S25 wants to major in science or engineering but hasn’t narrowed down what field. He is filling out his app and original plan was to apply undeclared, but I’m wondering if it would be better to apply to a specific major instead? Not really asking about acceptance chances, but more about which choice would give a smoother more efficient start to college. There seems to be a lot of overlapping curriculum in physical science and engineering majors so even if he does decide to change, I’m thinking he wouldn’t be too far off course?
He’s applying to SJSU, SDSU, Cal Poly Pomona, CSULB and Cal Poly SLO (will apply MatE here)
It’s worth checking campus by campus, but at some or many of the UCs and CSUs it is substantially harder (up to virtually impossible) to get into engineering and some sciences after enrollment. He will probably have the most options and flexibility if he applies for whatever discipline of engineering he’s most interested in - and if he changes his mind, a lot of the non-engineering courses (math, chem, physics) would be applicable to another STEM major. You can search the schools’ websites for “change of major” to see the requirements; the challenges are not just space, but also course requirements (that may be difficult to meet without already having a declared major in that area), as well as GPA requirements. Note that engineering typically (always?) has more required courses than other majors, so moving into engineering late is likely to require extra coursework even if it is possible. Best of luck!
I think general wisdom is that it is much harder to transfer INTO engineering than out of it, so the usual recommendation is to apply to engineering, specially if its separate schools within the university.
At many CSU admission is numbers based. Take a look at First-Time, First-Year Student Admission Eligibility | California State University Long Beach for example since for local applicants to STEM majors they can be guaranteed admission if they meet the index cutoff. If that applies then, as others have said, apply to engineering for the guaranteed admit and he can transfer out later if he wants.