getting a little foggy, I believe I applied for English to Yale, government at Harvard, financial engineering at Columbia and Princeton, English at Stanford and the Huntsman Program (a business degree and an international studies degree combined) for the University of Pennsylvania. All of these majors were reasonable given my high school achievements and activities. At the time I applied, I was relatively sure I was going to study economics and try and break into Wall Street, but I reasoned that I should really not just go and tick economics everywhere. The strategy proved to be successful and, thousands of admitted students later, it is an empirical reality that major selection is critically important.
I don't particularly like the US system and the gymnastics it requires. When it comes to UK universities, you apply to the university and the course. So given I wanted to study economics at Cambridge, I applied for economics. Candidates have to declare what degree they want to study (or read as it is called at Oxbridge) from the outset, and if they apply for it, they have to study it. This takes the gaming out of major selection and lets candidates focus on showcasing what they actually want to study.
You, however, need to be a champion of the convoluted system, not another victim, so here are some clear steps you need to take.
First, research what majors a school has a core competency in that may not necessarily be well known by prospective applicants. For example, Harvard has a folklore and mythology major).3 Hardly any universities offer an undergraduate major in this area. If you have some vague interest in this field, you could build a very compelling application for Harvard by developing a set of persuasive extracurriculars and academic pursuits based on this theme. Harvard knows it has a brilliant department in this area, so is likely to be excited to find prospective applicants who have done their research, want to study this area, and submit it in their application. This is great if it could relate to you. It is super niche, but it is a compelling way to distinguish yourself from the tsunami of economics applicants.
Second, take your academic interests one level deeper. I meet many students who like economics or computer science. If you like economics, explore one of the subfields—game theory, behavioral economics, development economics. If you genuinely explore economics, you will quickly find out there are many niches you could devote your entire career to if you wanted to. A small amount of focused online coursework, summer research, independent studies, or clubs focused on these subfields helps to build your credibility as someone who knows what they are talking about in a given discipline.
Rather than declaring your love for computer science, why not artificial intelligence? Artificial intelligence uses computer science and statistics and focuses on adaptive algorithms to make decisions that generally get better over time. Even better, what about artificial intelligence (AI) ethics? What happens when millions of people lose their manual jobs because AI algorithms can do them better than they can and it creates substantial inequality?
If you built a candidacy on the niche of AI ethics and took coursework such as AP Computer Science, online coursework such as Justice by Michael Sandel and Andrew Ng's famous machine learning class on Coursera, attended a futurist conference that addressed issues like singularity, and took a Yale Young Global Scholars class in literature, philosophy, and culture, you would be substantially more interesting than a student with a generic interest in computer science.
Rather than loving biology (as a wave of pre-medicine applicants do), how about marine biology? As I write this, I spoke to a boy in Shanghai today who is doing some exciting activities from Blackfish Public Screenings to joining PETA to online coursework in marine biology to AP Biology to advanced diving certificates to establish his interest in marine biology. Advancing from a generic biology interest to marine biology puts you in a much less competitive crowd because you can now articulate to an admissions officer a much more interesting and differentiated academic plan.
Third, never declare yourself “undeclared.” Imagine if you wanted to raise money for your company from amazing investors. You turn up for the big meeting. They stare at you in anticipation and tell you to begin your pitch. You stand up in your fancy suit.
“I don't know what company I want to build yet, but I am awesome, so back me and I will figure it out.”
Ninety-nine percent of the time this pitch gives you zero chance.
Unless you've already built a billion-dollar company and your approach is backed up by the fact that you've made so much money that any investor would feel like they just can't go wrong, pitching somebody no direction, no clear vision, no plan is utterly uninspiring.
Applying to a US university and saying you are undecided is just as uninspiring. Admissions officers get up every day to try and predict who will go on to accomplish incredible things and who won't. They want to bet on vision, purpose, direction, execution ability, and your track record. If, after 14 years of schooling, you don't have enough thirst for a single discipline to declare an academic interest, something is probably wrong.
In reality, many applicants, myself included, are not sure what they want to do when they get into university. The beauty of the US liberal arts system is that you can switch your major, try some different fields, and find your academic trajectory once you get in. Although this is true and the word undeclared might align with this way of thinking, it is a very bad strategy for the admissions process.
Find a pathway that you are relatively interested in, that is credible and ties back to your activities and proven academic interests (and avoid the common majors), and make this the focus of your application. Declare a strategy, show the admissions officer you have some vision and clear interests, and go for it.
Declaring undecided doesn't make you seem trendy or philosophical. Most curious academic students have too many potential majors, so they aren't sure what they should focus on. In that case, you can list many different academic interests and elaborate more in your additional information section. But don't, whatever you do, declare undecided.
Some students do get in declaring undecided but they face an uphill battle compared to those students who articulate a clear academic plan and pitch that in their application process. It is okay if your hypothesis of your college career is not fully formed, but you need to have a well-researched hypothesis that you can articulate easily and persuasively.
I see thousands of the world's most talented students every year and generally the smartest, most academically qualified high school students often have very advanced views of what they want to do in university and in their careers. A clear vision of the future is generally highly correlated with strong success. It is hard for most people to find burning motivation to push through grueling academics and an array of extracurriculars with absolutely no vision for what the future holds beyond getting into a university. It is okay to have too many interests (however, for your application, we want to tone that down and articulate only a central one or two), but having no interests at all is a bad strategy.
Your application needs to tie one or two central themes and you need to articulate a clear academic game plan for college (while once again avoiding the common majors) so that an admissions officer can extrapolate and imagine what amazing things you can go on to accomplish in the future (and they can willingly and proudly claim you as an alum). Give your admissions officer a crystal ball and tell them what you want them to see in it.
Notes
1 1. Stanford University Facts. Other Undergraduate Education Facts. Top Undergraduate Majors By Enrollment 2019–2020. https://facts.stanford.edu/academics/undergraduate-facts/
