Math grades not good enough for colleges with good/popular econ programs?

aquapt
Tue, 31 Dec 2019 22:51:27 +0000

If you want any realistic shot at CMC, you should go EDII. They fill a majority of their class ED; the true acceptance rate in the RD pool for the remaining spots is under 7%, whereas the ED acceptance rate is over 30%.

But at most or all of these schools, you’re really not applying to a major. They want to know what you’re thinking of, to get a coherent picture of your interests and goals; but you don’t actually declare a major right away - usually not until spring of sophomore year. Changing to something that doesn’t fit your profile of interests as well really won’t be a win.

These are all highly competitive schools, as you know, and your British-English writing style also suggests that perhaps you’re an international applicant, which puts you in an even more competitive pool.

If you are able to full-pay, I strongly suggest you choose one of these schools for an EDII application. Your chances as an (international?) RD applicant will be quite weak at schools that have already filled half their class or more in the ED cycle. BC and Vanderbilt have a January 1st EDII deadline so you would need to move quickly to convert your application to ED.

Statistically speaking, though, you best shot at an acceptance is to apply EDII to CMC, which has a January 5th deadline. CMC and BC have the lowest median stats and the highest ED acceptance rates of these five schools, so one of those would be your best shot generally… but CMC confers an even greater ED advantage than BC does, and CMC has double the percentage international students the BC does, so the competitiveness differential between international and domestic at CMC is almost certainly less. (If I’m wrong and you’re a domestic applicant, then the EDII odds are probably pretty similar between the two, but still tipped slightly toward CMC.)

As for the major you designate, I’m just going to look at CMC specifically, on the premise of a hypothetical EDII application. They don’t admit by major, but econ is the most popular choice. I definitely don’t think you should claim an interest in a major completely unrelated to econ, just to lessen the perceived competition. But if you want to sidestep the crush of econ applicants, you could consider expressing interest in one of the directly econ-adjacent majors, like EEP (Environment, Economics, and Politics) or Public Policy. But do this only if you actually have some level of interest in those fields; otherwise, just be honest about your goal and hope for the best. But since EDII will more than quadruple your chances of acceptance, that’s a much, much bigger issue than what major say you want.