Ian Segal '08 loved studying science at the Harvard-Westlake School, a prep school in Los Angeles. He took advanced classes in computer science, physics and calculus. He worked on artificial intelligence projects. And he dreamed of one day majoring in physics or computer science at a school like Princeton.
Then, during junior year, Segal's passion for the sciences began to fade.
"I just couldn't see myself doing this kind of very technical stuff in the long run," Segal said. "I somehow felt like I couldn't express myself by writing a program someone else had written."
Segal had always been interested in history, but in senior year he delved even further into the humanities. He took a creative writing class, and started writing poetry outside of school.
"I realized I would not be taking courses in quantum mechanics" at Princeton, Segal said.
Today, as a University freshman, he is considering a major in history. If he ultimately goes that route, Segal will conform to the pattern set by many prep-school graduates before him: choosing one of the University's five largest majors, and opting for the humanities over engineering and the sciences.
"I was doing advanced math, and that was fine," Segal said of his high school experience. "But there were also a lot of opportunities in history and English that I maybe wouldn't have had [at a public school]."
John Hodgson, dean of Forbes College, agreed that students' exposure to subjects in high school might affect their choice of majors at the University. "A public school student who has never taken Greek or Latin before may be less likely to choose Classics," Hodgson said.
The study
In a study of 32 prep schools and 32 public schools, The Daily Princetonian found that 54.6 percent of prep-school graduates concentrate in the five largest departments, compared to 43.1 percent of all University juniors and seniors, and only 37.7 percent of public school graduates.
The five most popular concentrations for the 2004-2005 academic year are, in decreasing order: politics, history, economics, the Wilson School and English.
The prep school group is also disproportionately represented in the humanities. 28.3 percent concentrate in architecture, art and archaeology, classics, comparative literature, English, music, philosophy or religion, compared to 16.3 percent of all students and only 12.3 percent of the public school group.
On the other hand, prep school alumni are relatively underrepresented in engineering. Only 6.5 percent concentrate in engineering, compared to 16.5 percent of undergraduates as a whole and 18.6 percent of the public school group.
The prep schools chosen for this study — including 15 boarding schools and 17 day schools — are private, offer financial aid, and are represented by a minimum of five alumni in at least three different classes at the University, totaling 464 University students.
For comparison, the 'Prince' selected 32 public schools that also send large numbers of students — currently 398 in total— to the University. The distribution of majors between these two groups was then compared to the distribution among the classes of 2005 and 2006 as a whole.
Time to explore
Many prep school graduates agreed that they tend to explore different subjects before they choose a major. They said this lack of early specialization, encouraged by the broad liberal arts education offered by many prep schools, might be the decisive factor in the major-choice discrepancy.
"Most [prep school graduates] who attend Ivy Leagues are looking for more of a liberal arts education," said Christopher O'Neil '06, a chemical engineering major and Hotchkiss School graduate. "Many of my friends who knew they wanted to do math and science went to Stanford or MIT."
Several prep school graduates said their tendency to explore a variety of subjects might make them less likely to major in the sciences, which often require an early commitment from students.
"I don't know a lot of students who weren't premeds or had a clear interest in science to begin with, but [ultimately] became an engineer or a science major," said Audrey Banks '07, a history major and Taft School graduate.
Historical divide
Though there is a clear discrepancy today between the majors chosen by prep school and public school graduates, Princeton has seen even greater differences in the past.
"The Invisible Preppies," an investigation by Landon Jones '66 of "the two cultures at Princeton," ran in the Jan. 25, 1966 edition of Princeton Alumni Weekly.
Jones wrote that two-thirds of English majors were prep school graduates. At the time, forty percent of University students had graduated from prep schools.
Prep school alumni were similarly overrepresented in history and Romance languages, underrepresented in mathematics and physics and almost completely absent in engineering.
Jones argued that the curricula and culture of prep schools helped to explain the discrepancies.
"Certainly, many private schools do not even pretend to turn out the scientists of tomorrow," Jones wrote. "Their emphasis is admittedly on the liberal arts."
Liberal arts appeal
Many prep school graduates who attend the University today said their choice of major was guided by the liberal arts ideal.
The structure of prep school curricula also discourages students from developing an expertise in science alone, Banks said.
She said that although prep school students must take college preparatory courses in math and science, they also must take rigorous courses in subjects like writing.
"Even if you have a great mind for numbers, you are still made to take the other courses," Banks. "You're not really allowed to completely specialize."
O'Neil agreed that the emphasis on a broad education prevents some students from deciding to major in the sciences and engineering, despite the high quality of math and science programs in prep schools.
"I actually had more opportunities to take math and science classes [than students at public schools might have had]," said O'Neil, who is considering attending medical school. "I got to take multivariable calculus and linear algebra at Hotchkiss."
"It's not that the math and science at [prep schools] isn't good," he added. "It's that many students take math and science, but they may also take Latin and Greek."
Segal, however, said he believes that liberal arts curricula place a higher value on the humanities than the sciences.
"The ideal of the liberal arts education and the public man may cause an unconscious bias against the sciences — that you're 'just' calculating something instead of engaging in ideas. A lot of people think it's easier to learn math from a book than to learn about history by reading a book on the Civil War."
Banks disagreed that such bias played a role in major choice. "There are stereotypes about [majors], but when it comes down to it, no one takes them seriously," Banks said.
Some students said the issue was not Princeton-specific, but unique to the Ivy League, because science-oriented students gravitate to non-Ivy schools like MIT, Caltech or Stanford.
"The main focus of a lot of Ivy Leagues isn't on math and science," O'Neil said. "That's already a filter."
Lurking variables
Factors other than the prep school education, such as students' socioeconomic backgrounds, may also influence major choice.
"A lot of prep school students come from families with strong traditions in law, investment banking, or politics," Segal said. "If they moved to a different [high] school, they'd probably still be on the same track."
The University administration has never analyzed the distribution of majors among prep school and public school graduates.
"Basically, I don't know the answer to your questions, but they are certainly interesting questions, and we hadn't focused on them before you presented your data," said Nancy Malkiel, dean of the college, in an email.
"I think one would want to understand a lot of things that I can't really speak to without more information." she added, "For example...the crosscutting effects of socioeconomic background."
Malkiel cited a 2003 study, which showed that 70 percent of students changed majors from when they applied to Princeton. "You can't recruit successfully by major. You can do your best to identify the most talented applicants who will bring the broadest range of abilities and interests to Princeton, but you just can't count on what they will study after they arrive."
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