Do most students and parents consider difficulty of declaring/changing major?
At many schools other than the very wealthiest ones that can afford to have excess capacity in all departments, majors which are more popular than the department's capacity to enroll all interested students have some sort of admissions gate in front of them. Sometimes, it is just completion of prerequisite courses with a high enough GPA. Other times, it is a highly competitive holistic admission process to enter the major. Some departments at some will admit a small percentage of the major directly in frosh admission, then fill the rest later with competitive admission for sophomores who want to enter the major. Others with direct frosh admission fill the major to capacity, so that the only space for others to enter later comes from those who change out of the major.
But when a high school seniors and their parents are looking at colleges and admission offers, are they likely to consider these things when selecting among colleges? If the student is undecided between several majors, is s/he likely to consider these things for all of the possible majors that s/he may be interested in?
At the other end of the situation, how often is it that sophomores are filling transfer applications because they did not get into their desired major at the school that they are attending? Or is it more likely that such students settle for some other major, even if it is not really what they want to study?
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