Can you apply to different colleges with different intended majors? How does this work?

Applying to College
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Many LACs have career outcome reports. Many don’t show salaries (some do) - and not to start the usual debate, but I think the salary is why. At the same time others will argue kids take low paying jobs to get ready for professional school - med, law.

In the end a kid needs to study what they want, where they can afford and to be a good getter.

You will see some LACs thread the needle - with engineering as a major or business or both. Bucknell routinely ranks amongst the top LACs and even colleges when factoring in salaries. They have a college of engineering and school of management. US News says #30. Business is by far and away the most popular major at Richmond.

Here’s the thing with rank. If you are using US News for top - whatever school - make no mistake. It’s a popularity contest amongst academics. It contains zero data - placement, selectivity and more.

I put the methodology on the bottom for you. Kids are falling all over themselves to go to the top - whatever US News says.

Want to make more money as a marketer? Sure, you can bust tail and go to IU Kelley. But who is reporting a higher knowledge rate (% of kids) and scoring higher salaries? Non-selective U of Alabama (for marketing) over IU.

You see countless engineering schools in the same salary range for major - and many have a higher (much higher) job placement rate than top ranked schools like Ga Tech and UCB.

My own kid - he desired to be an engineer - not a consultant or IB, etc. - but at trivia night in Utah, he found out he made more than the Columbia grad at a neighboring defense company. His salary starting was above the averages - but he had a six figure offer on day one from a chemical company he had zero interest in. And others above - even the top engineering school salaries. This is likely, in part, because they pay by job and location. In his own company with 150 kid hired into 3 jobs (engineering, safety, supply chain) - they hire engineers from Akron to Buffalo to Michigan and UCs - they all make the same. Many parents have commented that their kids see the same jobs on handshake - that they do at other high ranked schools. Yes, an MIT sets you apart but a Michigan vs. name your other - perhaps slightly but not in a major way.

My other kid was what you fear and I still fear because nearly a year out of school, I don’t know what she’ll do in life. And her International Studies and Poli Sci majors don’t portend a career. Right now, she’s in a selective public service program - kids from top schools but also like hers. She was amazed at orientation - she embellished, but said it seemed all Ivy, UVA, UNC, Wisconsin. She also interned for our state and a top think tank in DC - from a regional public. She will fill her 2nd year in the current program - and after that commitment, while I don’t know, she’ll have rent to pay and she’s tired of school - so I imagine she’ll try to continue. She knows she doesn’t want a desk job or a job cranking #s, etc. She’s able to mainly fund herself - her salary starts with a 6 - so that’s not bad for coming out, I don’t think.

btw - both my kids got into near top flight schools and schools that were within my pre-determined budget - but both chose safeties , with my daughter choosing #16 of 17 rank wise. So your student has to love where they are going too!!!

College entrance will likely get less, not more competitive, as there will be less students. At the same time, some programs that are not well funded will close while others will eliminate programs, I’m guessing in the humanities (less demand).

You can look at career outcome reports if you choose. I believe, like you, people send their kids to college to get a job, a good career. Others here refute that - but of course, most their kids have good jobs so they might think differently if they didn’t.

Bottom line - you can’t force a kid interested in English to be an engineer. Or a kid, with an interest in poli sci to be an accountant.

But you can also have great success from anywhere - whatever great success means to you. Just because school A is ranked higher than School B or has “better” outcomes - doesn’t mean no kids from School B will have a better outcome than School A.

And if you’re worried about law school - well Harvard’s first year class of less than 600 is from 163 schools, Gtown - 222 and Penn over 200 in the class - so whether Arkansas, Salisbury, Christopher Newport to Montana, Boise State to Towson, you can get into a top program from anywhere. And at Vandy, where I was a patient, residents went to schools like K State, Lipscomb, Luther, OK State and yes, top schools too.

And in the end, I believe it’s going to be the kid, moreso than the school name, that matters in the long run.

You are right to be concerned - but I personally don’t believe all the perceptions are true - and I do think a lot has to do with initial wealth (i.e kids from better wealthier families have a huge head start).

I’ll go back to - let your kid be a kid - some are exceptional academically and EC wise - but they don’t see to have been kids….or they burn out. Others just will never perform at that highest level - and that’s ok too. I have a friend - their daughter did a psych degree at a regional public, got into some post undergrad program at Boston Medical Center, and now will be at a high fallutin private at a top ranked Occupational Therapy school. Success comes from all over.

Good luck to your student on their journey.

US News

How Programs Are Assessed and Ranked

In spring and summer of 2025, deans and senior faculty rated the academic quality of peer programs they were familiar with on a 5-point scale: outstanding (5), strong (4), good (3), adequate (2) or marginal (1). Individuals who were unfamiliar with a particular program were asked to select “don’t know.”

Each qualifying school or program was sent two peer assessment surveys.

An average peer assessment score was calculated for each program using a trimmed mean, which removes the two highest and two lowest scores to reduce the impact of outliers. Programs with at least 10 ratings after trimming were then ranked in descending order based on this score.

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22

There is a burnout factor with some of these EC’s.

The first kid who reported that s/he made $50K day trading as a HS junior may have turned some heads. By the 12,000th kid– yawn. The first dozen kids who engaged in “arbitrage”- buying vintage designer clothes at their local Goodwill, getting them dry cleaned and then selling them for 50X on their online Depop or Poshmark store- wow. Great idea, lots of entrepreneurial energy. Now EVERY kid applying for a business program has done this– with a high degree of specialization! Original Adidas! 1970’s Jane Fonda style leggings and leotards! Animal print faux fur coats!

So as boring as it is for a kid to do what actually interests him or her– it is REALLY tough to predict when a trend hits maximum “BORING” been there/done that phase. Really tough.

And the notion that down the road every employer wants to hire the kids who are on their U’s “portfolio management club” managing a manufactured portfolio and making a 20% return over the last three months- yawn. As I’ve posted before- better the kid should volunteer to work for their own university’s endowment helping to put together the quarterly investment reports to the board (actual money- in the hundreds of millions of billions) rather than churn a “made for students to mess around with” fund. The kids who proudly announce these returns during an interview don’t want to admit that the fund zoomed up and then went down (a real live lesson in volatility) or went up based on a risky bet on Nvidia (hey, sometimes market timing works for you and sometimes it doesn’t) AND is pre-tax (i.e. unlike a real money fund where sometimes the owner has to cash out, pay taxes, or liquidate in a down market).

I vote for kids finding something interesting and fun or at least cash flow positive (local pizza store, babysitting) vs. force fitting something that sounds impressive.

And there is no golden ticket. Not ever. No major, no college, no field which is bullet proof, recession proof. Your kid may struggle to find a job. You can’t outrun a bad economy even if you are phi beta kappa.

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23

The old adage is, half the kids apply to college with a major listed as “undecided” and the other half change their major :wink: College is not just a glorified trade school. Students should hopefully go to explore many areas, learn about many things, become well rounded and decide what may be a best fit for them academically or ultimately in a career (which can also change a lot during one’s lifetime). Different schools may have different names for areas of interest/study so an identified “major” may have a different name at different schools.

Some schools offer interdepartmental majors and/or the opportunity for a student to create their own major. You will find these latter opportunities more so at LACs. LACs are typically in the business of educating the person, with classes taught by the professors (not grad students or TA’s) and many if not often most graduates go on to graduate or professional school. And has been said before, many take a year or more of low pay jobs for experience before grad/professional school. Perhaps this is a fundamental difference between the philosophies/goals of LACs vs universities. So there is no reason to share salary numbers about recent graduates that are not meaningful.

From an article I shared in another thread about ROI in some fields, we have been seeing that sadly the cost of some multi year graduate programs are high in the face of the salaries of some professions declining. That said, as was noted in the article by an economist (read what is circled in the screenshot):

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And remember, at many colleges students don’t even declare a major until before sophomore or junior year.

There was a recent poster on this forum who listed 8 colleges they were interested in. Of the 8, only 2 had the same major. All of the others were different…and mostly unrelated.

In my opinion, students are applying to college to get an education…and the major will tease itself out at some point.

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Don’t forget, most every school has a liberal arts college -within the university/college itself.

I’m not sure in 9th grade you know what size college your kid wants but even if they want a 30k school, that university will have a liberal arts college in addition to other schools so there’s a sense of flexibility there.

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Well, I don’t think kids will be employable if everyone goes to college for engineering, business, and comp sci. I also think (and I’m reading a lot that reinforces my unscientific sense) that AI will have a more immediate impact on tech-driven fields – that it will put more people out of work in those fields. The student who knows how to reason, research, write, and think creatively will remain employable. The cliche about the English major who becomes a barista is overplayed – in reality, that’s not what’s happening in the long term. There are many humanities and social science fields in which earnings right out of college are lower than in STEM/business fields, but the gap narrows over time. The path can be more circuitous and less predictable. It might often include grad school, which of course represents a short-term drop in earnings. But over time, these students are not less employable, and in some cases they might have a wider range of paths open than the student who spent college preparing for a specific job. Isn’t the point of a LAC (or a CLAS in a university) that it’s not applied career prep - that these schools educate the whole person, and any major opens up many pathways. Maybe that means not earning six figures right away. Not everyone can. Not everyone prioritizes a high income over other factors (control over one’s time, creative opportunities, workplace culture, etc.). I don’t think that a high salary should be the sole goal, personally – I’ve spent my entire career in education and academia and don’t regret it.

My older kid is an Environmental Studies/Classics major at a LAC. Two summers in a row, she’s gotten interesting and well-paid internships in wildlife/habitat management (her ES major is more tied to her career goals). Her internship this summer will allow her to pursue research that she can use for her senior thesis. There’s a lot of uncertainty that awaits her after graduation (job or grad school right away?), and she is unlikely to find a high-paying job right away, but if she can be outside working with animals and their habitats, she’ll be thrilled. I’m not worried. My son, who’s headed off to a LAC as a freshman this fall, is bouncing around ideas for several majors. None of those majors is journalism, which is at the moment his career goal (could change) – his college doesn’t offer it, and I’d probably discourage him from majoring in journalism if it were available. I’m not worried about him, either.

So as to the original question (and parts of this thread that have come out of it) – no, I don’t think a student has to have one major in mind when applying to college, and no, I definitely don’t think a student has to tailor their HS ECs to fit a career path. As I’ve told many HS students on CC (and as I’ve told my own kids face to face) – a kid that age doesn’t know what they don’t know. They should pursue what interests them, and see what next steps/opportunities come from that.

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Honestly, I more have the opposite sort of concern about highly selective LACs and similar Arts & Sciences programs at research universities. So many kids go in with varied academic interests, dreams of creative or public interest careers, and so on, and end up going into business careers and/or professional schools. Some of that is just a bit of reality setting in, but it is also sometimes the path of least resistance. And perhaps also sometimes the easiest path to parental approval, and so on.

Which doesn’t mean other paths to different forms of career success aren’t there, but they may actually require more individualized searching, more patience, more “paying dues” in the early years, and so on.

So I am truly not worried about these kids being unable to find a reasonably lucrative job. But making lucrative but ultimately unfulfilling choices? That is a bigger danger in my view.

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I agree with your entire post…but another possibility is that people can start out with the high paying path, then at some point make the switch to something that may pay less and/or offer better work-life balance. I’m sure we all know people who have done that…from business to HS teacher, physician to consultant, attorney to stay at home parent, etc., etc.

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I’d note that many roles that pay less also have work life challenges. Mine is a new teacher but she’s always working late on lesson plans and creating enrichment for her kids. And telling mom how stressed she is, with having true bosses for the first time that she claims are demanding.I hope it gets better for her over time but less paid jobs don’t necessarily mean less stressful or less hours. I got two emails internally within the last hour and been texting with the boss for 30 mins. My job isn’t stressful (to me) but while one would think it’s regular hours, it’s not.

So it’s not just the high paid stuff.

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Yep, my post isn’t inconsistent with that.

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We are a little off topic here…but I need to say…this is in every profession. And the first year at any job has its challenges. It gets better!

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32

Well, many people change their major, sometimes multiple times, during their college years. So, to some extent, the major you put on your application is not important. Some, perhaps with the advice of an admissions counsellor, try to target a school by applying to different schools for different majors and tailoring their applications accordingly.

Personally, I am not a proponent of this strategy. I would choose a general area you are interested in, e.g., STEM, and pick the most versatile major in that area. For STEM, that major is math. Explore your interests and start specialising in the upper division.

Even better is a school that offers programs where you have an integrated Master’s, and the Master’s is where you specialise. Then, there is the ultimate in flexibility, and as a byproduct, it genuinely develops your critical thinking skills. This is a school like St. John’s College. It has a set curriculum, but quite a few master’s after you have finished, e.g., in my field of interest, math, they have a Master’s in Applied Math from the University of Chicago. Another school like that is Shimer (note I said ‘like’, it has a different take on how it’s done).

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Depends where you apply. At a number of colleges, it’s not always easy to change your major, especially into some of the more competitive ones.

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This is very true. Especially at UC schools with impacted majors and several other schools with competitive engineering programs

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Engineering and business are often hard to transfer into, from what I’ve seen at some of the colleges my kids were at/applied to. I believe nursing also often falls into that category.
Cal Poly is open that one of the criteria it looks at for internal transfer is whether you would have been competitive for that major as a freshman applicant, and I wonder if other colleges weigh that too.

Short version- if you’re going to try the back door route or even if you just think you might change majors, ease of internal transfer is something to examine.

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Nursing is very commonly a more selective major than the college it is hosted at (even ADN/RN programs at otherwise open-admission community colleges).

Usually, it is larger more selective state universities that have issues with engineering and computer science being enrolled to full capacity, since the number of interested and capable students exceeds the departmental capacities. Small schools or rich private schools tend to have excess departmental capacity, while less selective schools may not have enough students willing or able to take on the academic rigor of engineering or computer science majors to fill up those majors.

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Yep.

When I did my degree, I enrolled in math (it’s what I wanted to do anyway). Nobody wanted to do math, and admission was a snap (I did have a chat with the department head, but it turned out it was unnecessary - you did OK in math at HS - you’re in; however, that was nearly 50 years ago now, things change, and math is now harder to get into than Computer Science). Beats me why - maybe due to the rise in data science (see comment at end).

An interesting thing is that both degrees had several compulsory subjects in common, as well as electives. I was able to enrol easily in math and graduate with a double major in Math and Computer Science, even though it was not my plan.

If you wanted to transfer from, say, math to computer science after the first year, provided your marks were good, there was never a problem. The main thing was your first-year GPA. The hurdle for some was so high that it basically meant a 4.0 GPA.

Regarding the rise in the popularity of math, my old school’s revamped math degree is now basically a combined Math/Master’s Data Science. Of course, you can still do just math, but you would need to map it out with your advisor. You can also do a second major in numerous areas of your choice, e.g., applied economics, physics, or criminology. Strangely, Computer Science is now not one of them, although you can do a minor.

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Here’s a question for the group:

On the common app, is it possible to submit different activities to different schools? My kids filled out the common app themselves so I only have a general understanding of it.

I was curious because I wonder if kids can have different versions like job applicants have different resumes that are tailored to each job opening.

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I mean it will show what you put in. If you change after one school, the next would get something different. But the original school will have what you submitted.

It could be you applied to a school in August and another in February and so you updated, etc.

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Yes. You can submit one app, then change the activities for the next school, and so on. You can even change the common app essay for each school.

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