The full quote is:
…majoring in the humanities, which is a major tip that Harvard gives because of Harvard’s recent inability to matriculate excellent students who want to major in the humanities…
From the Harvard attorney, at around 1:11.20 of the Supreme Court oral argument.
They are going to have 100k “Philosophy” majors next year.
And Diogenes can put out his lamp! (not…)
Where is it in the oral argument? I am not finding it at the point you mentioned:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/audio/2022/20-1199
It starts at 1 hour 11 minutes 9 seconds of the recording, and lasts about 10 seconds
I tried to find it (at that point, both backwards and forwards ) and gave up, so I am listening to it the whole way through. 
I also downloaded the transcript to search it.
It’s so interesting…I want to read it in the broader context.
I found it in the transcript. Whew!
Who, if admitted, mostly switch to economics after enrolling?
Or computer science. They need to be able to pay for their own kids to attend Harvard in 30 years.
Since most do not take the required courses, they cannot make this transfer.
They do, however, finish their philosophy degree, and then go and get a job in the tech or finance sectors. sometimes after doing some retraining.
However, if their focus was on Logic, it is not a large leap from that to mathematical logic. A person with an understanding of formal logic can do pretty well in all sorts of tech fields.
Alternatively, they can get a high paying corporate job through family connections, and will pay for their kids’ education with that and with the generational wealth that they will inherit.
I wonder, though, what they will say in 30 years when their kid says “Mom, Dad, I want to major in philosophy”.
It never occurred to me that the timestamp might be different for different sources. D’oh!
Anyway, it’s around 1:11.20 for the c-span stream. (Apparently I can’t post url’s.)
I hope this will put to lie claims that the major doesn’t matter for Harvard.
It was at the top of page 76 for on the transcript posted by the Court, too.
I feel better that it was at least two different recordings, and it wasn’t me just missing the timestamp somehow. Full disclosure, though, I did miss the comment the first time I listened to the full recording.
Why should we be surprised? These colleges obfuscate the issues around admissions more often than not.
Harvard would be happy if the students actually graduated in philosophy, regardless of what they do afterwards, as that would keep that faculty busy and the department lively. The fact that only 22 did so last year in philosophy ( and comparable numbers in other hum majors) suggests that most change majors.
And even the ones who don’t change majors often end up in finance and consulting jobs.
Exactly. Banking and consulting firms hire students with STEM, humanities, and social science majors. For some of these jobs, ‘light’ business majors at schools they are offered (such as business admin, or marketing, etc) are less than competitive.
Never believed it. A comprehensive university needs to feed students to its faculty and departments to help keep them going. We’ve read for years that it’s better to be bassoon player than a violinist as the orchestra tries to address its risks. The same principle can apply to academic departments.
It’s interesting how these priorities shift, though. It appears Harvard needs more humanities majors. Meanwhile, Yale is sending likely letters to kids they assume will become CS majors.
I always viewed this as part of building a class. No school wants to become mono major. I didn’t read/listen to the transcript. However, I can definitely see where a student with lower grades/test scores gets accepted because they have some other demonstrated trait that shows that they may have a high aptitude/interest in a certain subject. I think that that would look like a “tip” in admissions due to major. However, that doesn’t mean that someone just changing the prospective major will change their admissions results. They may not have the other characteristics.
And that too benefits the University. Then it can say … our philosophy grads are employed at high paying jobs. The handful of kids that really love philosophy can go on and get PhDs and come back to teach, thereby completing the circle.