Similar story here though my kid was a math major at a LAC…after spending her first two years of college UNDECIDED 
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/these-10-college-majors-have-created-more-billionaires-than-any-other-fields-of-study/ says that the top three are:
- Economics and Finance.
- Engineering.
- Business.
History is tied with English for #7/#8.
Good friend’s son was a history major. He’s in law school now.
I know plenty of very successful people who had BA degrees in a liberal arts subject.
I think the bigger issue is that you D doesn’t sound particularly involved or motivated about college. She has excellent stats so clearly has the smarts. Maybe she needs a gap year.
@ucbalumnus
Inc. Magazine has a different count:
https://www.inc.com/business-insider/popular-college-majors-for-american-billionaires.html
Not sure what the difference methodologies are.
Does it really matter what billionaires were majored in? They’re statistically so insignificant. One of the billionaires, Peter Thiel, even believes college is a hindrance and smart students should skip colleges. However, statistically, college major does have an impact, on average, on students’ outcome. But your student isn’t average. Her success will depend much more on her own efforts, smarts and determinations.
@ucbalumnus. Thanks for reassuring me a bit that my engineering student son at Michigan has a good chance to become a billionaire and take care of me later on.
I can rest easy now ?.. Lol. But might have to use that link later on…
@AI73 From one parent to another parent. Leave your daughter be. Just saw her stats. Awesome. Congrats. Let her go her first year and take the basic classes like everyone else. With her advisor and not you she will figure it out and most likely faster then you assume. Some kids need breathing room. She is telling you this but your not hearing her. I totally understand your position and wants. I can be overbearing as a parent also. But she is telling you directly to back off. My kids especially my son told me that the application process was not fun and more anxiety and worries due to me and my wife keeping on them. Trust me, I am the perfect parent and make no mistakes but I made the process more painful then it needed to be. Your daughter is very intelligent and capable it seems. She will be fine. We all want our kids to mature and grow up then we don’t let them do that.
Let her make the decisions with “slight” nudging from you.
Have you thought about hiring a private college consultant? Sometimes extricating the parent(s) from the situation helps matters. Maybe a few meetings with one can help move things along, such as developing a college list and talking about areas of study that interest her.
And no, I’m not a college consultant, nor do I play one on TV. From experience, sometimes a 3rd party can help make situation more “fluid.” Kinda like what a laxative does in producing results. :lol:
But there aren’t any guarantees that an epiphany will take place.
FWIW, a statistic thrown out at a UMich LSA orientation last summer was that between 75-85% of students change their majors at least once.
My D knew she didn’t want engineering, nursing, or hard sciences, but was otherwise up in the air. So she chose the school she liked best (within our financial parameters — big state school with plenty of options) and declared her major in a program that she could be directly admitted to from high school, but that was very tough to transfer into. Thought was that she could change out of that major fairly easily, but had basically one shot at the school’s top program. She ended up sticking with it and adding a second major.
So perhaps consider what the strongest programs are at Rutgers (your wife should be in an excellent position to assess this) and have your D choose whichever seems most appealing and/or whichever would be hardest to switch into. She can start with that and see how it goes. She’ll have Gen Eds to introduce her to some other options but at least she’ll have a temporary path forward.
Rutgers or anywhere that approximates the same costs for you and she likes it. College of arts and sciences or a LAC. Let her find her way. If she decides she likes business. She can be an Econ major and get an mba. Or internally transfer at Rutgers if she has the grades etc. or if she says I like stem. Engineering is only one letter of the acronym. She can go to med or law school too. Geesh everyone.
She sounds exactly like hundreds of thousands of students each year. Let her find her path at a great and affordable option like Rutgers or economic equivalent. Also she may get interested in something during this process as well looking at schools and majors. Classes this year too. Once you have your acceptances and costs in hand. Then make the hard choices with her leading the way.