Berkeley culture for humanities majors?

ucbalumnus
Wed, 05 Apr 2023 05:55:13 +0000

There was probably greater competitiveness for L&S high demand majors since students needed to meet a college GPA threshold to declare them. However, new policy of semi-direct-admit for L&S high demand majors means that those with the semi-direct-admit no longer have so much pressure to compete for grades, although those without semi-direct-admit will find it more difficult to switch into one of those majors.

The L&S high demand majors are listed at https://admissions.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/First-Years-New-High-Demand-Majors-Policy.pdf . Only one (art practice) is a humanities major, although several others are social science majors. None is a biology major, but the density of pre-med students in biology majors can increase the competitiveness there. Although political science is typically the most popular pre-law major, pre-law students are not as concentrated in political science as pre-med students are in biology majors. The remaining incentive for competitiveness is competitive admission for the business major, but that major is moving to semi-direct-admit in fall 2024.