Bostonian's last post was on 12/30/19. I also hopes he (she?) comes back and gives us an update re the son's final decision.

Harvard has another interesting set of questions on their application, in addition to what Bostonian wrote. It asks for intended major, which is common, and then asks three questions about *how certain* the applicant is about the intended major, career, and listed activities.

The Harvard lawsuit revealed a couple of things about this. First, that students with specified majors were more likely to be admitted than those that came in "undecided". Second, that as people would expect, that Harvard has soft quotas for each intended major. For regular decision, stating a desire to join an under-subscribed program (e.g. Classics), coupled with a demonstrated background in that can help admission chances.