[needle]

I'm pretty sure the former department head of the STS program is a frequent poster on another Stanford fan board (maybe this one too, for all I know).

The concept described in the article is commonly referred to as "clustering."

Here's a quick read on how common it is/was at other schools:

About a third of all football, men's and women's basketball, baseball and softball teams at the 142 colleges examined had at least 25 percent of their juniors and seniors in the same major field of study, and on more than half of those teams -- 125 of 235 -- at least 40 percent of the upperclassmen were in the same major.
A few examples: Twenty-two, or 58 percent, of the junior and senior football players at the University of Southern California in 2007 majored in sociology, representing one-fifth of all junior and senior sociology majors at USC. Sixteen of 25 junior and senior football players at Vanderbilt University majored in human and organizational development, and 31 of 41 football players at the University of Michigan majored in general studies.   

EDIT (had wrong link earlier): https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/11/20/cluster

There *might* be some data or discussion on this topic in Stanford's NCAA self-study from I guess five years ago, but I don't think the university has published that document online.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/april...42209.html

[needle]

I'm pretty sure the former department head of the STS program is a frequent poster on another Stanford fan board (maybe this one too, for all I know).

The concept described in the article is commonly referred to as "clustering."

Here's a quick read on how common it is/was at other schools:

About a third of all football, men's and women's basketball, baseball and softball teams at the 142 colleges examined had at least 25 percent of their juniors and seniors in the same major field of study, and on more than half of those teams -- 125 of 235 -- at least 40 percent of the upperclassmen were in the same major.
A few examples: Twenty-two, or 58 percent, of the junior and senior football players at the University of Southern California in 2007 majored in sociology, representing one-fifth of all junior and senior sociology majors at USC. Sixteen of 25 junior and senior football players at Vanderbilt University majored in human and organizational development, and 31 of 41 football players at the University of Michigan majored in general studies.   

EDIT (had wrong link earlier): https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/11/20/cluster

There *might* be some data or discussion on this topic in Stanford's NCAA self-study from I guess five years ago, but I don't think the university has published that document online.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/april...42209.html