Do You Select Undecided on Your Application?

Is Having an Undecided Major a Bad Thing?

The short answer is that in most cases you should select a college major on your application rather than writing undecided. Understand if you decide to put business administration, biotechnology, Latin American Studies, robotics, or psychology as your intended major, you are not contractually bound to retain that major going forward.

Your intended major should be a reflection of your studies, experience, and interests. In other words, it will most often work in your favor if you have declared a field of study that represents an authentic version of you instead of a college major far afield from the core of your experience and academic interests.

Breathe easy knowing most college applications allow for 2-4 prospective college majors to be added instead of a singular area of study. This will give you the latitude to provide a few areas of interest if you are truly undecided about a potential college major.

College Major Diversity

If you are applying for a specific department based on your area of expertise, it will be frowned upon to put a range of prospective college majors on your application. A narrowly defined set of experiences in a specialized field will often help a well-qualified college applicant move to the next stage; however, a similar candidate with specific skills and interests applying to an unrelated academic department may confuse an admissions team.

Interdepartmental Transfers

Once your are accepted into a college and matriculation has begun, it is highly likely you can get out of a college major you do not like but not a guarantee that you will get into one you prefer.  As such, understand which colleges and universities expect a designated college major to be binding and which will allow for fluidity between programs.

Questions to Ask Your College about Degree Transfers

To summarize, take the time to ask the admissions team to clarify the following questions to help determine if a college is right for you:

• How will the admissions team view my application if the college major is left as undecided? 
• Will my prospective college major on the application be binding? 
• How difficult is it for students to change majors once admitted to the college?
• Will changing college majors after starting school require me to apply to a different department? 
• Can a first, second, or third choice of college major be binding?

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