Is it harder to get into an Ivy as a humanities major?

[juillet]

I think admissions is more competitive for STEM majors. And even if schools don’t admit by major, they can often tell what you are likely to major in by your essays and ECs. The kid who does a science fair project and writes about wanting to cure cancer less likely to end up in English. The kid who edits the school paper or literary magazine but isn’t on the math team is most likely not going to major in physics.

Of course the rest of your application has to support your interests.

This is an extremely narrow view of college-bound seniors that most admissions officers, thankfully, do not take. It assumes that students know exactly what they want to do from age 13 or 14 and follow a neat, orderly path from middle and high school extracurriculars to college interests and majors. There are lots of students who love to write creatively or do art projects and want to major in science; there are lots of students who explore science fair projects and scientific inquiry and end up majoring in the humanities. And on top of that, most savvy counselors know that students change their mind between application time and enrolling time.

That’s the reason why many top colleges that don’t have separate undergraduate divisions don’t admit by major. It doesn’t matter, and the FAQs for a lot of Ivy League and other elite universities will say that straight up.

Depends who you are. If you are an Asian or even a white male, apply as a Humanities major, if you are a white female from New Jersey, apply STEM.

There is no data to support this, and no reason to believe that this is true.

^ you are correct. Perhaps we need a term such as STEM excluding Bio and Psych. I would probably exclude biomedical engineering as well since this is (according to my perception) a hot area that attracts everyone.

Or we could just stop using the term “STEM” altogether, since when people say “STEM” what they really mean are engineering and computer science in most cases. People are rarely talking about biology, chemistry, and psychology.