<p>What colleges/universities should disclose about majors that is not commonly known or thought about by potential freshman applicants and enrolled freshmen:</p>
<p>a. Whether freshman applicants apply to the entire school, apply to a division (e.g. arts and sciences, engineering, business, etc.), or apply to a specific major.</p>
<p>b. Whether, once enrolled, declaring or changing major is a formality if one completes the prerequisites for the desired major, or if the major has limited enrollment and one needs to apply to be admitted to the desired major.</p>
<p>c. For each major, the latest term that an enrolled student can start the prerequisites for a major without delaying graduation.</p>
<p>The answers to these questions can be relevant to many freshman applicants, particularly those who are undecided. Such students may prefer schools which do not require applying to a major, and where declaring or changing major is a formality.</p>
<p>Knowing when the deadline to start each major’s prerequisites is can help undecided freshmen plan their schedules to explore various subjects without accidentally shutting themselves out of majors that they may be interested in.</p>
<p>The information is not always obvious or easy to find, or may be scattered about the college or university web site (especially if (a) or (b) differs for different majors). In the case of (c), that can often only be determined by going to the department web site at the college or university; this can be a time consuming process for an undecided student considering many majors at many colleges or universities.</p>
<p>It also appears that many students or parents looking for colleges and universities to apply to are not aware that different colleges and universities handle major selection differently. This can be especially important to an undecided student who wants to keep his/her options open after starting to attend a college or university.</p>
<p>I would say that if that information isn’t easily found, probably a good sign you don’t want to go there. We haven’t come across any schools that it has been an issue. It is either on their websites or answered on campus tours.</p>
<p>This information should be available, but freshman (perhaps guided by parents) may need to make an effort to find it, by reading Web site information and consulting with academic advisors. </p>
<p>In high school, information like this is spoon-fed to students. In college, it may not be.</p>
<p>And in all fairness, you can’t expect a college to read students’ minds. For example, two students who have signed up to major in engineering may have different ideas of what they want to do if engineering doesn’t work out for them. One’s second choice major may be math, while the other’s is business. These students would need to take different courses as freshmen to qualify for their backup majors, but unless they share their backup plans with their academic advisors, the advisors won’t know it.</p>
<p>Part of the reason for starting this thread is that many parents here seem to have the misconception that an undecided student at any university can just explore for the first two years before committing to a major. But many universities (particularly some of the large state universities that many students attend) require specifying a major when applying as a freshman and/or have restrictions on changing majors, probably due to capacity limitations, so applying and exploring without paying attention to the issues raised above may result in accidentally being shut out of some majors which the student may be interested in.</p>
<p>I think that the reason why students at universities may have to declare their majors going in, while those at liberal arts colleges do not, is related to the types of majors offered there.</p>
<p>At liberal arts colleges, the majors offered are usually almost exclusively in the liberal arts (duh!). In most instances, it is possible to declare a major in a liberal arts field as late as the second semester of sophomore year, even without having taken any courses in that subject as a freshman. (Chemistry is the principal exception because its courses are sequential.)</p>
<p>At universities, many of the majors are professional ones – engineering, business, computer science, nursing, and dozens of other things that I can’t think of right now. These types of majors usually involve strict sequences of courses that have to start in freshman year. Those students who attend large universities and major in the liberal arts are usually no more restricted than their counterparts at small colleges, but these students are in the minority at most universities.</p>
<p>Physics, math, and biology also have sequences of courses that must be started early (usually in freshman year) to avoid delaying graduation. Art and music may also have a lot of course requirements which can make it difficult to start the major late.</p>
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<p>Hmmm, Berkeley students are about three quarters liberal arts (approximated by using the College of Letters and Science division) at graduation. But some of the liberal arts majors (e.g. art practice, economics, psychology) are capacity limited and require applying to declare or change to.</p>
<p>San Jose State admits all freshman by major, including liberal arts majors; changing or declaring major requires applying to do so, usually with department approval. However, liberal arts majors are much less popular there, so it is probably not difficult to be admitted to most of them.</p>
<p>Perhaps the limitations may have more to do with the popularity of majors running into the school’s and department’s capacity limitations which may be more common at public universities under budget pressure.</p>