majors?

[finknottle]

do adcoms look at GPAs differently based on major?

for example, applying to a top school say an applicant doing a biology major is in the 3.9 range and an engineering major is at 3.75. all other things being equal, is the engineering major at a disadvantage?

most people would consider the engineering major to be "harder," so are adcoms forgiving of lower gpa's in majors like that?

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[MilkmanAl]

This isn't really a WAMC issue. Moved to Pre-Allo.

I was a physics/bio double major, and the 3 schools I contacted all noted the difficulty of my course of study. One of them eventually accepted me. To answer your question more directly, yes, schools do take the difficulty of your classes into account. That forgiveness is not something you want to rely on, though. It's only worth and extra tenth or two of GPA, in quantitative terms. Having done both courses of study, I'd personally rank the 3.75 engineering guy far ahead of the 3.9 bio guy, but most adcom members probably don't feel that way. They also probably don't have much perspective for comparing the two beyond "engineering is hard."

 

[PandaBrewMaster]

I'd agree, I think at most the difference is going to be in the 0.1 to max 0.2 range. At some point, when you're comparing say, 3.8 and 3.6, it doesn't matter anymore that the 3.6 guy is in harder majors, its the 0.2 differences that's going to make the most visual difference, and the strongest impression.

Of course if you have a 4.0 as an engineering major, than that's just crazy good.

my 0.02

 

[fusionx22]

I think it doesn't really matter what you major in as long as you follow your interests and take the difficult courses. Engineering does tend to be a more difficult major, but if you're not interested in it, 1.) you may not do well (so your GPA will drop) and 2.) when you're asked why you chose your major by your interviewer, you're gonna have a tough time sounding genuine lol.

Just don't do things as a means to an end, and you'll be fine.