a university might take that one could search for?


No not all majors are offered at minors. There are very separate lists on school academic offering websites.
Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 12:53     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:What majors are least competitive at selective private schools? Assuming everything in the arts & sciences except for economics, math, bio, psychology and poli sci?


I've commented on this topic before but I have no doubt that some top schools are desperate for kids in certain majors and that will impact admission decisions. For example, Princeton has one of the best and largest Classics departments in the country, but it didn't have enough kids majoring in Classics to support all the faculty positions. I think it had fewer than 10 kids graduating with a Classics major for a few years. To drum up interest in the department a couple years ago it began offering Classics as a minor for the first time (so that the Classics faculty would have more than just Classics majors to teach). If a school is taking concrete steps like that to draw more students to the department then you can assume Admissions will be aware of that need and tend to more readily admit viable applicants that are considered likely to major/minor in an undersubscribed major.


Aren't all majors offered as minors? I know all minors are not offered as majors.
What are other concrete steps that a university might take that one could search for?
Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 12:48     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Anonymous wrote:What majors are least competitive at selective private schools? Assuming everything in the arts & sciences except for economics, math, bio, psychology and poli sci?


I've commented on this topic before but I have no doubt that some top schools are desperate for kids in certain majors and that will impact admission decisions. For example, Princeton has one of the best and largest Classics departments in the country, but it didn't have enough kids majoring in Classics to support all the faculty positions. I think it had fewer than 10 kids graduating with a Classics major for a few years. To drum up interest in the department a couple years ago it began offering Classics as a minor for the first time (so that the Classics faculty would have more than just Classics majors to teach). If a school is taking concrete steps like that to draw more students to the department then you can assume Admissions will be aware of that need and tend to more readily admit viable applicants that are considered likely to major/minor in an undersubscribed major.
Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 11:11     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:AOs balance talents, not majors.


Not always. AO’s look for kids that meet institutional goals. That could mean filling seats for certain majors.


I don't see any reason they'd need to "fill seats" for majors. What then need to do is avoid overflowing seats for popular majors/courses


One of those links above talked about how hard it is to fire tenured faculty and they need to make sure those tenured humanities faculty have full classes.

You can’t have a 300 level gender studies class with three people. But you can make it more interdisciplinary, so kids from other humanities majors (English, History, Anthro) may want to take it. Hence the proliferation of all of these Taylor Swift classes at T20.
Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 11:08     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:AOs balance talents, not majors.


Not always. AO’s look for kids that meet institutional goals. That could mean filling seats for certain majors.


I don't see any reason they'd need to "fill seats" for majors. What then need to do is avoid overflowing seats for popular majors/courses
Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 11:06     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
What majors are least competitive at selective private schools? Assuming everything in the arts & sciences except for economics, math, bio, psychology and poli sci?
Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 10:56     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Depends on the school.

UMD admits major blind


Not for everything.


Right. Oversubscribed majors are the LEPs. So they absolutely do admit by major. It's basically the competitive LEPs vs. everything else.
Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 09:44     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Its a cumbersome process and you'll have to do research on each school's provost office, reading the school paper to figure out priorities and reading the strategic plan. Every school does it differently.

Here's Northwestern:
https://www.northwestern.edu/provost/about/ir/data-book/v57/t5.02-degrees-bachelors.pdf

You can see for the most recent year, where they might be looking for more students.
Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 09:36     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Anonymous wrote:Depends on the school.

UMD admits major blind


Let's look at private T20s. All of the counseling material out there says even with holistic admissions where you are not admitted to a major at all, your
"application is read with major in mind" - what does that mean?

So are certain majors (assuming you have the evidence or proof for a real interest and its cluttered with something like coding or robotics) helpful for purposes of admissions? How do you find out what these majors are? Like is English better than Poli Sci or Psych?
Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 09:34     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Anonymous wrote:Depends on the school.

UMD admits major blind


Not for everything.
Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 09:30     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Depends on the school.

UMD admits major blind
Anonymous
Post 03/10/2026 09:22     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
How has the applicants' major designation affected outcomes this year for current seniors? Curious about first-hand experience. Saw this thread and found a lot online, and trying to get a handle on this.

https://www.berkeley2academy.com/single-post/major-selection-is-a-major-deal-how-to-strategize-for-college-applications

https://www.eduavenues.com/blog/choosing-college-major

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1257906.page

https://signeteducation.com/resources/4365-2/

https://www.ivyscholars.com/how-to-choose-your-major-strategically/

Relatedly, how can they "tell" an applicant will accept their offer? Bc if most of the decisions hinge on yield (after meeting the priorities of the school of course), what are they using to tell the kid will accept (assuming they don't look at demonstrated interest)?
Anonymous
Post 07/07/2024 20:54     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:AOs balance talents, not majors.


Not always. AO’s look for kids that meet institutional goals. That could mean filling seats for certain majors.


True, for schools that admit by major. For schools where one does not declare until the end of sophomore year and most of the students change their intention from the time they are admitted, seats are filled in less popular majors by distribution requirements. Curriculum planners carefully plan requirements to be sure all students take subjects in many different areas. My engineer at an ivy is taking a Roman history seminar in the fall. It is very popular among engineers and science majors because while it is a lot of reading and papers, the professor rates very highly for energized and interesting discussions. Sure some are majors in art history, but for others it is an elective that fills distributions.


NP: you are correct about distribution requirements but filling seats/ number of majors needed to support a department is more complicated than you described. I am a chair of an oversubscribed major at a university that doesn’t admit by major. AOs do consider major when shaping the class as an institutional priority. I doubt my university is an outlier.

I know my university uses data modeling to predict number of majors in each department using some of the factors you mentioned. My department cannot support a significant increase in majors (>10%) because we don’t have the labor or space. My colleagues in undersubscribed departments need a minimum number of majors even though these departments offer several gen ed distribution classes. This alone cannot support salaries for TT and full time faculty. I don’t have time to go into the weeds but depts do not get the same amount of tuition per seat for non-majors vs majors. I am friends with a chair at an Ivy and another T20 and their budget is structured the same way.


This is what our private College Counselor told us as well.

My kid is a humanities major, most likely. Has academic and EC evidence for a major that might include gender studies, anthropology, and/or sociology.

In looking at the data from college raptor and other sources on size of departments at certain schools, it’s clear that the gender studies departments are vastly more undersubscribed than sociology at most highly selective schools.

Clear to us what her major designation should be.
Anonymous
Post 07/07/2024 20:03     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:AOs balance talents, not majors.


Not always. AO’s look for kids that meet institutional goals. That could mean filling seats for certain majors.


True, for schools that admit by major. For schools where one does not declare until the end of sophomore year and most of the students change their intention from the time they are admitted, seats are filled in less popular majors by distribution requirements. Curriculum planners carefully plan requirements to be sure all students take subjects in many different areas. My engineer at an ivy is taking a Roman history seminar in the fall. It is very popular among engineers and science majors because while it is a lot of reading and papers, the professor rates very highly for energized and interesting discussions. Sure some are majors in art history, but for others it is an elective that fills distributions.


NP: you are correct about distribution requirements but filling seats/ number of majors needed to support a department is more complicated than you described. I am a chair of an oversubscribed major at a university that doesn’t admit by major. AOs do consider major when shaping the class as an institutional priority. I doubt my university is an outlier.

I know my university uses data modeling to predict number of majors in each department using some of the factors you mentioned. My department cannot support a significant increase in majors (>10%) because we don’t have the labor or space. My colleagues in undersubscribed departments need a minimum number of majors even though these departments offer several gen ed distribution classes. This alone cannot support salaries for TT and full time faculty. I don’t have time to go into the weeds but depts do not get the same amount of tuition per seat for non-majors vs majors. I am friends with a chair at an Ivy and another T20 and their budget is structured the same way.


This is fascinating. My kid is interested in an undersubscribed major at a competitive flagship with several LLPs. Wondering how this institutional consideration will impact his chances.
Anonymous
Post 07/07/2024 19:47     Subject: Do majors matter to AOs?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:AOs balance talents, not majors.


Not always. AO’s look for kids that meet institutional goals. That could mean filling seats for certain majors.


True, for schools that admit by major. For schools where one does not declare until the end of sophomore year and most of the students change their intention from the time they are admitted, seats are filled in less popular majors by distribution requirements. Curriculum planners carefully plan requirements to be sure all students take subjects in many different areas. My engineer at an ivy is taking a Roman history seminar in the fall. It is very popular among engineers and science majors because while it is a lot of reading and papers, the professor rates very highly for energized and interesting discussions. Sure some are majors in art history, but for others it is an elective that fills distributions.


NP: you are correct about distribution requirements but filling seats/ number of majors needed to support a department is more complicated than you described. I am a chair of an oversubscribed major at a university that doesn’t admit by major. AOs do consider major when shaping the class as an institutional priority. I doubt my university is an outlier.

I know my university uses data modeling to predict number of majors in each department using some of the factors you mentioned. My department cannot support a significant increase in majors (>10%) because we don’t have the labor or space. My colleagues in undersubscribed departments need a minimum number of majors even though these departments offer several gen ed distribution classes. This alone cannot support salaries for TT and full time faculty. I don’t have time to go into the weeds but depts do not get the same amount of tuition per seat for non-majors vs majors. I am friends with a chair at an Ivy and another T20 and their budget is structured the same way.