<p>Some friend of mine told me that Yale differentiates the admission of applicants according to which major they apply for.</p>
<p>Although it is true that students can change their majors once they go there, does Yale pick Law students and math students separately, as opposed to Harvard?</p>
<p>For example, is it easier to get into Yale Math than Princeton Math?
Thanks!</p>
<p>Your friend was wrong. Yale understands that many students change their major once they actually get to college, so the choice of major plays very little role, if any, in the admissions process. That said, having a strong background in Math and indicating that you plan on being a Math major couldn’t hurt, but that’s no different from the H or P admissions process. (And there is no undergrad ‘Law’ major, BTW).</p>
<p>Also there are no “Law” students in the College. Good luck to you</p>
<p>Thanks for your input!
That said, does that also mean that applying for Math to Princeton or Harvard is not easier or harder than applying for Divinity, for example?</p>
<p>All schools realize that you are likely to change your mind about your major, and the majority of students are undecided. That being said, whatever major you put on the app should correlate with a level of interest. If you choose math, it woud help your app if your math grades are high and you have expressed interest in that field, perhaps with ECs or awards/honors/college math classes, etc. But you will not get accepted or rejected based upon your prospective major.</p>
<p>Agreed. And BTW, the Divinity schools at Harvard and Yale (Princeton doesn’t have one) are graduate programs. You can major in Religion as an undergraduate, but putting that down on your college application, as opposed to Math, will mean nothing as far as influencing your chances of being admitted, particularly if you have no background or demonstrated interest in the subject, as desiw says.</p>
<p>Bottom line: be honest on your application. If you love Math, and think you want to major in it, then put that down. If you don’t know, it’s perfectly ok to write down the most popular major: Undecided.</p>
<p>Thank you!
It wasn’t that I tried to play the system.
I was one of the people who believed that the system, if any like what my friend described, would be inappropriate. That’s simply why I asked. Thank you</p>
<p>Just to flesh this out a bit more, it MIGHT be that expressing interest in some majors might be a help–but it certainly won’t help unless your high school record clearly demonstrates and established interest in the subject. For example, it MIGHT help at some selective schools if you want to be a Classics major, but you’d better have a bunch of classes, clubs, and contest victories to show that the interest is real.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks.</p>
<p>By the way, is Classics that unpopular? or considered not as good?</p>
<p>I mean Yale is excellent at Law, Literature, etc. while Princeton is excellent for Math.</p>
<p>But not really for say Education… no offense … just a lack of knowledge!</p>
<p>You need to to a lot more reading, because you are still confusing what is offered in undergraduate programs with what is offered in graduate or professional schools (i.e., law). The most important thing is to pursue what really interests you, and not what you think will look good to colleges.</p>
<p>The only cases where this matters are specialties like engineering - especially if you’re a girl and if the school has a separate engineering college or has a specific number of engineering admits (like Brown). Also for some art or music programs because those may require portfolio evaluation - sometimes true at the undergrad level, sometimes not.</p>