High school students often report feeling lost or frustrated because they don’t know exactly what they want to study in college or what career to pursue afterward. It may even seem like everyone else has it all figured out.
However, the vast majority of teenagers don’t have their entire professional paths mapped out. And those who think they do often change their minds. In fact, roughly one-third of undergraduates change their majors at least once during college.
Even though changing majors is common, many colleges, including the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, require students to apply into a specific major. This means that students are directly placed into a specific major at the time they enroll. Direct admission by major helps colleges manage enrollment, which can be especially beneficial for competitive fields with limited capacity such as nursing, engineering, and business.
Many colleges that don’t admit by major still ask students to indicate an interest in one or more fields of study at the time they apply. Colleges may have several reasons for doing so:
In assessing a student’s fit for a particular institution, admissions officers consider the student’s coursework and experiences. For example, a student with extensive health-related volunteer work, medical research, top grades in lab science courses, and a 5 on the AP Biology exam has a strong profile for a Biochemistry major. On the other hand, an Engineering hopeful who is taking pre-calculus as a high school senior and performed poorly on the Math section of the SAT may not be a strong fit for the major or even the college.
In reality, most students are not truly “undecided” (which implies having no direction at all). Rather, students’ interests generally cluster around two or three related fields, and many students who do change majors frequently end up in fields adjacent to their original area of interest.
“Indecisive” may be a better way to describe how many high school students approach their potential majors and careers. They have interests and preferences, but they’re also open to discovering new areas they haven’t yet explored. These students simply need more time and exposure before narrowing their academic focus.
While the college application process legitimately makes many students feel like they need to have their entire academic and professional futures figured out, they actually don’t. All they need to do is share their interests and intentions at that particular moment in time. Indicating a potential major on a college application is not a lifetime commitment—it’s an opportunity for students to share their interests and intentions based on their experiences to date. Colleges are well aware that these interests and aspirations may evolve over time.
