I found a document, published in 1983 by George Pierson, of almost every conceivable piece of data Yale might have tracked from 1701 until 1976. His reasons for selecting Yale, vs any other college to study, are described below. I decided to study their top ~5 majors over the time for which data was included, supplementing the document with two additional sources for data post 1976.
It was interesting to see the consistency of History, English, and Economics as popular majors from 1902-2002. This changed in the 2022 data, however, as English fell off the top 5 list for the first time and history fell below the top 3 for the first time. Obviously, computer science and cell biology were not options for majors back in the early 20th century, but now they are in the top 5 majors at Yale. Physics is a major being cut at many universities today, but back in 1962 it was one of Yale’s most popular majors. Interesting, this was around the time when Yale’s School of Engineering was transitioning to become only a department so there might be some relationship there. Latin, German, Chemistry, and Math were four of the most popular majors at Yale in 1902 and they never again appeared after that. I wonder if the popularity of the economics major and its rise to the #1 major at Yale today has something to do with the fact that Yale does not have a School of Business.
Why Yale and Yale Alone?
Deep Thoughts on Higher Ed 