Some universities do not allow major changes after apply and more needed information

[Janeway]

I have been told that UT Austin and OU (Oklahoma) do not allow a major change until two semesters are completed after one applies. So, if a student does an application in August of senior year and over that year realize they love some class they took as a senior, they cannot change until they have attended at least two semesters and even then, it would take a semester to do the paperwork and changes classes up and such. I have not verified this, but have heard it before about UT Austin and just did not know OU was the same way. This would be a big problem for son as even though he is mostly certain he will major in Classics, this major choice has been morphing and after his first college visit, he mentioned a lot of interest in some of the other departments. Originally, he wanted to major in Latin. Then it eventually changed to classics to make it more diverse, saying he did not want to spend 4 years studying only Latin. Now he is starting to say it might not be important to him at all to study Latin (as in as a major) with his classics degree (he will already have finished AP Latin before he graduates high school). Regardless of opinions of not studying Latin in college while studying classics, all this just tells me he is starting to be interesting in majoring in something other than classics. He has mentioned interests in political science and physics and even math. 

 

Is there any good information or advice I should know now? Please throw it at me! We have visited one university so far and it went over great. We have 3 schools to visit over the next month and a half. I would like to pass on some wisdom. I am not from this side of the country and it seems a lot has changed since I went to college.

 

 

Edited February 25, 2019 by Janeway

[Lanny]

He should apply, as my DD has done on her applications, "Undeclared".   Some people, like my cousin the eminent M.D. in his specialty, knew when they were teenagers exactly what they wanted to do "when they grew up".  Others, like your DS and my DD are not settled on a Major.  I see this as an issue IF the student should then decide to become a STEM Major, because there are so many Prerequisites required.  

If you are OOS I believe that UT Austin is limited by state law to a maximum of 10% OOS Undergraduates.

Although I have known people who went to OU, I am not familiar with their procedures.

I would suggest that you consider waiting on the other (pending) university visits until after he is admitted to those schools.

ETA: When we went to the School Fair in Bogota last May, there were 4 elite private universities there. Harvard College, University of Pennsylvania, Duke University and I think Georgetown (it was a Catholic university in DC).     The information went flying by but I seem to recall that at at least one of those schools, everyone starts out Undeclared.  Not sure because it was almost 10 months ago.  

 

Edited February 25, 2019 by Lanny

[Janeway]

1 hour ago, Lanny said:

He should apply, as my DD has done on her applications, "Undeclared".   Some people, like my cousin the eminent M.D. in his specialty, knew when they were teenagers exactly what they wanted to do "when they grew up".  Others, like your DS and my DD are not settled on a Major.  I see this as an issue IF the student should then decide to become a STEM Major, because there are so many Prerequisites required.  

If you are OOS I believe that UT Austin is limited by state law to a maximum of 10% OOS Undergraduates.

Although I have known people who went to OU, I am not familiar with their procedures.

I would suggest that you consider waiting on the other (pending) university visits until after he is admitted to those schools.

ETA: When we went to the School Fair in Bogota last May, there were 4 elite private universities there. Harvard College, University of Pennsylvania, Duke University and I think Georgetown (it was a Catholic university in DC).     The information went flying by but I seem to recall that at at least one of those schools, everyone starts out Undeclared.  Not sure because it was almost 10 months ago.  

 

Why do you think he should not visit schools until he is admitted? Just curious. I had considered not visiting until he has financial aid so we could know which ones would even work out, but then, he could not get in to looking at colleges. He has ASD and I think the notion of applying for college when he has never seen a college was really bothering him. His first visit to a university ended up being a huge success and he loved it. So I think the visits are encouraging him. We only have 5 colleges total on our list of places to visit.

Edited February 25, 2019 by Janeway

[Myra]

On a side note, has you son looked into the requirements for a BA in Classics?  My son's undergrad required four semesters of college undergraduate Latin and two semesters of Ancient Greek as min. language requirements.  Currently, his master's degree program requires two semesters of graduate level Latin as well as two in Ancient Greek.  In addition, he must pass a competency test for one modern romance language  i.e. German, French, Italian. So if your son is saying he doesn't want to study any more Latin..... hmmmm

 

[Janeway]

7 minutes ago, Myra said:

On a side note, has you son looked into the requirements for a BA in Classics?  My son's undergrad required four semesters of college undergraduate Latin and two semesters of Ancient Greek as min. language requirements.  Currently, his master's degree program requires two semesters of graduate level Latin as well as two in Ancient Greek.  In addition, he must pass a competency test for one modern romance language  i.e. German, French, Italian. So if your son is saying he doesn't want to study any more Latin..... hmmmm

 

No..he was not saying he does not wish to study Latin anymore. He said he does not have to..as in..if the school has classics but not a Latin major, he is still open to it. He will have completed AP Latin in high school before college. 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

2 hours ago, Janeway said:

I have been told that UT Austin and OU (Oklahoma) do not allow a major change until two semesters are completed after one applies. So, if a student does an application in August of senior year and over that year realize they love some class they took as a senior, they cannot change until they have attended at least two semesters and even then, it would take a semester to do the paperwork and changes classes up and such. I have not verified this, but have heard it before about UT Austin and just did not know OU was the same way. This would be a big problem for son as even though he is mostly certain he will major in Classics, this major choice has been morphing and after his first college visit, he mentioned a lot of interest in some of the other departments. Originally, he wanted to major in Latin. Then it eventually changed to classics to make it more diverse, saying he did not want to spend 4 years studying only Latin. Now he is starting to say it might not be important to him at all to study Latin (as in as a major) with his classics degree (he will already have finished AP Latin before he graduates high school). Regardless of opinions of not studying Latin in college while studying classics, all this just tells me he is starting to be interesting in majoring in something other than classics. He has mentioned interests in political science and physics and even math. 

 

Is there any good information or advice I should know now? Please throw it at me! We have visited one university so far and it went over great. We have 3 schools to visit over the next month and a half. I would like to pass on some wisdom. I am not from this side of the country and it seems a lot has changed since I went to college.

 

 

 

This is going to depend on how the school handles declaration of major in general and if they use intended major as a consideration in admissions.  There are some schools where the student is accepted into a particular major or, more commonly into a college that is a subdivision of the larger school (ex. The College of Engineering or The College of Arts and Sciences).  The university might do this in order to control the number of students entering an in demand major, or to more accurately predict the need for professors, or because one department has different admissions threholds than another (ex, requiring higher demonstration of math scores for engineers).

Other colleges don't use the intended major declaration that much.  Some don't allow students to actually declare their major until after freshman year or after completing a certain pattern of courses.  This would be more typical at a liberal arts college that has a set core curriculum or categories of courses that students have to take no matter what their intended major.  So in those schools, holding off on major declaration allows students time to explore more of the flavors of what is possible and what they are interested in.  

In figuring out how much it matters for your son, you will need to take a look at the different policies and practices of the schools he's considering.  Maybe flexibility will be an important consideration in deciding which school is a good match for him.

You've probably seen this already, but this page covers the policy at UTexas.   https://admissions.utexas.edu/enroll/internal-transfer

[Lanny]

1 hour ago, Janeway said:

Why do you think he should not visit schools until he is admitted? Just curious. I had considered not visiting until he has financial aid so we could know which ones would even work out, but then, he could not get in to looking at colleges. He has ASD and I think the notion of applying for college when he has never seen a college was really bothering him. His first visit to a university ended up being a huge success and he loved it. So I think the visits are encouraging him. We only have 5 colleges total on our list of places to visit.

 

If he has ASD that is something different.  If it would bother him to apply to a college he has never been to, then by all means, if you have the time and the money, go and visit with him.  I believe a large university with a lot of different schools/colleges and Majors will be a big plus for him, so that he has maximum flexibility in selecting a Major. Good luck to him!

[dirty ethel rackham]

Another complicating issue could be whether or not it would be difficult to get into a major as a transfer rather than admitted as a freshman.  I don't have anything that will clarify things,  just muddy the waters for you.  For our dd, she was interested in engineering as well as neuroscience.  Changing majors into engineering can be very difficult depending on where you go, so we told her to apply to the most difficult to get into major first and she could decide to transfer into something less competitive later on if she chooses to change.  

So, it might be a good idea to look into what other majors he is interested in and look at what the requirements are for changing into that major as well as how competitive it is to transfer.  Also, if there are core classes, is priority given to those who have declared that major and are they even available to those not in that major.  

[Janeway]

2 hours ago, Lanny said:

 

If he has ASD that is something different.  If it would bother him to apply to a college he has never been to, then by all means, if you have the time and the money, go and visit with him.  I believe a large university with a lot of different schools/colleges and Majors will be a big plus for him, so that he has maximum flexibility in selecting a Major. Good luck to him!

I was thinking that the universities that would not allow major changes might be a bad idea. But a family member who is at UT gave my son a big speech about how he needs to go to UT. But I was thinking UT should be off the list because of the difficulty changing majors. What do you think?

[klmama]

Have you verified that it's difficult with the schools themselves?

[Lanny]

7 minutes ago, Janeway said:

I was thinking that the universities that would not allow major changes might be a bad idea. But a family member who is at UT gave my son a big speech about how he needs to go to UT. But I was thinking UT should be off the list because of the difficulty changing majors. What do you think?

 

 I understand about school loyalty and if your family member was an Aggie or a Red Raider, it would be the same.   UT Austin is an excellent school. So is A&M. And one  can get a great education at Tech.  We have ties to Tech, so I am most familiar with Tech and somewhat familiar with A&M.  The truth is, that I never stressed UT Austin to my DD because I think it is more of a bloodbath than the other 2 schools and they are in smaller cities, more relaxed and with fresh air.    Had my DD applied to UT Austin she probably would have been admitted there too.

Now, back to your DS.  He has ASD.   I believe that it is easier to make friends in a school with a large student body.  Also, I believe that there will be more services available to your DS in a large school, should he need them.

This is copied from an email I received from someone at Tech last year:  "Yes, I understand it could be difficult to choose a major before the application and we actually have a lot of students who do not declare until they finish their freshman or even sophomore year, that is totally fine. So she can enter the undergraduate program and decide on her major later maybe after she has tried several classes and found out the best interest."

Here, IMO are 2 of the drawbacks to going in undeclared: (1) As I wrote upthread, if one should decide to do a STEM Major, there are a lot of Prerequisites and (2) I suspect this lowers the possibility of graduating in 4 years.  The advantages are that once someone is in a university, talking to people in different Majors, taking different courses, they may discover things they had never heard about before.

And as I wrote upthread, I believe that at least one of the private universities that sent an Admissions Rep to that school fair in Bogota last May said that they do not have students declare a Major until after the first (?) year.

I don't know what the policy about changing Majors is at A&M, but my DD applied to A&M and to Tech as Undeclared and she has been Accepted to both schools. The problem I see at A&M is that they don't guarantee Freshmen housing, although there is a preference to Freshmen.

My DD  applied for the Math Camp at A&M last year and if your DS has a possible interest in Math, he should check out their Math Dept. I think it is a School or College within A&M, but can't remember as I type this. Very impressive...

 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

44 minutes ago, Janeway said:

I was thinking that the universities that would not allow major changes might be a bad idea. But a family member who is at UT gave my son a big speech about how he needs to go to UT. But I was thinking UT should be off the list because of the difficulty changing majors. What do you think?

 

Something to consider is that UT has very different acceptance rates for in state vs out of state students.   While it's great to hear a relative who is close in age talk about what enthuses them about their school, it's good to take it with a grain of salt.  Student needs, goals, and experiences may differ a lot.

I think your son wondering if he really wants to do Classics is a healthy and mature think to consider.  A huge number of college students change their intended major at least once.  It can be a challenge to think about college as a high schooler and know what you want to do plus what that would be called.  It's like knowing you are going to a giant ice cream shop and having to pre-order your dessert, but you've only ever tried vanilla, chocolate and strawberry before. 

If you and he think that he is still exploring what he wants to do, and changing majors at a college would present great difficulty, then that should be taken into consideration.  But I think it is worth investigating how much difficulty it does pose rather than working off of assumptions in either directions.

 

[Janeway]

36 minutes ago, Sebastian (a lady) said:

 

Something to consider is that UT has very different acceptance rates for in state vs out of state students.   While it's great to hear a relative who is close in age talk about what enthuses them about their school, it's good to take it with a grain of salt.  Student needs, goals, and experiences may differ a lot.

I think your son wondering if he really wants to do Classics is a healthy and mature think to consider.  A huge number of college students change their intended major at least once.  It can be a challenge to think about college as a high schooler and know what you want to do plus what that would be called.  It's like knowing you are going to a giant ice cream shop and having to pre-order your dessert, but you've only ever tried vanilla, chocolate and strawberry before. 

If you and he think that he is still exploring what he wants to do, and changing majors at a college would present great difficulty, then that should be taken into consideration.  But I think it is worth investigating how much difficulty it does pose rather than working off of assumptions in either directions.

 

We had kept UT Austin off the list over the major thing. There were some other issues, but the biggie was the inability to change majors.

[RootAnn]

Not on the topic of changing majors, but specifically on UT Austin. Several people have pointed this out and perhaps it has sunk in, but I haven't seen recognition dawning on this. So, I'm going to post a link to a thought experiment based on real data from UT Austin's admissions.

According to that post, roughly 8 1/2% of out of state applicants got offered admissions. That is the acceptance rate of UPenn or Northwestern (and only slightly better than Pomona, Brown, or UChicago). 

Less than 15% of in state applicants (that weren't in the top 6% of their graduating class & thus auto-admits) were offered admissions. That's not much better.

So, UT Austin might not be something he needs to worry about anyway because it'll likely be a reach application (vs a match).

[Janeway]

23 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

Not on the topic of changing majors, but specifically on UT Austin. Several people have pointed this out and perhaps it has sunk in, but I haven't seen recognition dawning on this. So, I'm going to post a link to a thought experiment based on real data from UT Austin's admissions.

According to that post, roughly 8 1/2% of out of state applicants got offered admissions. That is the acceptance rate of UPenn or Northwestern (and only slightly better than Pomona, Brown, or UChicago). 

Less than 15% of in state applicants (that weren't in the top 6% of their graduating class & thus auto-admits) were offered admissions. That's not much better.

So, UT Austin might not be something he needs to worry about anyway because it'll likely be a reach application (vs a match).

He is in school and not home schooled anymore and is currently in the top 5%. We are having trouble now due to him being absent for 2 weeks so he might drop class ranking. I would assume he would. Not sure how far he would drop, if it would matter. But he would currently be in the automatic admit category. Just because he has ASD does not mean he is not intelligent and hardworking.

Edited February 25, 2019 by Janeway

[RootAnn]

1 hour ago, Janeway said:

He is in school and not home schooled anymore and is currently in the top 5%. We are having trouble now due to him being absent for 2 weeks so he might drop class ranking. I would assume he would. Not sure how far he would drop, if it would matter. But he would currently be in the automatic admit category. Just because he has ASD does not mean he is not intelligent and hardworking.

I never said he wasn't intelligent & hardworking! Many, many intelligent & hardworking kids do not get into colleges with less than 10% acceptance rates every year. It becomes a lottery. I also follow many of your posts, know he's in a brick & mortar school, & know about his recent bout of missing school due to a conference & then illness. (I actually responded to your panic thread about pulling him to homeschool the rest of his year because of all the work he had to make up.) What I didn't remember was whether you (still) live in Texas and whether you had ever mentioned if he was in the top 5% of his class. Thanks for clearing that up.

[Janeway]

53 minutes ago, RootAnn said:

I never said he wasn't intelligent & hardworking! Many, many intelligent & hardworking kids do not get into colleges with less than 10% acceptance rates every year. It becomes a lottery. I also follow many of your posts, know he's in a brick & mortar school, & know about his recent bout of missing school due to a conference & then illness. (I actually responded to your panic thread about pulling him to homeschool the rest of his year because of all the work he had to make up.) What I didn't remember was whether you (still) live in Texas and whether you had ever mentioned if he was in the top 5% of his class. Thanks for clearing that up.

Thank you.

[Lanny]

Before you and your DS spend more time wondering about UT Austin I suggest that you (it will be better if he does the research, not you) determine whether or not UT Austin is receptive to Undergraduate applicants who specify "Undeclared" for their Major.  That school was not on our list, so I am not sure whether or not they are receptive to "Undeclared" applicants or not.

The other thing I would check, with UT Austin and all other schools you/he consider, involves what support, if any, they might offer to a student with ASD.

Schools much higher up in the list of selective National universities than UT Austin are willing to accept "Undeclared" applicants. Whether or not UT Austin is willing or not is something you need to investigate.   If not, save the $ for the Application Fee and don't waste the energy.

The family member who is selling him on UT Austin is a different person, walking in different shoes, and what's great for him may not be so great for your DS.  Or, possibly, it will be great for your DS if he can get in there.

Good luck to your DS!

Edited February 26, 2019 by Lanny
change Applications to Applicants

[Corraleno]

I assume colleges with restrictions on major changes within the first year are trying to avoid having students apply for a major with low enrollment and then immediately switch to a major with a much lower admit rate, like CS or engineering. So it makes sense to require waiting a year.

However, I would not let that put you off applying to UTA or OU unless your son is actually thinking of switching from Classics to a major with restricted entry and a strict 4-yr course sequence (like engineering or business). Assuming that UTA and OU have the normal assortment of Gen Ed requirements, then it's likely that even if your son switches from Classics to another major within the College of Arts & Sciences, any Classics courses he takes freshman year will just count for Gen Eds in literature, history, and foreign language, and he could still take intro-level courses in physics, math, and poli sci to meet the Gen Eds in science, math, and social sciences. For most Arts & Science majors, freshman year will look pretty similar regardless of major, because of the breadth requirements.

Edited February 26, 2019 by Corraleno