Hello! I have applied to multiple schools in Boston. I was just wondering for said schools (boston u, Boston College, and northeastern) do they consider an applicants major when making a decision? I applied as a film major to these schools and 85% of my ec’s are from me winning awards for film, being in film conservatories, film camps, film leadership experience, film related community service, I work on a tv network etc. just a lot of film stuff because it’s what I’m passionate about. I feel like, in my mind at least, this would be considered when someone is looking over my application like “Oh she does a lot of film stuff and she applied as a film major she clearly has a passion for it and will most likely not switch majors and has some experience in film, this is good”. But a lot of websites are saying it doesn’t matter because people switch majors anyway so admission teams don’t look at it. That also doesn’t make sense to me because if an admissions board doesn’t look at what major you applied as how would they know they’re entire freshman class didn’t apply as the same three majors. Someone explain please!!! Also is it beneficial that I have a lot of film experience, if these schools do consider majors?
First of all, I do think that admissions committees consider what a person intends to major in. Otherwise, schools with a few particularly highly ranked departments could wind up with 90% of the admitted class planning on majoring in those few fields.
In a case like yours, it’s pretty obvious that your intent to major in film isn’t just superficial. You clearly have a very strong interest in film, as demonstrated by your extracurricular activities. Now if you were applying to NYU, that would put you in competition for admission with many people who intend to major in film. But at these schools, I would think that they’d find you interesting. Admissions committees like strong applicants with demonstrated passion in a specific field of interest, not that they don’t also admit plenty of students who have not yet found their “passion”. So don’t worry about it. You’re probably going to continue to do film no matter where you wind up going - you probably would have done it even if you hadn’t been going to college for it.
This varies from university to university. Some universities admit by major, some do not. For some schools you get into a particular faculty (such as the faculty of arts, or the faculty of engineering) and can pick any major within that particular faculty.
Usually the schools that admit by major also restrict switching majors. This however will typically mean that you apply to change majors – it is still possible and your university grades are likely to matter. One person I know started as a language major but was given permission to take “biology for biology majors” for the first two semesters. After an A and an A+ in these two courses they switched to being a biology major. This required an application but good grades made it easy.
Some famous universities such as Harvard and MIT do not admit by major. Harvard has a good music program and I have wondered (but do not know) whether they make an exception for music performance majors.
I do not remember whether BU, BC, or NEU admit by major. One daughter did get admitted to two of these schools but I do not recall whether her major mattered (she went somewhere else).
I agree with @parentologist that your intent to major in film looks very solid. My wild guess is that this might help your application regardless of whether or not they admit by major.