There was a recent thread about the high rate of economics majors at Williams and other selective LACs, which made me curious about the overall major distribution at highly selective colleges. I captured some numbers from the most recent available year in IPEDS. I am computing as total number of students who completed that major across all colleges, divided by total number of students across all colleges. The 25 “of the most selective” private colleges are all colleges with <10% admit rate – Ivy+, some highly selective LACs, Northwestern, JHU, etc.
The major distribution is quite different. Some of the fields with the largest differences include nursing, business, and economics.
Most Common Major Categories at All 4-Year Colleges in US
Nursing / Health Professions – 12%
Business – 8.5%
Biology – 6.8%
Psychology – 6.7%
Engineering – 6.4%
CS & Related – 5.4%
Education – 4.5%
Visual/Performing Arts – 4.5%
Interdisciplinary – 2.7%
Finance – 2.3%
Most Common Major Categories at 25 of the Most Selective Private Colleges
Are they really different? Few of the top 25 offer business, nursing or education majors, and econ is often seen as a substitute for the business/finance major offered at most other 4 year colleges. Most of the lists are a lot of overlap
In short, they are indeed different. One of the things that makes them different is typical highly selective private colleges not offering the vocationally focused fields you listed, which likely relates to a combination of limited demand for those fields and a traditional emphasis on a liberal arts education over a vocationally focused education. Most, but not all, of the other fields have large percentage differences. For example, 5x more pursue math/stats, 4x more pursue political science and physical sciences, etc.
So about 15% of the top 25 class majors in things not that popular at most colleges. ( polsci, math, natural sci).
Even more top kids major in compsci and engineering, which seem “vocationally focused”, as you state, tho pre-professsional might be more accurate. The econ kids representing 10% of the top 25 schools mirror the business/finance kids elsewhere, also about 10%, and few of either group will be pursing an academic phd in either field.
The usual subjects are popular at both-psych, bio, even interdisciplinary and arts.
It is true that there are few nursing or education majors at elite schools, but some do become teachers, at least, from there. Overall, fewer differences than I expected.
To your point, I think sometimes it gets a little lost how as soon as you filter down to, say, people who actually graduate from a four-year non-profit college, that is already a selective subgroup of the broader college population (which also includes the overlapping groups of two-year college students, students at for-profit colleges, and students who start but never finish college).
And then within that already select subgroup, you can obviously find all sorts of specialist or semi-specialist colleges of some sort (including some that get onto “top” colleges list, particularly the tech specialists).
But if you filter those out and look just at the people actually graduating from generalist, four-year, non-profit colleges–things start looking pretty similar at many such colleges.
This all leads me to a point I was suggesting about SLACs in the prior conversation, which is that I believe SLACs, despite not being a particularly large part of the college market overall, are also the part of the college market in which we can see the most variety.
For example, you have cases like Olin, where the ONLY majors are engineering. And then lots of SLACs with no engineering at all. And actually really very few where there are only some engineering majors, which is characteristic of a lot more colleges at universities.
Anyway, my point is large groupings of non-profit four-year generalist colleges logically should have at least broadly similar graduating majors. But then individual colleges can be more focused in some areas than others, and some actually totally specialized, and that (I believe) is even more apparent in SLACs than in colleges at universities.
The 4 majors I listed in my “example”, were not an extensive list of all majors with differences in enrollment, nor are the 10 majors listed in the original post a full list of all majors. Other majors with differences include the following. Again this is not a complete list.
Economics – 7x larger enrollment
Area Studies – 6x larger enrollment
Philosophy & Religious studies – 4x larger enrollment
History – 4x larger enrollment
Foreign Language – 4x larger enrollment
Even more top kids major in compsci and engineering, which seem “vocationally focused”, as you state, tho pre-professsional might be more accurate.
Note a pattern in the majors listed above. The ones with a smaller enrollment are more vocationally focused, while the ones with a larger enrollment are more liberal arts focused. This fits with the traditional emphasis discussed in my earlier post. The CS boom in recent years does not fit with this “traditional” emphasis (technically some might say CS is a liberal arts major). There are a variety of reasons why this “tradition” has been changing. I think one of the biggest drivers is changes in job outlook and expected post grad salary. New CS grads working in SV may have total comp over $200k, with a greater rate of such starting salaries than any other major (with no further degrees). This changes the demand from students, and highly selective colleges have been reacting to that change in demand. Some of the less popular traditional liberal arts fields have been decreasing enrollment for similar reasons.
The usual subjects are popular at both-psych, bio, even interdisciplinary and arts.
My post said, “Most, but not all, of the other fields have large percentage differences.” There are indeed a minority of majors that have a similar percentage. Biology is a good example, which is a unique major in that a large portion hope to pursue a medical degree, rather than apply their biology degree directly after graduation. Being a doctor checks a variety of boxes including being very high salary , clear vocational path via med school, and being a well known position that typical students are familiar with and have been exposed to. I am not surprised to see that biology is popular in both groups of colleges.
The percentages in the first post are computed as total number of students in the major across all colleges, so colleges with a larger number of students (Cornell, Penn) get higher weight and colleges with a smaller number of students (Caltech, Pomona) get less weight. Instead giving all colleges the same weight by computing the average percent of students pursuing the major, the totals change to the following. I’m surprised by how much business increased. There are many small colleges with a high % business, including a good portion where the majority of students major in the business grouping.
Most Common Major Categories at All 4-Year Colleges in US (with >= 100 graduating students)
Business – 27%
Nursing / Health Professions – 15%
Biology – 6.6%
Psychology – 6.5%
Education – 5.7%
Visual/Performing Arts – 5.4%
CS & Related – 4.0%
Engineering – 3.8%
Fitness/Kinesiology – 3.4%
Criminal Justice / Law Enforcement – 3.2%
Most Common Major Categories at 25 of the Most Selective Private Colleges
CS & Related-- 12%
Biology – 11%
Economics – 11%
Engineering – 10%
Math / Stats – 5.6%
Political Science – 5.5%
Physical Sciences – 5.1%
Psychology – 4.2%
Visual/Performing Arts – 4.0%
Interdisciplinary – 4.0%
Sample of Majors with Largest Differences at Most Selective Colleges
Criminal Justice / Law Enforcement – 0 majors at most selective, top 10 at all colleges
Accounting – 1500x smaller
Business – 100x smaller
Religious Vocations/Theology – 100x smaller
Marketing – 30x smaller
Nursing / Health Professions – 12x smaller
Fitness / Kinesiology – 10x smaller
Education – 8x smaller
Economics – 9x larger
Area Studies – 8x larger
Math / Stats – 6x larger
Physical Sciences – 5x larger
Political Science – 4x larger
Foreign Languages – 4x larger
CS & Related – 3x larger
Still don’t understand what point you are trying to make here-smarter kids at elites often major in different things that academically average kids at the vast majority of average colleges, which encompasses a whole lot of mediocre places offering phys ed and criminal justice majors. Yes, true. It appears likely those phys ed majors were both not a good academic fit for, and uninterested in, a history or philosophy major, for example.
Lots of more average students major in nursing at average schools, many of whom perhaps would not be suited for being a successful premed/doctor, the way that the very top students at elite schools do. Also true.
Kids at the top 25 schools are not representative of the majority of US college students in academic ability, motivation, class, wealth or many other factors. Their majors reflect that.
Your chart is incorrect regarding Northwestern University; economics is the largest major–Visual/Performing Arts is among the smallest majors by degrees granted. Perhaps you are confusing Communications and related majors with Visual/Performing Arts which is one major within the School of Communications.
It probably satisfies some people’s curiosities about popularity of majors at the colleges focused on here versus all colleges in general.
It is a reminder that the colleges focused on here are not necessarily representative of all colleges in general, even though some posters write posts with the assumption that they are representative of all colleges in general.
Nursing is usually significantly more selective (either on frosh admission or secondary admission, or both) than the college it is hosted at. A more likely reason that nursing is more common at colleges in general is that it is more accessible in terms of the money and time cost of education compared to medicine (nursing = 4 years with undergraduate cost and financial aid, medicine = 4 years undergraduate + 4 years of expensive medical school + 3-7 years of residency).
Many students who study nursing are not doing so because it is a backup to doing premed, nursing is now often better compensated and offers a better lifestyle than many specialties. It’s also a calling for many and it’s insulting to insinuate that those who do nursing aren’t smart enough to study pre med. Not to mention that most of the kids who claim to be pre med don’t even make it to medical school.
Many don’t make it to medical school because they find other careers/degrees that are more aligned with their interests. It is not always because they are not competitive med school applicants.
I understand that, I just think people shouldn’t automatically assume that being pre med makes kids more elite than a student who is studying nursing or economics. So many people just seem to want to say it as some sort of ridiculous flex about how their child is smarter than someone else’s.
So do I. Nursing is an excellent profession for many reasons, and is appealing to many for those reasons.
It is also a more accessible health profession than trying to become a doctor. Not all pursue it for that reason, but in reality some do.
It is a vital profession important to promote for public policy, so it makes sense most public universities should offer it for their states. Same with teacher certification. Also of interest to those private universities focused on service as their mission, such as some Catholic schools.
I have no idea why some think it is intrinsically better to study polisci rather than nursing or business. I certainly do not, and clearly most college grads agree.
There are plenty of smart/brilliant nurses. And there are plenty of “I made it through med school but I’m a lousy doctor” although the profession’s ability to police itself and get rid of the dumb, incompetent ones is pretty lax.
But I don’t think it does much for the profession of nursing to insist (as many do on CC and IRL) that “it’s much harder or just as hard to get into a BSN program as it is to get into med school”. The statistical admissions rate at various programs doesn’t change reality on the ground- the bar is lower to become a nurse, and if a kid really wants to become a nurse, they can probably find a program somewhere somehow which will accept them. Not direct admit- but eventually they will find a program. And that is not the case for doctors- hence the marginal programs in the Caribbean which is the “Hail Mary Pass” of college grads who have exhausted their rejections in the USA.
It diminishes the professionalism of nursing to bang the drum on this. Yes, there are MD’s and the medical establishment who are working overtime to limit the scope of practice of PA’s and NP’s and for many of them it’s a financial issue-- limit access any way they can. But for some there are fact-based reasons (which have nothing to do with how smart someone is, and EVERYTHING to do with how rigorous their training was, how long their apprenticeship period is, how demanding their licensing exams are, etc.) why nursing is nursing and being a doctor is being a doctor, and blurring the lines may help rural areas with poor access to primary care and may help underserved populations with routine healthcare-- but that doesn’t make a smart and hard-working and dedicated nurse a physician.
I’m hearing a lot of this as Match Day approaches. The parents of the nurses who are already working and earning a nice paycheck gloating that “it’s just as hard to become a nurse as it is a doctor”, while they watch their friends kids who are fourth year med students waiting for the privilege of MORE years of training and no sleep and no work/life balance and a relatively modest paycheck.
At least, in this discussion, I haven’t seen anyone claim that it’s harder to get into nursing school than medical school. I was replying to the comment that smarter students go to elite schools to study premed and average students go to average schools to study nursing. Also, it’s wrong to assume that students who do nursing can’t make it in premed. I have a daughter who goes to a very good private school and is top of her class, but she would rather be a nurse than study premed because she feels it is her calling.
I agree that the path to becoming a nurse is easier than the path to becoming a physician.
However…there are plenty of nurses, PTs, PAs etc out there who would have been competitive med school applicants had they chosen that route. Some people assume they chose their career because they would not get into med school, and that is not always true.