Accepted!. Jamie Beaton

Chapter 4 Morpheus Wins: “Show Me The Future!”

      If you go to most college admissions offices in the US, attend an admissions tour, and ask the people who work there if there is a strategy to what major you should apply to on your Common Application, they will stare at you, just a little offended, and tell you with a poker face as if no other answer will do justice to your question: “You should apply for what you love!”

      Wrong.

      Pay close attention because this is a relatively unsettling but crucial strategy to understand and master.

When you apply to most US universities, you have to declare your academic interests or potential majors. A major is the focus area for your degree. Some universities may call this a different thing. Harvard calls their majors concentrations, for example. In essence, the university wants to know what you actually intend to study when you turn up on campus.

If you look at Stanford, the most popular major of choice is computer science.¹ It makes perfect sense. Computer scientists from Stanford can go on and earn $US100 thousand+ at major technology companies and live comfortably knowing they have a wide spectrum of choices. They can go and raise money from venture capitalists who trust that Stanford gave them some coding skills and recruiting networks they need to be successful. Computer science is a versatile skill that builds mathematical reasoning, data analysis skills, creativity, and logic in spades. It is a fantastic but difficult major. Among Crimson alumni, it is the second most popular area for coursework.

If you look at Harvard, the most popular major of choice is economics.² It makes perfect sense. Economists from Harvard go on to work on Wall Street in large numbers. They intern at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, some may go onto legendary private equity firms like Blackstone or venture capital firms like Tiger Global. Economics can be applied to business and finance but the training is broadly applicable to almost anything from political campaigns to law school. It is hard to go wrong. Amongst Crimson alumni, it is the most popular area for coursework. I have a soft spot for economics because it was my main area of study at Harvard.

      Can you guess what is a terrible major to apply for when you apply to Stanford or Harvard?

      The worst major to apply for at Stanford? The prize goes to computer science!

      The worst major to apply for at Harvard? The prize goes to economics!

Economics at Harvard is generally the most competitive major to apply to. The admissions office knows that everyone who says economics will generally go on to study it and many more who declare other majors will likely switch to economics anyways. As a result, they are desperate to find people with sincere academic interests in other areas to create a “diverse class.” They don't want four aspiring Wall Street bankers sitting around Cabot dining hall discussing summer internships. They prefer a folklore and mythology major who can educate a physics major about topics that could also help a social studies major develop ideas for their thesis over dinner. If you apply for the most common, popular majors at a university you immediately make landing your offer substantially more difficult. You become a dime-a-dozen commodity.

      When you apply to a US college, they generally accept you into the undergraduate program. You can switch to any major you like (with some exceptions) after you are admitted (you don't have to declare your major until the end of your second or sophomore year). Harvard never looks back on your application and checks what academic interests you declared and then scolds you for studying something totally different once you get to college. They actively encourage “intellectual discovery” in the first 18 months as you find your major/concentration of choice.

      So what game do you need to play here?

      You want to express academic interests that give you the highest possible chance of being admitted, not the academic interest you genuinely want to study after you get in. I wish admissions worked in a way where you got rewarded for a sincere proclamation of your love for economics. As someone who loves economics, I really do. Sadly, this is not how the system works.

This doesn't mean you should go and spend all your high school years on physics and then declare love for art history or psychology. Your optimization is as follows: you want to choose the most niche, unpopular major possible for a given university subject to it being credible that you are genuinely interested in studying it and are qualified from your existing activities to be studying it.

      Although my memory is 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