There are many stereotypes about engineering and humanities applicants and majors, and how they differ from each other. There is some truth to these ideas however, as students interested in each field have different roads to college, and different activities they should focus on in high school to boost their admissions chances.
In this article, we’ll look at how the admissions process is the same for both these groups, and more importantly, how it differs. We’ll go over what colleges want to see from each, and how you can prepare for your admissions journey in high school. Let’s get started!
How Engineering and Humanities Applications are the Same
Colleges, broadly speaking, want to see the same things from all applicants. They want high GPAs, signs that you have challenged yourself with your high school coursework, and test scores that confirm your academic prowess. Further, they want evidence from your extracurriculars that you are a passionate and engaged person, one who works to pursue your interests.
They want students who are academically curious, and who love learning for its own sake. They are looking for students who display leadership traits; who are willing to step up and assume responsibility. They want students who are active participants in their communities, and who will go on to contribute to the community on campus.
Admissions officers look for evidence of this in your grades, your letters of recommendation, your activities, and especially your essays. They come to get to know you in a way, and see how you might fit in with their campus community.
This is all true in broad strokes, but when you zoom in closer and examine the details, differences begin to emerge. As is true with all statements, what is true in general may be misleading in the specific.
How Engineering and Humanities Applications Are Different
1: Competition
The first, and largest, difference is in the competition for spaces. Each major offered by a college has a maximum number of students they can take in, based on class size limits and the number of professors in the department. Some majors are oversubscribed, with more students wanting to participate than seats. Others are undersubscribed, with more professors and seats available than students who want to participate.
Colleges try to balance this somewhat, hiring new faculty and expanding the most popular departments, but they also try to maintain a balance. There is a desire among top universities to retain the classical components of liberal arts education, the broad scope of studies that do more to expand the view of students, and to prepare them to be thinkers and doers.
Thus even if some departments are larger than others, top schools do still have limits to the number of students allowed in each major, and to the amount of expansion certain departments will have. Undersubscribed departments will stay small, but their funding will be maintained, as their existence is key to how the universities view themselves.
Thus students interested in more oversubscribed majors often face fiercer competition for seats. While there are more seats available in engineering majors than other topics like history or classics, there are also more students interested in filling those seats. The exact level of competition varies by university, but in general engineering majors can expect to face fiercer competition when applying to their major of choice.
2. Academic Preparation
Admissions officers want students to be prepared for the rigors of college, but what this preparation looks like can be very different depending on your intended major. The biggest difference is calculus, with students interested in science, engineering, or computer science all doing far better in their applications if they have taken calculus. Indeed, many departments require you to have taken it if it’s an option at your high school.
In contrast, humanities majors need less mathematical preparation. This isn’t to say you can shirk in your math classes; high achievement in them still reflects well on you, but taking AP Calculus AB instead of BC, or stopping with calculus even if your high school offers higher options in math are both seen as completely fine for students aiming towards the humanities.
Humanities students are expected to take advanced options if they are available, but these are far less commonly accessible to high school students. You should have your collection of advanced work in history and English to demonstrate your proficiency as a writer, but there is less need to show something beyond that academically. If your school does offer specialized electives in history or English though, we do recommend taking them.
Engineering students should also take computer science courses as possible, and are greatly aided by having some coding knowledge before beginning college. While humanities majors may benefit from taking coding courses, it is far less expected to be found on their transcripts.
3. Extracurriculars
Extracurriculars are important regardless of your application, but you should have some tailored towards your major of interest, regardless of what that may be. That said, many more opportunities exist to explore engineering in high school than some more esoteric fields; archaeology for instance is not something you can just go out and do, that’s called grave robbing and is frowned upon.
It is impressive for students interested in the humanities to have pursued their interests through extracurriculars at a high level, but admissions officers know that there are fewer options here, so less is expected. In engineering however, there are myriad robotics competitions, science fairs, journals for high school students, and organizations devoted to introducing students to these fields. There is a level of expectation that you take advantage of the opportunities that are available to you, and that you make the most of the options you have.
Because there are more options available to high school students interested in engineering, there is more of an expectation that you have some of these under your belt when you apply to engineering programs. Exploring your interests is still valuable to students interested in the humanities, and you should still do so if possible, but it is not as expected as when exploring engineering.
4. Letters of Recommendation
Letters of recommendation are key for any college application, and students interested in engineering and humanities are actually looking for the same thing from letters. Namely, you should have one letter from a math or science teacher, and one from a history or English teacher, regardless of your intended major.
This is required by some colleges, and recommended by others, but we recommend it for all our students. You should demonstrate your academic prowess across disciplines; while focusing is good, top colleges still have liberal arts roots, and want students who are able to succeed across a range of courses.
5. Application Strategy
Students interested in engineering and the humanities should often follow slightly different application strategies as well. While you should always apply to whatever major your background best suits you for, your background may point towards more than one major.
Especially at schools where changing a major is easy, such as Yale or Harvard, it can be harder to apply as an engineering major, due to the aforementioned level of competition. That said, if you have an extracurricular background rich in computer science and robotics, then applying as a humanities major will seem disingenuous. You should always apply as a major your background supports, lest admissions officers think you are trying to game the system.
While there are not hard quotas or caps for students interested in certain majors, there are only so many seats in a given major, and admissions officers are aware of that. Humanities majors more often find success simply applying to their chosen major, without further considerations.
Engineering majors on the other hand more often apply to majors which their background supports, but which are tangential to their actual major of interest. Thus they may apply for applied mathematics or statistics instead of computer science or engineering.
Note that this does not work on direct admit engineering programs, where you must apply to the college of engineering directly and changing majors is difficult. Schools like UC Berkeley and UT Austin are like this, and students applying to them should always apply to whichever major they wish to end up in. You should research the schools you are applying to carefully for this reason, to see what strategic impacts their policies may have.
Final Thoughts
While there are commonalities to all college applications, the more you zoom in on any one in particular, the more nuances appear, and the more you need to clarify and expand upon the general advice. We hope that this article has illustrated this principle well, as well as giving you an idea for how to prepare to apply to college to study your own area of interest.
This can be a challenge, both in finding the right activities in high school, and in crafting your applications to perfectly position yourself for your intended major. If you want advice on how to get started, or want to hear more about how we can help you, schedule a free consultation today. We have experience with every step of college preparation and applications, and are always happy to hear from you.
