The University of Chicago is an academic powerhouse and magnet for students who truly love learning. Students at UChicago are driven, passionate, and not turned off by an academic challenge. The acceptance rate is under 5%.
Economics is the most popular undergraduate major at the University of Chicago by a landslide. This has been true for well over a decade. We don’t see it changing anytime soon, either. Among the students we work with on applying to the University of Chicago, most start with Economics as their prospective major. Most of that group, though, also end up with something else selected on their application.
The next four most popular majors — computer science, mathematics, biological sciences, and political science — enroll less than half as many students as economics.
Which major you select on your application is part of the game of college admissions that a lot of people don’t know to consider. When the university asks you what you want to study, they aren’t simply curious. They are trying to put together a class that is diverse across many measures — including areas of academic interest. This is to benefit the students, but more so to benefit the program. If they are going to offer a major in something, it’s important that they have new students actually entering into the program each year. At the University of Chicago, there is absolutely no shortage of applicants clamoring for a spot within the economics program. Getting that spot, though, doesn’t always mean stickering your application with virtual economics stickers. Instead, we are going to be strategic.
Ideally, you’ll start this process early. By selecting a prospective major as a sophomore or early in your junior year, you can steer your academics and activities towards supporting the argument that you are truly interested in what you’ll be putting on your application. Hopefully, you are! We don’t recommend an elaborate ruse all to get into a dream school, but we do work with our students on targeting a more accessible major at a top-tier school as early as sophomore year.
Learn more about how we help driven students get into exceptional schools here.
If you are planning on applying to the University of Chicago, make “anything but econ” your mantra for your application. The competition for a seat as a hopeful economics major is incredibly steep, so basically anything else would be better to put on your application with one massive caveat: you have to show genuine long-term interest in whatever you select through both your academics and your activities.
These are five majors that you should seriously consider for your UChicago application if you want to get in, and why they are strong alternatives for motivated students.
Instead of ECONOMICS, do CLIMATE AND SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
If you are certain that you want to study economics, we recommend looking at the major in Climate and Sustainable Growth. When we work with economics-minded students, we have recently been steering them toward this economics-heavy major that has something big going for it: it’s new. The major in Climate and Sustainable Growth is new as of the fall of 2025. This means that they are looking for students to fill seats in the program, but they aren’t groveling. UChicago is crafting the first few cohorts of students who will possibly graduate with this major, so it is crucial that any application that lists the Climate and Sustainable Growth major as a primary area of interest is crafted specifically towards the foci of the program. Namely, the intersection of economics, climate change science, and policy.
Standing out as an applicant for this major is, we’ve found, easy in some ways and hard in others. It’s easy because it’s new, and so students haven’t had years to perfect an application precisely for it. It’s hard, though, for the same reason — you haven’t had time. We encourage students to think about each pillar of the program (economics, climate change science, and policy) as something that must be addressed specifically in two places in your application. It has to be on your transcript (i.e., through courses) and it needs to be in your activities. If you don’t have time to check all the course boxes, like adding an environmental sciences course, you need to double down on the activities side for that pillar. One type of activity that can hit multiple boxes quickly if you are short on time is a long-term internship or volunteer role with a local politician or political initiative who has a strong climate change resilience platform.
Instead of BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES, do HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY, AND SOCIAL STUDIES OF SCIENCE AND MEDICINE
The History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science and Medicine (HIPS) major has a wordy name, but it is a strong option for students who want to line themselves up for a future in medicine. The obvious choice for most pre-med-minded high school students is biology, or something like it. It covers the courses required by medical schools, and simply makes sense. The problem is everyone is using this same logic. Bio makes sense, so that’s what they select on the application.
What’s cool when you select History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Science and Medicine, though, is that all that work you’re already putting into to stand out as a science student with a particular interest in medicine also translates to the major in HIPS. Students in this program are even required to also build a solid foundation in a science, giving you the opportunity to fulfill all your medical school prerequisites. We work with our students to further strengthen their pitch as a prospective HIPS major by developing the side of their transcript that they have, quite often, neglected up to this point: the humanities. Science-heavy students too often count on impressive STEM outcomes to carry them through the admissions process, but that isn’t enough. You can be a brilliant science mind, but if you aren’t also excelling at essay writing that is a major problem.
With the HIPS major, the ability to communicate what you know is held as high as the volume of information your brain can retain, so it is a good idea to be writing for a school newspaper, contributing to a literary journal, or leading a philosophy club at your high school.
Instead of POLITICAL SCIENCE, do LAW, LETTERS, AND SOCIETY
Students drawn to Political Science are often looking to better understand the world around us from a political social lens. They want to know why things are happening, what happened before that led to current events, and what is likely to be a major political players’ next move. It’s also a massively popular major because of two things: there are programs in most high schools that feed into college political science programs and, second, you can find it basically at any college.
When you look at your particular interests more specifically, however, it’s possible that what you are actually most interested in understanding isn’t a contemporary geopolitical conflict but the social and philosophical systems that drive society through a legal lens. This is where the Law, Letters, and Society major lives. Unsurprisingly, many students who pursue this major go on to careers in the law, but many go into journalism, government, business, and academia.
When we work with students interested in the Law, Letters, and Society major at UChicago, one of the first things we want to see or cultivate is active engagement with the field. Yes, you are still in high school, but there are so many opportunities to get hands-on. One way is with summer programs focused on law and aimed at students looking towards a pre-law track. Our favorite, though, isn’t something hundreds of kids can do each summer. We work with students to identify and pursue volunteer and internship opportunities that are specific to them, especially within law firms, the offices of elected officials, and within political campaigns.
Instead of COMPUTER SCIENCE, do DATA SCIENCE
There isn’t a major that at the University of Chicago that easily substitutes in for Computer Science. However, there has never been a better time to think differently about a future with computers. Computer Science is one of the most popular majors at the University of Chicago, but what a student who majors in comp sci is facing after graduation has never been more uncertain. Artificial Intelligence is upending everything, and that’s why we are encouraging students to consider Data Science instead.
Now, Data Science is not interchangeable with Computer Science — we know that. However, there are aspects of data science as a field that resonate with those who love coding, especially around building intelligent systems and algorithms to make sense of the world. As a student pursuing the Data Science major, you would tackle challenges that intersect directly with computer science, which is why an applicant who has already expressed deep interest in computer science through high school can be a strong Data Science candidate.
Standing out beyond the average highly-accomplished applicant interested in data science, though, can be a bit tough. Everything students have been doing for computer science is also often present in a data science-oriented application, which risks blending into the crowd. To stand out, we love when our students jump at the opportunity to do independence research relevant to the data science field. If there isn’t time to undertake a whole project, we work with our students to connect with a graduate researcher or professor so as to pursue a supporting role in meaningful academic inquiry.
Instead of COMPUTATIONAL AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS, do STATISTICS
Statistics is one of the most popular minors at the University of Chicago, but has not cracked the top tier of majors yet. This is why, for us, it is a better option for math-minded students than selecting computational and applied mathematics.
Stats has a weird spot in the high school psyche. Many high schools encourage students who aren’t great at math to take AP Statistics to improve their transcripts for colleges. This has led to high school students often thinking that there is something about stats that is less impressive. Let us assure you that this is entirely false. While it may be easier for a humanities-minded student to do well in stats than in a high-level calculus class, it isn’t ‘easy math’ — and it certainly isn’t easy at the University of Chicago.
When we are helping a student develop a strong statistics portfolio for their UChicago application, we definitely prioritize the importance of two things: research and communications. We want to see them conducting research and we want to see them communicating their findings, ideally through a published written format as well as through an oral presentation format. This is a great opportunity to meld the statistics work with another passion, be it dance, music, or baseball card collection. Bonus points if you can make the project topic fun enough to garner a chuckle from the application readers.
If none of these alternatives are exciting for you and you are dead-set on applying to one of the University of Chicago’s most popular majors, we can help. In the meantime, we have some advice. Remember that with increased competition comes a decreased chance of getting in. What may have been a target school with a less competitive major is, suddenly, a reach. This doesn’t mean that you can’t get in, but it is an unnecessary additional hurdle that could have been stepped around on route to your ultimate goal.
We specialize in helping students achieve extraordinary outcomes, and a key piece of the process is strategy. Picking a major for your application that sets you up for success with admissions is not the same as signing your life away to a particular department. You will not get a call from admissions in the spring of your sophomore year of college asking you why you are declaring a major in history when you’d listed literature on your first-year application.
Once you are in the race (i.e., into a dream school), you get to run. Our job is to get you a bib number and to the starting line. The best way to accomplish this is to start early and plan well ahead. If you are a junior, though, there is still time to make a massive impact on your outcomes next year. Crafting an application that sets you up as an ideal candidate requires our finesse and expertise and your passion and drive. So, let’s do it.
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