Ah, I was thinking of a different sort of mini MBA program, but it sounds like a similar point about technological efficiencies applies.
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Those CEOs also got an MBA at a time when many employers were willing to pay their employees’ tuition and hold their job for 2 years; very rare now.
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I expect the difference in major concentration at Williams reflects the different study body SLACs have as they outreach to FGLI, Pell, Questbridge. Students receiving financial aid choose different majors, as a group, than those not on such aid.
Law school admission is primarily a function of stats + demographics (in particular URM status). Name of undergrad institution usually has tremendously less influence, making a “feeder” list unmeaningful, beyond being a measure of selectivity of undergrad college + % of students applying. This is even more true for LACs due to the especially small sample size of law school applicants. That said, I’m not surprised to see highly selective LACs, where I’d expect high LSAT scores to be common, appear towards the top of the list.
I’m not sure law school is an especially common destination for Williams econ majors. I didn’t see a list of outcomes by major for Williams, but one for Swarthmore is at https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/user_profiles/jpark5/2021%20Post%20Grad%20Plans%20by%20Major.pdf . The most common first destinations / job titles for econ grads in this multi-year sample appear to be as follows. Analyst at a finance company is by far the most common outcome. It’s possible a good portion pursue a law degree after first working as an analyst, but I wouldn’t assume that to be the case.
First Destinations for Econ Majors at Swarthmore
1 . Analyst – 57 students
2. Research Associate/Assistant – 13 students
3. Engineer – 6 students
4. Consultant – 5 students
…
*. MD – 2 students (Stanford and Rochester)
*. JD – 2 students (Oregon and Richmond)
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Yes, in this context I was only mentioning it for that last purpose, as an indicator of what Williams or other SLAC students might want to do next, and not as an indication of their independent value-added.
But as an aside–I don’t quite agree college choice is irrelevant to law school ambitions, but it is a more subtle thing than simply getting extra credit for the name on your college sweatshirt.
Some of the avenues where it might matter include advising, and possibly work experiences during and even more so after college that might be a secondary consideration in law school admissions. For that matter, additional degrees between college and law school are also a potential consideration for top law schools.
Another potentially big thing is what I think of as the margin for error issue. While top law schools do not necessarily go a lot deeper into these classes, they may be a little more generous, which means you may not need quite the same relative academic qualifications. Moreover, many people find what they thought they might be best at in college is not what they are actually best at, and colleges like Williams will make it relatively easy to change your academic course and focus on what you are best at. And again the advising can help you chart those paths.
Finally, just getting admitted to a top law school is not the end, it is just the beginning. You actually then typically want to do as well as possible to maximize your options, and of course everyone at your top law school also got admitted to your law school! So I think not enough people think in terms of actually developing into the sort of student who will be prepared to immediately do really well in a top law school, as opposed to just getting admitted to one.
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I remember reading this in a SLAC’s deep-dive into athletics on campus - that athletes tended to concentrate in particular majors much more than non-athletes, and that chief among those was economics.
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I expect you are thinking of the Place of Athletics at Amherst report. It mentions 21-22% of athletes major in economics compared to 12% of non-athletes. It also states the disparity was especially large in the more popular revenue-earning sports. 1/3 of econ majors at the college played football, men’s basketball, baseball, or lacrosse.
A similar type of pattern occurs at other colleges, but not necessarily as extreme. For example, the Harvard class of 2025 freshman survey found 37% of recruited athletes were interested in majoring in econ compared to 11% of non-athletes…
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A hunch I share with you based on my own perceptions.
It seemed to be the case at Wesleyan during my D’s time there. She used to remark about it. Especially the helmet sports (LX and football).
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Having said that, it says something about the academic capabilities of the athletes admitted to these schools. Far from a “rocks for jocks” course of study, economics is a robust and rigorous undergraduate major.
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What majors at these colleges would you consider to be “rocks for jocks” type of majors?
I’m not sure. Maybe none.
Then again, my own point of reference was attending a flagship that ran a major sports program. There was no lacrosse then. But based on my time as a tutor in the EEOP center, where I worked with many athletes, I’m fairly confident in my recollection that the men’s football and basketball teams were not overrun with econ majors.
There were courses at the university that were notoriously easy and described frequently as rocks for jocks. They varied by subject matter, but, again, I don’t recall either intro econ course among them.
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The difficulty of actual geosciences courses may depend on where and when they were taken. This is the formula for biotite: K(Mg,Fe2+)3[AlSi3O10(lOH,F)2. In a sophmore-level mineralogy course, students were tested on their recall of 80 or so of such formulae. Neophytes may want to begin with quartz (silcon dioxide, SiO2).
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“Rocks for jocks” courses, where offered, would be easy courses for non-majors looking for general education requirements, not courses for geology majors. “Physics for poets” would be another course of this type.
Building a major out of these courses would not generally be possible.
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Which majors were the most common?
Based on looking at one D1 FBS school’s rosters, it looked like various social science majors with many in-major electives were popular – perhaps due to ease of finding class times that fit with athletes’ practice and game times.
Don’t forget “Stars for Stoners” 
Princeton’s newspaper once did a review of what majors had the highest percentage athletes. The top 3 were Geosciences, Politics, and Economics; in that order. I suspect the high % Geosciences relates to a small sample size, but it’s an interesting coincidence that it aligns with “rocks for jocks.” Princeton athletes were generally overrepresented in social sciences majors and underrepresented in natural sciences, engineering, and humanities.
Stanford forms a largely different pattern, perhaps due to a combination of generally having higher level Div I sports, being further away from the influence of Wall Street “elite” finance, and having different major offerings. At Stanford, the significant sample size majors in which athletes have had the highest degree of overrepresentation in 2022 were as follows. This fits with my personal experience as well. Many of the Hum Bio athletes are premed.
1 . Human Biology – 0.39 (most popular major for female athletes, few males)
2. Science, Technology, and Society - 0.33
3. Management Sciences & Engineering – 0.27 (most popular major for male athletes, few females)
…
*. Economics – 0.16
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You’re testing my memory. This was a looooong time ago. I vaguely recall a lot of ethnic studies majors (which can focus on AA studies, Asian-Pacific studies, Chicano studies, etc.), sociology, communications, speech … things like that. I recall a few FB players majoring in sociology who needed help getting through the required stats class, and then anything involving writing a paper would often be tutor supported as well. I think things have evolved somewhat, but back then athletic admissions were shockingly forgiving. Not long before I was an undergraduate, it had been revealed that Dexter Manley was found to be functionally illiterate and could not read, but still played football at Oklahoma State. The stories from that time are endless. I don’t think that happens anymore, but the NCAA minimum standards are still very low.
Another major that can be popular for athletes where I went to school is Construction Management, which I don’t think is quite the cakewalk it may seem to be to this crowd. I don’t recall ever tutoring any of those student-athletes, but I may have and didn’t know it.
I remember these as well, and not just for athletes but for anyone looking to pad their GPAs. There was an astronomy for liberal arts majors class that turned out to be harder than people bargained for, and I think the same was true for the equivalent physics course. Classes I remember people taking for an easy 4.0 included intro classes in Swahili and Art History, and a sexuality-related class in the Women’s Studies department. There were several others. Drama 101 wasn’t hard either. Some of these classes were absolute jokes, others involved some work but you’d get the grade if you made the effort.
And of course it’s important to point out that there were plenty of athletes, and yes even on the football team, who were good students and could hold their own. At UW back in my time, I took classes with guys like Mark Brunell, Orlando McKay, James Clifford, Dave Hoffman and several others who were great players and, from what I could tell, capable students. Then there were other people who would make you scratch your head wondering how they’d ever remain eligible (and some did not).
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/eligibility_center/Student_Resources/DI_ReqsFactSheet.pdf lists the NCAA D1 minimum academic standards. However, some colleges admit any student (not necessarily an athlete) who meets these standards. For example: Non-Resident Requirements | Office of Admissions and Scholarships
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I wonder when D1 eligibility become test optional. I recall that when I was in college, I think the minimum was an ACT of 13 or 14 or similar. I think there may have been an article about how the team’s quarterback had to take the ACT a few times to get a sufficiently high enough grade. (Actually, it turns out he had to redshirt his first year as a partial academic qualifier…for anyone who knows more details about this stuff than me). But he has gone on to earn millions upon millions of dollars, far more than I will ever earn in my lifetime. Top standardized test scores are not required for a financially successful life.
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The NCAA website has some basic information on most common athlete majors, but only uses broad major categories like social sciences, rather than breaking down to the level of economics. Across all NCAA athletes, the most common major categories for Div I athletes were as follows. Ratios are compared to male non-athletes. There is no information on Div III.
This does fit with the general pattern noted earlier for Div III NESAC schools, with social sciences majors being more overrepresented in popular sports like football and basketball than overall, but the degree of overrepresentation is much less than occurs at the NESAC colleges mentioned earlier in this thread, including Williams.
Football
1 . Multidisciplinary -3.3x ratio
2 . Fitness & Recreation – 2.7x ratio
3. Communication – 2.75x ratio
4. Social Sciences – 1.5x ratio
5. Humanities – 1.3x ratio
…
*. STEM – 0.2x ratio
Men’s Basketballl
1 . Communication – 3.5x ratio
2. Multidisciplinary -3.0x ratio
3 . Fitness & Recreation – 2.0x ratio
4. Humanities – 2.0x ratio
5. Psychology – 1.7x ratio
6. Social Sciences – 1.3x ratio
…
*. STEM – 0.1x ratio
Men’s Non-Revenue
1 . Fitness & Recreation – 1.7x ratio
2 . Business – 1.7x ratio
3. Communication – 1.5x ratio
4. Psychology – 1.3x ratio
5. Social Sciences – 1.1x ratio
…
*. STEM – 0.5x ratio
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