Undergraduate Changes of Major

GVSU Office of Institutional Analysis
September, 2019

Following are some statistics showing the frequency with which GVSU undergraduates make changes to their major program. Please note the following points about how changes are identified:

  1. These figures are compiled from census data, which are captured once per semester. This means that changes only register if they are evident in students' records on the census dates of successive enrollment terms. In actuality, students may make changes to their programs in between census captures that would not be counted by this method. For example...

Since there are 3 semesters in a year, the maximum annual number of changes that can be recorded for an individual student is 3;

  1. For the purpose of counting changes, "Degree-seeking", "Non-degree", and "Honors College" are not counted as majors;
  2. Recall that students can have simultaneous majors. For this report, a "change" means that a student dropped a previous major, either with or without adding a new one. For example...
  3. If a student adds a second (or third or fourth) major without dropping a previous one, it's tabulated here as a "New Major";
  4. If a student progresses from pre-admit status to the corresponding secondary admit major (e.g. Pre-Engineering to Engineering), it is not counted as a change, but is tabulated as a "Secondary Admit." However, if a student adopts two secondary admit majors (as is common in Seidman College of Business -- e.g. Pre-business to Finance / Marketing), it is counted as both a secondary admit and a new major.

The following table shows the number of each kind of transition per year for recent academic years. The prevalence of major changes has remained relatively steady with a peak in 2013-14 as measured by the number and percentage of students experiencing at least one change, as well as the average number of changes per student. The percentage adding new has remained steady since 2015-16. The percentage of students undergoing secondary admission to a major has increased since 2016-17.

Transitions in undergraduate major by academic year

 

2013-14

2014-15

2015-16

2016-17

2017-18

2018-19

Total

20853

21193

21361

21605

21151

20824

Changes per student

0

17136

17833

18237

18620

18259

17941

1

3393

3046

2883

2739

2635

2648

2

320

311

239

246

254

231

3

4

3

2

 

3

4

New majors per student

0

19867

20081

20421

20726

20238

19896

1

985

1111

938

878

913

928

2

1

1

2

1

 

 

Secondary admissions per student

0

19809

20046

20278

20206

19766

19403

1

1044

1147

1083

1399

1385

1421

Changes

0.19

0.17

0.16

0.15

0.15

0.15

New Majors

0.05

0.05

0.04

0.04

0.04

0.04

Secondary Admissions

0.05

0.05

0.05

0.06

0.07

0.07

 

The next table shows the number of transitions experienced over the whole undergraduate academic careers of students earning bachelors degrees in recent years. Only students who started at GVSU as new freshmen (FTIACs) within 6 years of their graduation date are included. Almost 50% of degree recipients did not change their majors at all. The average number of changes is about 1 per student. About 30% of the degree recipients had undergone a secondary admission process.

Transitions in major over undergraduate career, by graduating class

 

2012-13

2013-14

2014-15

2015-16

2016-17

2017-18

2018-19

Total N

2598

2362

2464

2566

2666

2874

2815

Changes per graduate

0

1186

1052

1133

1251

1239

1448

1424

1

945

858

929

886

936

946

959

2

355

336

296

316

345

356

330

3

75

87

74

92

118

99

81

4

32

25

27

18

23

22

19

5

4

4

4

3

5

3

1

6

1

0

1

 

 

 

1

New Majors per graduate

0

2026

1831

1892

1950

2042

2223

2185

1

540

508

542

582

592

628

601

2

31

23

30

34

31

22

29

Secondary Admissions

0

2135

1985

1977

2048

2073

2199

2075

1

463

377

487

518

593

675

740

Averages

Changes

0.78

0.81

0.76

0.73

0.79

0.72

0.69

New Majors

0.23

0.23

0.24

0.25

0.25

0.23

0.23

Secondary Admissions

0.18

0.16

0.2

0.2

0.2

0.2

0.3