<p>Small sample size from one non-profit organization does not the basis for a sweeping generalization make…but:</p>
<p>I was talking to D the other day and she had realized that all four of the Research Assistants at her outfit had double majors: Goverment/Math, History/Math, History/Econ, Government/Statistics. Some of the interns they’ve hired have the same profile. Assuming you count Econ as a quantitative major, all four have quant major paired with something that presumably gave them strong writing skills. (And considering that D can burble at length about the writing styles and editing styles of the different RA’s—they cross-edit each other’s work—I’m reasonably certain that all would be regarded as strong writers albeit with different strengths.)</p>
<p>Anyway, I thought the consistent quant-writing combo was interesting.</p>
<p>quant/writing? I see quant/humanities or quant/social policy or quant/social studies. Writing skills are developed in the process of learning history and government at any reasonably decent school, but if employers are looking for writing skills as such, they would be looking for English majors, I suspect. (And they might be; perhaps English and quant are a rare combination).</p>
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<p>And yes, economics is a quantitative field. According to the econ. profs I know (and I know a lot of them), analytical skills are the first requirement, and most of the students with good analytical skills have good math skills.</p>
<p>I think your observation points out that ‘well-rounded’ is attractive to many employers, even if some of the admissions offices of some super-selective universities currently don’t agree.</p>
<p>“I think your observation points out that ‘well-rounded’ is attractive to many employers, even if some of the admissions offices of some super-selective universities currently don’t agree.”</p>
<p>Admissions offices at super selective colleges select some well rounded students, they just aren’t looking for students who forced themselves to be well rounded to try to look good to top colleges.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, students at super selective colleges tend to be in general very attractive to prospective employers despite the fact that those schools don’t market themselves as vocational factories.</p>