I note at 7406, Penn CAS alone had a higher undergraduate enrollment than all of Princeton, Harvard, Yale, or Duke. And you would further have to subtract from those totals their own engineering students, and anyone who was sort of Whartony.
Obviously YMMV, but to me this actually makes Penn CAS a great option for people into the sorts of things CAS does, but not so much the Whartony and Engineering stuff, and who want a somewhat larger community of like-minded students.
S24 is going to Williams and will be an economics probably math double major. We looked at the catalogs as I linked above and it does not appear that there are shortage of economics class spots. This is not a concern.
would like to delete my comment as I misunderstood the earlier point.
Wouldn’t worry too much about Bucknell
For a long time they had no undergraduate business school and now they do…so in some ways they are improved. Also engineering isn’t one major any more than liberal arts or business.
Bucknell has balance because it has all three - LAC, business, and engineering. It’s either one of the largest LACs or one of the smallest actual universities - take your pick.
If one was to use the percentage of econ majors at a school without a business major as an imperfect proxy for more business/fortune-minded students, I think that it would be more important to look at the percentage in relation to social sciences, as done here.
Using @Data10’s info, I’ve added a column to represent the percentage of social science majors who are economics majors and then sorted the schools from highest to lowest:
| School | % Econ Majors | % Social Science Majors | % of Soc.Sci. Majors who are Econ Majors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago | 31 | 40 | 77.5% |
| Swarthmore | 16 | 24 | 66.7% |
| CMC | 29 | 44 | 65.9% |
| Amherst | 15 | 23 | 65.2% |
| Williams | 18 | 29 | 62.1% |
| Navy | 15 | 26 | 57.7% |
| Lafayette | 17 | 32 | 53.1% |
| Hamilton | 16 | 32 | 50.0% |
| Middlebury | 15 | 32 | 46.9% |
| Trinity | 20 | 43 | 46.5% |
| Colgate | 16 | 37 | 43.2% |
| Holy Cross | 15 | 36 | 41.7% |
If concerned about having a pre-professional vibe at highly selective institutions, I would feel much more comfortable with schools where fewer than half of social science majors are econ majors, because the social sciences are such a huge umbrella. There’s history, political science, anthropology, sociology, frequently psychology, geography, all types of studies (ethnic, women, international, etc), and so on. And if econ is taking up more than half of that humongous umbrella, I think it can be telling about what the students are valuing.
So yes, Chicago has a unique place here with a good number of its econ majors going on to earn PhDs. But it is truly a world-renowned school for economics. Are the students at Swarthmore or CMC similarly going on for high numbers of PhDs? 20% of Trinity’s grads are econ majors, the third highest percentage of schools on this list. But because there are so many majors in other social science fields, I suspect that it would be less pre-professionally oriented than a ranking based on pure percentages would lead one to believe.
All of that said, there’s nothing wrong with pre-professionalism. But it can be a different ethos/vibe than some students are looking for, and if that’s the case, then I think looking at these percentages can be helpful.
So per this source:
Swarthmore had 18 Econ Phds in a five-year window, CMC 10, Chicago 70.
This compares to (per NCES) 58 primary majors for Swarthmore, 98 for CMC, 522 for Chicago.
The ratios (dividing the PhDs by five to make these both annual) are 6.2% for Swarthmore, 2.0% for CMC, 2.7% at Chicago.
This is confirming my sense Swarthmore is generally a top choice for academicky sorts, and CMC for an LAC is on the pre-professional end.
Indeed as a bonus, Pomona had 19 PhDs, 59 majors, so that is even higher than Swarthmore at 6.4%. But in this IB feeder list:
CMC was 7th per capita and Pomona I don’t think made the list.
So not entirely, I am sure, but this is confirming my sense that people interested in Econ for businessy purposes might more favor CMC, people for academicky purposes maybe Pomona.
I note Chicago Econ is very academicky for a university, but nothing like Swarthmore or Pomona. But that’s just a truism about these sorts of SLACs–they tend to be much more attractive to academicky kids.
Not sure that I understand your last statement based on your first statement & cited material. The University of Chicago offers a very intense academic experience.
According to data submitted by the schools to US News, the University of Chicago has the highest average SAT score among all colleges & universities:
#1) U Chicago–1545 average SAT score (about 84% submitted standardized test scores in the 2021-2022 admissions cycle; not sure about current or last year’s cycles.))
#16) Pomona College–1507 avg. SAT score (with 44% submitting during current admissions cycle and 53% submitting in prior cycle.)
#22) Swarthmore College–1495 avg. SAT score with 54% reporting.
I wonder how many of the Econ majors at some of these colleges (see @Data10 ‘s earlier post) are also majoring in another subject. My D is an Econ major at one of the SLAC on that list, but she has a double major in Theater Arts. (She jokes that one is to get a job and the other is for pure enjoyment 
) Her friend is doing a double in Econ and English, and someone in her lab group is doing a double in Econ and Gov. The college’s open curriculum means double majoring is easy and quite popular. So one could look at the college’s large number of Econ majors and wonder about the culture, but most students combine their interests and major in something else.
In some US government reporting, psychology is its own category separate from social sciences. Area, cultural, ethnic, gender, and group studies are also listed separately from social sciences, but has a much smaller enrollment overall.
From Bachelor's degrees conferred by postsecondary institutions, by field of study: Selected academic years, 1970-71 through 2021-22 , the number of 2021-2022 graduates:
| Major group | # graduates | % of total |
|---|---|---|
| Total | 2015035 | 100 |
| Area, ethnic, cultural, gender, group studies | 9462 | 0.47 |
| Psychology | 129609 | 6.4 |
| Social sciences and history | 151109 | 7.5 |
So it is not too surprising that economics is a large portion of “social sciences and history” at many schools.
By the way, I am not going to do all of them, but I wanted to toss in Williams (20 on the PhD list), Amherst (7), and Middlebury (8). Using the same method, that works out to Williams at 3.4%, Amherst 2.5%, Middlebury 1.7%.
So, Williams is a little more academicky in Econ than Chicago, Amherst around the same, Middlebury down more with CMC. None are close to Swarthmore or Pomona, but they are also respectively 12, 13, and 14 on the IB list . . . and Chicago is 11.
OK, so again, this is all pretty crude, but I think there is also a fundamental truth that colleges like Chicago, Williams, and Amherst are kinda in the middle of the academicky/businessy spectrum, CMC and Middlebury are getting more toward the businnessy end, and Swarthmore or Pomona are way toward the academicky end. Understanding there are no absolutes, but just in relative terms.
And to get back to the original question, is this bad? Good? I’d just say different. Different people like Econ for different reasons and different purposes. Other people are not interested in Econ. And however they feel about all that, there are going to be SLACs and universities that make more or less sense for them, and that is great.
I will note that Econ is considered a STEM major by the Feds (important for international students to have three years of OPT eligibility vs one for social science majors) and many colleges.
Semantics in a way, but definitely affects data that one might be looking at from Federal or college reports.
Many schools shifted their econ major so their int’l students could benefit:
Hamilton: https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/economics-stem-major-international-students
Trinity: STEM Designation - Economics
Middlebury: Studying STEM | Middlebury
U Washington: https://econ.washington.edu/stem-designation-ba-and-bs-economics
Columbia: Economics reclassified as STEM major, international students now eligible for 2-year work extension
The differences in economics course offerings at CMC and Pomona also give that impression.
Chicago does seem to be catering to more pre-professional students with their offering of specializations within the economics major: Business Economics Specialization | Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics
https://www.ice.gov/sites/default/files/documents/stem-list.pdf lists 45.0603 “econometrics and quantitative economics” as a STEM major. Other economics majors listed under 45.06… at CIP user site are not STEM majors. But the CIP code 45.0603 is still part of the 45… social sciences heading.
Presumably, colleges that want economics to be a STEM major need to require econometrics and sufficient math and statistics to be able to classify it as “econometrics and quantitative economics”.
https://www.aeaweb.org/conference/2023/program/powerpoint/by3dE895 gives some information on the trend of reclassifying economics majors to 45.0603 and differences in major requirements between 45.0603 and other economics majors. As of 2020, about a fifth of economics major programs were 45.0603, while most of the rest were 45.0601 “economics, general”.
Yes. But many schools have adjusted their curriculum (some didn’t need to) to make sure their general econ major qualifies for STEM and did the reclassification.
ETA: part of my point was that when looking at data and occupational reports and such, that econ might be in stem and not social sciences.
Are there many colleges that don’t require this for Econ majors? Econometrics, stats, and other math-based courses are fairly standard in the major regardless of the institution. It’s not as if the schools @Mwfan1921 listed as changing to a STEM designation didn’t already require those courses as part of their Econ major.
My D attends Williams and isn’t an econ major. Many students double major, often combining econ or math with a social science or humanties department. In fact, so many students double major that last year the sophomore dean sent an email encouraging parents to discourage their students from double majoring because they may not explore as many academic departments as they might if they only major in one department.
Another reason for the plethora of econ majors could be the large number of athletes on campus, many of whom do seem to major in econ. (Williams has 30 varsity teams.) I haven’t done a deep dive on this–just a hunch.
Our thought as to “why Williams” as a full pay family(and I am sure this is the case for other schools being discussed) is that the ROI is so high for finance, banking, consulting, etc that it is worth paying for an incredibly expensive school. They have an incredible reputation for post graduation outcomes in these fields that it makes sense to go to Williams. Many families would not pay full price for other majors, if my S24 was considering medicine, or law school, or teaching I don’t think we would pay for Williams
But one does not have to be an econ major to get a job in finance, banking or consulting. Even with good alum support for Williams students, getting a job in the most highly desired positions like IB and consulting is very competitive…and the competition isn’t limited to econ majors.
true, but as suggested above many students can double major and one would think that this is the best and easiest path, just like you can be a doctor and major in music but it is much easier to major in a life science.