@PurpleTitan it’s not going to make or break a decision, for sure, but like @allyphoe, my kid has a lot of interests and there is a difference between taking 32 courses in 4 years vs. up to 40. That’s 8 extra classes that could be used to double-major, learn another foreign language, or dabble around in various things like gender studies or film that my kid isn’t going to major in but would enjoy learning about. It also means you can front-load some of the major or breadth requirements early on and have time to do semester abroad and still double major.
When my oldest was getting down to her final decision, one of her top 3 choices was UCSD, where she was admitted for human biology (I think that’s what the subheading within bio was called). We were looking at the major and breadth requirements and typical timeline and there really was not a lot of flexibility there for outside courses. IIRC she would have been able to do semester abroad but that would have left her with almost no other ‘free’ courses outside of the required ones. Not the end of the world if you go into the program certain of what you want to do, and UCSD is definitely top-notch in their bio programs, but I think my daughter just felt like she’d go into that not having many options for the next 4 years.