College admissions are like an extreme Olympic sport these days. That is to say, they’re hyper-competitive. It would seem no matter what you do, you’re going to be duking out with an equally-qualified candidate, if not several. While we want to prepare kids for the fact that college admissions can be a daunting process, we also believe there are ways to get ahead. Focusing on the right major might be a good investment of your time.

NO SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BASICS

First and foremost, we want to stress that no strategy can get a B-average student into an Ivy League school like Princeton. Baseline, if you want to get into a top-tier school, you need to have excellent grades. You also need to take high-level (i.e.: AP and advanced) classes throughout high school. Period. But beyond that, there are ways to set kids apart from the other stacks of applicants. For one, excellent essays. We spend a lot of time helping our clients craft unique and powerful essays. We also help our students develop impressive resumes while carving out an academic niche that makes them stand out. We find the best strategy it to position yourself as an expert in a particular academic area. Your extracurriculars and classroom pursuits should fall in. The application should be about showing the university that you’re a perfect fit for an academic program or major that they offer based on the niche you’ve carved out for the past four years for high school.

But something we’ve discovered is that some majors are more popular than others. While those majors (like Economics) often have more spots available, they also have higher competition. One possible strategy is to look into a major that matches with your academic niche that’s not super popular.

THE FINDINGS

We looked at Princeton’s data for 2020 and found some majors were popular than others. For example, there were 158 degrees conferred for Computer Science and another 126 in Econometrics/Quantitative Economics. These are popular majors. But what about the least popular? Princeton awarded only 3 degrees in 2020 for Linguistics, making it the least-popular major of any discipline. Here’s what we found for the bottom 10:

Linguistics (3)
Slavic Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, General (4)
Near and Middle Eastern Studies (6)
Music, General (7)
Religion/Religious Studies (8)
African-American/Black Studies (9)
Classics and Classical Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, General (9)
Art History, Criticism and Conservation (11)

It was a tie for 9th and 10th places…

Astrophysics (12)
East Asian Studies (12)
Geology/Earth Science, General (12)
Hispanic and Latin American Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics, General (12)

We recommend doing a deep-dive into the majors and disciplines offered at your choice school. If one of lesser-popularity is a strong fit for the academic area of expertise you’ve pursued in high school, consider mentioning it in your supplement and pursuing a spot in that program. Some students freak out when we advise them on this. It seems like a lot to decide what major you want to graduate with at the age of 17. But you don’t have to! Applying to a particular school or talking about a major of interest in your application isn’t binding. You can go in undecided once you get into the school.

Need help deciding which major is right for you? Reach out to us. We’re great at helping students match at their top choice schools.