Yes, it has to be credible. But many strong students are strong across all subjects, and can choose to highlight their interests selectively, or may sincerely not know want they wish to study. One of mine was admitted to Oxford for PPE and HYPSM for physics. She has diverse interests.
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Gotta pushback. NOBODY can successfully complete a philosophy major at Harvard without loving it. It is not the cakewalk that the “you have to major in CS or be premed because everything else is a gut course” crowd thinks it is.
What one does afterwards- that’s on the kid, not the college.
I was a Classics major and now have had a 35+ year career in corporate America. That doesn’t diminish the quality of the Classics department in any way; it reflects the reality that what you THINK you want to do with your life at age 17 may not be what still interests you at 25 (or 35 or 45, etc.)
I had the stack of applications to PhD programs sitting on my desk… and they got moved every time I moved in my 20’s (which was frequent) until one day- poof. I dumped them in the trash- completed essays and all- and never looked back.
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I don’t think anyone said philosophy was a cakewalk, only that applicants will be flocking to it and other underutilized humanities majors at Harvard based on this statement. I am a history major…I am not knocking the humanities.
In addition, at my alma mater, the philosophy department is comprised primarily of computer scientists who are focused on logic/computation, linguistics, etc. Humanities majors are not without hard skills.
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I believe they are basing this statement on the regression analysis. What the attorney calls “a major tip” is more on the level of a possible slight advantage that is near the borderline of statistical significance. Specific odds ratios are below for baseline (unhooked) and full controls.
CS Major – 1.6x increased chance of admission over social science
Humanities Major – 1.3x increased chance of admission over social science
Physics Major – 1.2x increased chance of admission over social science
Social Science / Engineering / Biology – Reference
Math Major – 1.1x decreased chance of admission below social science
Undecided / Unspecified – 3.4x decreased chance of admission below social science.
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Whoa!
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Are these numbers found in the simulation results?
Surprising considering CS is the second most popular major at Harvard.
I was basing the odds ratio on the regression analysis logit estimates in table B.7.1R, in the analysis at http://studentsfor.wpenginepowered.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-415-2-Arcidiacono-Rebuttal-Report.pdf . This is similar to comparing students with the same admission reader ratings, same stats, same hook status, same ethnicity/gender, same … and seeing if the admit rate differs between different planned concentrations listed in application.
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Thank you!