@BiffBrown : I don’t know, and it really doesn’t matter. It never matters to employers or graduate schools who will look mostly at practical experiences (like research or internships) and reference letters to figure out a student’s area of interest anyway. Such additional concentrations or even degrees in things like physics or chemistry seem more like marketing tools to me (basically they know a prospective or transfer student will go: “I am looking for schools that offer this niche degree” even though in reality the difference between the niche degree and the department hosting it often is irrelevant. Again, most biochemistry degrees are often less rigorous versions of chemistry degrees that allow students to add a smattering of associated biology courses. With no research experience in biochemistry or without several upper division teaching labs in that specific area, which is unlikely at most private schools, this type of degree would not differentiate much from a chemistry degree and, in fact, a chemistry major may have an advantage getting a job as the biochemistry is essentially what most chemistry BAs end up doing anyway. They dodge some of the tough chemistry courses and major in something like biology or NBB as well. However I am down for Emory playing games like this as its competitors do it). Technically students can create their own area of focus via a major, but breaking them down in such a way lays out a specific set of courses that will help them do so (basically shows off that some courses exist). Looks like all of this is primarily a result of students (prospective and current) who like to be told what they can do and what courses would help them get a background in X.
Chemistry has substantially more majors than physics so should not have to offer actual degrees in whatever areas, but may choose to. Physics likely did the split into all of those as a marketing took to insiders (as they struggle to both attract and keep majors). Chemistry could be attempting to build higher enrollment in that 205 course and some of the key electives. Admittedly if something like biochemistry attracts more students to take courses past 204, the enrollment of such courses will be more steady and there may also be legit reasons to offer even more electives. Currently, there are few enough BS students that if more than 2 electives are offered per semester, then one may not do well enrollment wise. I also TAed several of the students who actually started begging for concentrations (mainly a biochem concentration) before they seriously started developing the new curriculum (we are talking back in 2013-2014 here) and they were primarily doing it because they were the types who went above and beyond and took related graduate division chemistry and biology courses and wanted recognition of this extra work on top of being a) a BA/BS double major plus research or b) being a chem BS that went the extra mile with focused outside and inside upper division and often graduate level work plus research. It didn’t really have the idea that you should be able to take a basic combo of chemistry and biology courses and then call it a biochemistry major. They were quite serious students.