What are the underenrolled majors at Yale? Is this information available anywhere? Any information would be greatly appreciated.
I don’t think it will do anything for admissions, if that’s what you’re targeting. What you’ll find is that a lot of the niche majors (mostly in the humanities) are so niche that few students can gauge whether they’re passionate about them until they’ve taken a few courses. There are also some majors that have a low number of students, but the faculty fall within an existing department or across departments, so they’re not concerned about numbers because they have those students anyway.
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Yale does not recruit by major. All student’s apply to Yale as Liberal Arts Majors, and choose a major during their sophomore year. So, whatever students select as their “intended major” on the Common Application has absolutely no bearing on their chances.
The reason is that more than 60% of US college students switch majors during their 4 years of school, so it’s impossible for an Admissions Office to use an applicant’s “intended major” as a recruiting tool, as most students will graduate with a major that is different from the one they wrote down on the Common Application.
Colleges ask about your “intended major” to see how committed you are to your interests – the idea being that your commitment, energy and drive is a transferrable skill. So whatever student’s write down as their “intended major” they should make sure they have documented evidence in the rest of their application of their commitment to that major.
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Even if you think you found that “under-enrolled” major, it is unlikely that there is any meaningful difference in overall standards applied to candidates that express an interest in that major. As an interviewer, the only times I have written negative reviews have been when the candidate had an interest in an off main stream field (other than contact info and high school, the only thing Yale interviewers get is field of interest if one was provided in the application), and during the course of the interview, it was pretty obvious the candidate had only superficial knowledge of the topic and no substance to back up the interest by way of EC’s or independent study. Interviewers don’t have access to transcripts, scores, essays, LoR’s or full EC lists. Your admissions officer will, and if your stated interest is dissonant to the record you have established, I think there is a high likelihood your file gets sent to the reject pile pretty quickly.
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I would suggest one exception to @gibby 's comment that: “Yale does not recruit by major. All student’s apply to Yale as Liberal Arts Majors, and choose a major during their sophomore year. So, whatever students select as their “intended major” on the Common Application has absolutely no bearing on their chances.”
Yale does make a special effort to recruit what they see as the 100 top HS seniors who are intended STEM majors, paying to fly them out to Yale, and issuing “likely” letters assuring them of acceptance months before the regular decision date. The program is called YES-W, and the event has the feel of an RSI/Intel/Siemens/Science Olympiad reunion weekend with a significant portion of the participants having met before at one or more of the most prestigious national level programs for STEM kids.
Yale uses the program to “poach” top STEM kids from schools like MIT, Harvard and Stanford.
^^ @tdy123: Yale used to court STEM interested seniors early by having YES-W in February prior to the RD decision date, however Yale changed all of that last year: http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2016/11/18/admissions-office-changes-recruitment-program/
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@gibby that is true. In 2017 they switched the visit from February to a pre-BullDog days weekend, but they still call with invites in late January (followed up with written likely letters in early February), and still use the program to woo top STEM prospects away from MHS. Though it wasn’t mentioned, I suspect the changes last year were impacted by the class expansion. With the larger incoming freshman class, and the addition of Bulldog Saturday, I think the admissions office might have been concerned with, for want of a better term, “host” fatigue, among the staff and students involved in the welcome programs. Be interesting to see what they come up with this year.
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They may not admit to particular majors, but I agree prep is a factor. The all stem kid, say, a male, who claims an interest in Latin, to use the need for men in the dept, sure better have something to back that up. These may be subtleties, but matter. The top colleges have more than enough truly qualified applicants to cherry pick.
I agree with @tdy123 that Yale has been seeking out STEM applicants. If you have a strong STEM background, your chances of getting an admission offer from Yale, especially in the early cycle, are very good. I have seen many strong kids with humanities interests being deferred/rejected, while accepting strong STEM applicants. While Yale is an amazing school, especially for an undergrad, Yale is not the first/top choice for someone with STEM interests.
FWIW: The OP’s original question (see post #1) was about underenrolled majors. I think we can all agree that STEM is NOT an underenrolled major.
To @lookingforward’s point, @BKSquared’s point (and mine in post #2), an applicant MUST HAVE shown some interest – be it after school or during the summer – in whatever they list as an “intended major.” Doing otherwise – claiming an interest in Latin, or STEM – without documented evidence of their investigation of that interest is a red flag in the admissions process.
Maybe I’m reading the OP’s question wrong, but they seemed to be looking for a way to “game” the system – and there isn’t one.
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@gibby All I am saying is that Yale is interested in more STEM students. The benefit of it is more resources from Yale to STEM students.
Edit: Here is some good data…Degrees Awarded by Major:
https://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/w014_degs_yc_0.pdf
As an interviewer, it hadn’t even occurred to me that a 17yo should have more than the most passing, tenuous, interest in their intended major, much less that anyone would have documented evidence of their commitment to it! By the time I got to Yale, I didn’t take a single course in the intended major I’d put down on my application; I’d picked it because I’d liked my high school class in the subject. Nor in the obscure under-enrolled major to which I actually had documented evidence of a commitment.
As I say to my own kid, “you’ve got 80 more years to decide what you want to do when you grow up; you don’t have to know now.”
For me personally, I wouldn’t ding a kid for thinking that picking an unpopular major would give them an edge (IMHO it doesn’t), any more than I’d ding them for taking 4 years of a language they disliked thinking it would give them an edge (IMHO it does).
There are kids who first experience some dept only once they’re in college, then t take off in that direction. But the competition for an admit is such that you can’t blindly guess. Something has to connect the dots for what you do show interest in. It’s not always about the actual path a kid will take, but how he thinks.
When you look at the number of grads in a major, a low number doesn’t mean profs have nothing to do. That’s just the number graduating in, say, Modern Mid East Studies. The dept the track falls within can have other kids in allied studies and plenty not majoring but taking classes out of simple interest or related to other majors.
OP, are you now at Yale?
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There is a difference between a candidate that genuinely has varied interests and has not been laser locked in say wanting to be a doctor since the age of 10 vs. one that is obviously trying to game the system. In fact, more often than not, the strongest candidates have a healthy degree of curiosity and interest in a number of areas. The reason I ding’d the kids was not because they were trying to game the system, but because when we talked about a field that they had identified as being an area of interest, they failed miserably in demonstrating “intellectual strength and energy” in the topic, and when you stutter or ramble through a topic because you really are not familiar with it, it puts into question your “expressive abilities”. The admissions officers that I have talked to have consistently said that the candidates who are successful among the many thousands who are academically qualified are the ones that tell a convincing story of who they are and how they will make the most of Yale and how they will contribute to Yale. To paraphrase a recent discussion, “We know who this kid is, all the pieces add up”.
I am not sure how someone, even the admissions officers, can say an applicant is trying to game the system. Where does it say people can’t have different interests than what they pursued in the past. Most of the high school students don’t even think about college, major or career until they actually start working on the college applications. When you have 500:1 students to counselor ratio at public high schools, there is a little or no guidance. @allyphoe is right on…these are 17-18 year olds. Doesn’t majority of students change their major after going to a college? Unfortunately it puts too much burden on the unfortunate among us (e.g. low income, first gen).
@fivesages, I don’t think anyone is being penalized for having new interests; the issue is misrepresenting your interests. DS lasted as a Physics major for 5 nanoseconds after getting to Yale, but it wasn’t a misrepresentation, as could be plainly seen by his summer internship, his coursework, his AP tests, etc. Had he tried to claim that he was interested in French Literature, the AOs would rightfully have scoffed.
The extra difficulties faced by first gen is why that’s a hook. Fwiw, DS had great counselors in HS, but his intended major or his academic interests weren’t a topic with anyone other than his friends (and one science teacher).
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Again, it’s not about changing majors, but how you worked toward the interests you claim to have. (The app is like a snapshot of your choices and efforts, to-date.) You can’t just say you have a passion for French Lit, but never pursued it. (Or rather, can’t expect adcoms to be impressed.)
There are some kids in STEM magnets who didn’t have much leeway in humanities courses or activities, but want that path. But you can still expect them to have something that reflects a true interest, maybe it’s the outside activities, in addition to focusing on the humanities courses that are available.
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Yeah, “failed miserably at demonstrating intellectual strength and energy” is an entirely different class of issue than merely listing an intended major without sufficient proof of interest in the topic. 
I see my primary interviewer task as getting that “who you are and how you’ll take advantage / contribute” story out of the applicant and into my report. My least favorite reports are the applicants with great stories and tremendous potential to get and give to the community, but who obviously don’t love Yale even a little bit.
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Based on the first applicants appearing in my alumni interview portal it appears that admissions is no longer telling interviewers about any intended major listed. I applaud this since kids do wonder what to write and others think they can game the system. Maybe this says that this info is now relegated to lower importance. It is often hard for an intellectually curious kid to choose a major after 3-4 semesters of college. No one expects a 17 year old to do so and I might argue that a kid so laser focused at that age may not be a great prospect as the college looks to admit students who will utilize the breadth of its resources. FWIW, my kid applied as “undecided” and that didn’t hurt a bit even though my perspective tells me 98-99% do list a prospective major. I certainly didn’t encourage anything different even though there was enough “spikyness” (my new favorite CC word) to easily support otherwise.
It seems to me, as @YaleGradandDad mentioned, that Yale is beginning to prefer students with less definite plans for their majors and careers. I spoke to my counselor about a Yale AO’s presentation at a conference, and he told me that the AO stated that students with focused plans for their future aren’t as competitive.