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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]AOs balance talents, not majors. [/quote]

Not always. AO’s look for kids that meet institutional goals. That could mean filling seats for certain majors. [/quote]

True, for schools that admit by major. For schools where one does not declare until the end of sophomore year and most of the students change their intention from the time they are admitted, seats are filled in less popular majors by distribution requirements. Curriculum planners carefully plan requirements to be sure all students take subjects in many different areas. My engineer at an ivy is taking a Roman history seminar in the fall. It is very popular among engineers and science majors because while it is a lot of reading and papers, the professor rates very highly for energized and interesting discussions. Sure some are majors in art history, but for others it is an elective that fills distributions.[/quote]

NP: you are correct about distribution requirements but filling seats/ number of majors needed to support a department is more complicated than you described. I am a chair of an oversubscribed major at a university that doesn’t admit by major. AOs do consider major when shaping the class as an institutional priority. I doubt my university is an outlier.

I know my university uses data modeling to predict number of majors in each department using some of the factors you mentioned. My department cannot support a significant increase in majors (>10%) because we don’t have the labor or space. My colleagues in undersubscribed departments need a minimum number of majors even though  these departments offer several gen ed distribution classes. This alone cannot support salaries for TT and full time faculty. I don’t have time to go into the weeds but depts do not get the same amount of tuition per seat for non-majors vs majors. I am friends with a chair at an Ivy and another T20 and their budget is structured the same way. [/quote]

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