For several reasons:
- As noted above (see the entry on How are applications evaluated?), we are interested in ensuring that your overall course plan has a central theme, a good mix of breadth and depth, an acceptable number of higher-level challenging courses, etc. This means that individual courses can only ever be considered in the context of your overall schedule.
- Also in this vein, some borderline courses may count for some students but not others, depending on their overall course themes, and perhaps also their pre-arranged commitment to write their final paper on a topic related to cognitive science.
- Some courses may only count for the major when they are taught in certain ways, or with certain curricula – since their content can differ considerable from year to year or from professor to professor.