Undergraduate Changes of Major

GVSU Office of Institutional Analysis
September, 2018

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...
• Student is a Biology major at start of fall term (in August). In October she changes her major to Psychology, then in November switches to Biopsychology, which is still her recorded major when the winter term census occurs in January. This would be counted as one change (from Biology in August to Biopsychology in January).
• If the same student had changed to Psychology in October, but back to Biology in November, no change would register at all, since her major would have been Biology in both the August and January censuses.
• If she changed from Biology to Psychology in October, but didn't re-enroll after that fall, no change would register, because there is no subsequent census record with which to compare.

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

2. For the purpose of counting changes, "Degree-seeking", "Non-degree", and "Honors College" are not counted as majors;
3. 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...
• Student changes from English to Writing;
• Student changes from English / Writing to English;
4. If a student adds a second (or third or fourth) major without dropping a previous one, it's tabulated here as a "New Major";
5. 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

	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18
Total	21028	20837	21186	21342	21571	21061
Changes per student
0	17701	17132	17836	18235	18606	18227
1	3085	3381	3036	2867	2720	2584
2	239	320	311	238	245	247
3	3	4	3	2		3
New majors per student
0	20030	19852	20080	20407	20697	20163
1	995	984	1105	933	873	898
2	3	1	1	2	1
Secondary admissions per student
0	20128	19793	20039	20259	20176	19686
1	900	1044	1147	1083	1395	1375
Changes	0.17	0.19	0.17	0.16	0.15	0.15
New Majors	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.04	0.04	0.04
Secondary Admissions	0.04	0.05	0.05	0.05	0.06	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 20% of the degree recipients had undergone a secondary admission process.

Transitions in major over undergraduate career, by graduating class

	2011-12	2012-13	2013-14	2014-15	2015-16	2016-17	2017-18
Total N	2485	2598	2362	2464	2566	2666	2874
Changes per graduate
0	1115	1186	1052	1133	1251	1239	1448
1	932	945	858	929	886	936	946
2	359	355	336	296	316	345	356
3	62	75	87	74	92	118	99
4	15	32	25	27	18	23	22
5	1	4	4	4	3	5	3
6	1	1	0	1
New Majors per graduate
0	2052	2026	1831	1892	1950	2042	2223
1	417	540	508	542	582	592	628
2	16	31	23	30	34	31	22
Secondary Admissions
0	2026	2135	1985	1977	2048	2073	2199
1	459	463	377	487	518	593	675
Averages
Changes	0.77	0.78	0.81	0.76	0.73	0.79	0.72
New Majors	0.18	0.23	0.23	0.24	0.25	0.25	0.23
Secondary Admissions	0.18	0.18	0.16	0.2	0.2	0.2	0.2