Episode 81: Tips for Choosing a Major

Episode 81

• Episode 81 Transcript

  [INTRO]

  [00:00:06] BT: Your college application will include lots of important information. While your grades, extracurriculars, and essay responses paint a picture of who you are, there's a field that colleges and universities pay special attention to.

  [00:00:19] BHA: And that's your intended major, the primary discipline you'll study throughout your four years. I'm Becca Haupt Aldredge from Bucknell University. On this episode of College Admissions Insider, we're providing tips for choosing a major on your application.

  [00:00:33] BT: I'm Brooke Thames, also from Bucknell. We'll discuss when students should start thinking about their major, what your intended major tells a university, and how it factors into the admissions process.

  [00:00:43] BHA: Our guest is familiar to the podcast. Jill Medina is Senior Associate Dean of Admissions at Bucknell. You've heard her on episodes like Inside the Mind of an Application Reader and Academic Rigor. Welcome back to the podcast.

  [00:00:57] JM: Thanks for having me. I'm delighted to be here.

  [00:00:59] BT: Yes. We're so glad to have you back. It's been a while since you've shared your expertise with us. So before we begin, can you give us a refresher on your role here at Bucknell?

  [00:01:09] JM: Absolutely. My title says Senior Associate Dean, which for most people doesn't mean anything. But what I do at Bucknell is I oversee the selection process and scholarship process for our team.

  [00:01:21] BHA: Jill does a really great job keeping us on track and following a timeline. But for now, let's talk about majors. First off, are students required to select a major on their college applications, and is there an option for students who are undecided?

  [00:01:35] JM: That is a very important question. There are both. Depending on the type of school that the students are applying for, there could be a variety of different ways that they do need to select a major. For example, some of those programs could include fine art or performing arts programs where you might have to have an audition or a portfolio, so your intended major directly relates to your admission to a particular program.

  Pre-professional programs often do ask students to declare a major. Some universities do ask students to declare a major because they might be applying to a specific college within that university. Liberal arts colleges tend to have a slightly different approach where many students at liberal arts colleges don't have to declare a major until after their second year. As an undecided student, that could fit very well within the possibility of what they're looking for.

  At Bucknell, it's a little bit different. We have three colleges; of course, the arts and sciences and two pre-professional programs with the Freeman College of Management and the College of Engineering. For many of our applicants, they are declaring their intended major within each one of the colleges. As I mentioned, it's intended. So they're just letting us know what they want to pursue, and undecided is an option.

  [00:03:01] BT: Thanks for that overview. Knowing that there are different approaches and options, depending on the type of school or program, when should a student start thinking about all of this? Is their intended major the first thing they should consider as they launch their college search or spend some time maybe exploring different options before landing on a discipline?

  [00:03:19] JM: Well, that's a loaded question because there are so many layers and so many things that students have to consider when they start their college search. One of the aspects should be what they want to pursue. In general, they don't have to stay committed to it for the rest of their lives, but they should have a sense of by the time they're pressing submit on their applications, what areas they want to focus in on. I say for the most part because there are some jobs and careers that you just don't know exist as a high school student. So having a general sense of the field you want to be part of.

  When you think about for any student who thinks that they want to end up in a health field, there are expectations that many colleges have of them for coursework they need to complete in high school. It kind of all wraps up together. For some students, you want to think about internships or jobs over the summer to help you figure out do I like this area, do I like this field. You do work toward that at the same time as you're narrowing down your college list.

  [00:04:27] BHA: It sounds like it's never too early to start, and it's really not too late to start. But we'd recommend that you start thinking about those things as you approach hitting that submit button. Of course, selecting a major obviously tells the school what field or discipline you're interested in studying. But is there more to it than that? Could a student's intended major impact how admissions goes about building their incoming class?

  [00:04:51] JM: Oh, that's a great question, and the short answer is yes. I'll use Bucknell as the framework for responding to this question because as I mentioned before, we have two pre-professional colleges. Some of the programs within those colleges are extremely selective. So we do need students to let us know because if we are looking at, let's say, a class that has a lab associated with it, we only have 20 seats. We are not going to be able to accept hundreds of students when we don't have the capacity to enroll that.

  Your list does matter, your intended major does matter, and you want to be thoughtful about this process because you could select, let's say, for example, something like psychology in our College of Arts and Sciences because you have a passing interest. But you may not realize that that is one of our most selective majors, and so you will be in a very competitive applicant pool. If psychology isn't truly the area you want to go into, you do need to think about are you truly an undecided student because you have multiple interests.

  For some students applying to engineering or the Freeman College of Management, those are very specific majors. To know what you want to do and to be clear when you're doing your search for colleges, you need to know what the colleges are expecting of your application, as well as how competitive it's going to be.

  [00:06:22] BT: I love that you mentioned selectivity and what that looks like on the admission side as you're making your way through these applications. But I wonder if we can talk a little bit more about the student perspective. Say you have a student who thinks they really want to study a certain subject in a selective program, but there might be other options in different majors that really closely align with that subject matter as well. How should they go about deciding what it is that they're going to list on their application?

  [00:06:46] JM: That's an excellent point. A lot of high schools don't have engineering options, so students oftentimes are taking a physics class or something in the community, a club or organization that sparks their interest. At Bucknell, our engineers need to have completed pre-calculus in their math sequence to be minimally considered for engineering as a potential major. For some students, that alignment of math sequence with intended major may not be there. So they may be interested in going into physics or astronomy because they haven't had a lot of experience. Those are part of the considerations. As students are doing their search, those should be questions that they're asking of the colleges that they're interested in, of the programs that they're interested in.

  I had a conversation the other day where a student said, “I definitely want to study finance.” I said, “Oh, interesting. Do you have a finance club or some experience at your school?” They said no. Their experience was with a Fidelity account. I'm not endorsing any particular programs, but they were doing this on their own. They did have some kind of experience, so it did help inform what at least their initial interest is in looking at college. They are thinking about that in a thoughtful way based on some kind of experience.

  I mean, you do raise a good point that you could have an interest in going into law, but there's no such thing as a pre-law major per se. But pre-professional programs, performing arts programs, some of those things do mean that you will have to be a bit more prepared as you pursue that intention.

  [00:08:28] BHA: Let's say a student wants to apply to a competitive management college, so they select a management major on their application. Is it possible for that student to be admitted into the university but not into the program that they applied into? Would they simply be asked to pick a different major once they come to campus? Does it ever happen that a student doesn't get their first choice that they've selected on their application?

  [00:08:50] JM: You've had a number of guests on the podcast, and you've been doing this for a period of time. So you've heard the response it depends probably quite a bit, and this is similar. At Bucknell, let's talk about the Freeman College of Management. It is possible for you to apply as your first choice to the Freeman College of Management in one of those majors. On our supplement, we actually ask students to list a second choice. Depending on the holistic review, it is possible for a student to be admitted to a second choice program.

  Let's say, for example, that their second choice was in the College of Arts and Sciences. For that student, they could get into the College of Arts and Sciences in a second choice. Unfortunately, they could not transfer into management. But the Freeman College of Management does offer minors that are available to interested students, regardless of the major or college enrollment.

  [00:09:48] BT: What I'm hearing is that at least here at Bucknell, when a student loads up their application, they'll be able to choose both a first-choice and a second-choice major. Do you have any tips or advice for helping a student figure out what should go in that second choice slot?

  [00:10:02] JM: That's a good question. Some students don't have a second choice. Some students, and let's continue with the Freeman College of Management example, their second choice is another major in the Freeman College of Management. So it is possible that a student doesn't have other options, and we might not have space because of the competitive nature of the program. If they only have management as a first and second choice, it's possible that they wouldn't get into either.

  [00:10:31] BHA: In that situation, a student might end up on our waitlist or unfortunately maybe denied.

  [00:10:37] JM: Correct.

  [00:10:38] BT: It sounds like in a situation like that, what's really important is really digging through all of the offerings at a school because while at Bucknell, for example, we might have a finance major in the College of Management, we also have an economics major in the College of Arts and Sciences. It's really helpful for a student to know exactly what the programs are in different programs, different colleges so that they might be able to identify a second choice major that is close to their first choice but maybe in a different program that has a higher admission rate.

  [00:11:08] BHA: Jill, I'd love to round out this episode with some advice for how students can learn about the different dynamics at the schools that they're interested in. Knowing our signature answer, it depends, where should a student even begin to look to figure out how things work at one school on their list versus another school on their list so that they can make smart, strategic, informed decisions about what majors they're applying into?

  [00:11:32] JM: Students can start by doing research on individual school websites, diving a little bit deeper into the courses that schools offer, and then reaching out to the admissions representative at the respective college, university, or program that they're interested in. The staff will tell you what the admit rates are, what their application numbers are. They will give advice. They can also lean on their school counselor if they have one accessible to them. For some students, they may also be working with a community-based organization or other mentorship program. But if you don't have access to any of those, reach out to the admissions representatives at the schools, at the colleges or universities where you have an interest.

  [00:12:12] BT: Well, we've been so lucky to have you here to share your expertise on this subject, and I hope that our listeners out there have gotten so much out of it. Thanks again for being here.

  [00:12:22] JM: Thank you for having me.

  [00:12:24] BT: Thanks for everyone out there for listening. If you're a fan of the podcast, please take a moment to rate, subscribe, and share this episode with the students and families in your life.

  [00:12:30] BHA: We'll be back with another new episode in a few weeks. In the meantime, send your questions, comments, and episode ideas to podcast@bucknell.edu. We read every note you send.

  [00:12:41] BT: Finally, you're invited to follow Bucknell on your favorite social media apps. Just look for @bucknellu on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok. You can also follow our student-run Instagram account which is @iamraybuckell.

  [00:12:54] BHA: Until next time, keep reaching for your dreams and your dream school.

  [END]