Welcome back to “Deep Dive,” our blog series investigating the reputation certain schools have acquired for particular excellence in one program or another. Sometimes those front-running specializations far outrank the school’s general standing — as with Texas A&M’s agricultural science offerings — or they are simply stand-out departments at holistically competitive universities — like Business at Penn or Neuroscience at UMich.

Students who are interested in studying management in college often do it through a major in Business Administration and Management. This entails courses in business, economics, accounting, marketing, and more. Colleges don’t expect you to arrive dialed in on business management. To prepare for it, though, you can’t just do what is available through the course options at your school and call it a day. Admission to a top-tier business management program requires exceptional grades and equally strong scores, of course. It also demands going above and beyond in your activities and extracurricular engagements, with a special attention to linking what you do outside of the classroom to your future management major.

We don’t hear very often that a student is dead set on a philosophy major in college. And yet, philosophy is a classic major at the core of a liberal arts or humanities-focused education. It is also less competitive than english, history, and economics. We absolutely love working with philosophy or philosophy-curious students.

Political science is the study of politics, government, policy, and political behavior in the United States and beyond through the lens of scientific methods. Students who major in political science go on to careers in politics and policy through advocacy, lobbying, non-profits, think tanks, consulting, law, and more. The top political science programs in the country are also at many of the most popular and competitive colleges. Think Harvard, Georgetown, Tufts, Stanford, Williams, and the like. Getting into these schools is hard, obviously, so you have to put in the work far ahead of writing applications. That means a strong transcript, amazing SAT and ACT scores, and outstanding activities.

An undergraduate major in marketing is industry agnostic. This means that you can apply the degree to any industry or field, pairing your passion in marketing with a passion for fashion or business or design or bringing people together. As a marketing major, you can move laterally, from one industry to another, and vertically, rising up the ranks of a company or marketing firm until you are truly an expert in your craft.  

Entrepreneurship is a fairly rare major for the percentage of the popular conversation that the career path dominates. It’s only in recent years, really, that to be an ‘entrepreneur’ is recognized not simply as a title earned over many business experiences, but as a career path. Once upon a time, one became an entrepreneur only after succeeding (or, more often, not succeeding) in something else. Today, it’s more common than ever for us to meet high school students for whom entrepreneurship is the goal, though, and they want to start on that path early.

If you are a junior interested in pursuing a major in chemical engineering you undoubtedly know what it is, but for the sake of redundancy let’s break it down a bit. Chemical engineering is a field within engineering that works on and develops chemical products and processes using chemistry, physics, and mathematics. Students who go into chemical engineering tend to be wicked smart, detail-oriented, and deeply curious. As a junior, it can feel like college is right around the corner, but also so far away that it’s hard to wrap your mind around the idea. But as a prospective chemical engineering major you need to increase the sense of urgency in the name of building a strong application.