A very minute change regarding my major....

[ColonelKurtz]

I was planning on student teaching and graduating with a high school teaching certificate in May 2013.  Due to a miscommunication with my department of education, my prior Tuberculosis test was expired and I missed the deadline for a new one therefore postponing my student teaching till Fall 2013.  I have a competitive application and have applied to 15 schools already.  Given this I am going to just go ahead and graduate with a vanilla History degree rather than a History-Education degree and turn my Sociology minor into a Bachelors, and if i don't get into grad school I will just student teach next fall.  But... on my CV and transcripts it shows that I am a History Social Sciences education major.  Should I inform my schools about this change? Or should I just let it be? 

 

If i do get accepted into a PH.D program this spring I will definitely be more than happy to take that offer and skip out on the teaching certificate, it was more of a worst case scenario decision anyway.  The only thing I want to know is if I shoul contact all 15 departments to tell them about this change on my transcripts.  I don't want to look like a liar when my transcripts and CV state I will be graduating with a slightly different degree than I put down, plus I will have a double major in Sociology rather than just a minor so that might help me.

 

Sorry for the ramble, it was a disheartening day to say the least, don't want this affecting my grad school plans in a negative way.

 

 

[magicunicorn]

No need to contact them.  They are probably swamped at the moment -- at the time of turning in your application, everything was 100% honest and factual given the best information you had.  There isn't an obligation to let them know of the changes you mention until you get in.  At that point, I would talk to the office graduate admissions coordinator on your visit to the program to explain the discrepancy - and to see if that would affect your offer.  Trying to fix and correct everything right now for something that seems to be just a slight change in your major and a job/TA thing, doesn't seem to be that big of a deal.  I would of course suggest differently if you either were not going to graduate and get a BA degree this June, or if something serious came up, like you were being kicked out/suspended from school due to cheating/criminal conduct.  In that case, I think you would have to consider telling schools, knowing that it would sink your apps.  I doubt your admissions are going to hinge though on what you have mentioned above.