I’ll bet they have to hire scary bikers as security to control the crowds of Harvard students trying to declare majors in VES and History-and-Lit! @mathmom : A friend of my kids’ did a joint major at Harvard between VES and history. He won a big prize for his thesis, then went to work for Bain. (Actually. I think History and Lit is a pretty popular concentration. It’s awfully hard to distinguish from any number of other majors that don’t pretend to be selective, though.)
There’s a huge difference between having some sort of screen for applying to a special major and having a situation where students are regularly told when they are already two years into college that they can’t have that major – as with film at UCLA, or people trying to transfer in to Wharton at Penn.
It has been mentioned several times that Princeton has separate admissions to its engineering major. I don’t think that’s strictly true. Applicants who express an interest in engineering are asked to write a separate “Why Engineering?” essay, and advised to submit SAT IIs in math and either physics or chemistry. The application clearly states that the indication of an interest in BSE vs. BA is “not binding in any way.” I take that to mean that there’s some possibility of a student deciding to take engineering even if his or her application does not state an engineering preference. The Princeton Engineering and Admissions websites are completely opaque on that issue: They don’t say that there’s a separate selection for admission to the engineering program, and they don’t say that it’s possible to “transfer” into engineering if you didn’t apply.