<p>pwoods - </p>
<p>it is not however the case with students who apply with chem as a major - that is super overrepresented in the applicant pool even though it is not as represented in the school. many students will do chem, biochem or bio as major choices because they have premed in mind. so unless you as a chem prospect have an actual interest in chem research, you probably will be hard to distinguish from the horde that wants to be premed. columbia does do some extra science analysis because of the science scholar programs they have - so it does find some of those real chem kids - but most are just premed folks in sheep’s clothing.</p>
<p>so though i would agree chem actually is underrep, it is not an advantage unto itself to apply with chem as a major choice. it is only an advantage if you have an actual interest in doing chem research (phd down the line) and it comes out in your application. something that like with physics is hard to do. just taking ap chem is insufficient. also doing lab med research probably isn’t good enough to say you want to be a chem kid. the folks that are true chem phd types know who they are - and there aren’t many of them. </p>
<p>political science is overrepresented in the pool, and like econ is a major that folks flock to after admission. so my guess is that fewer polisci students than the 150 or so per class are admitted, they probably hope to yield 100 folks with full knowledge that it would grow to 150+ as a result of attrition from other majors.</p>
<p>bio is a major that is overrepresented in the pool, but it is a major that holds very few students, there is a whole provost presentation in columbia’s unclassified stuff that talks about the problem of retaining students who actually want to do bio research and not med school wannabes. so again it is not to a student’s advantage necessarily just because they check bio - the burden is higher to show that they are not just interested in premed, and if premed is their interest that there is a great degree of depth to their application (academic and otherwise).</p>