While the most popular majors at Boston College are—for the fifth straight year—communication, with 953 undergraduates, and English, with 814, the number of students in various majors preparing for medical, dental, or veterinary school is now 1,231 and accounts for nearly 14 percent of BC’s total 9,019 undergraduates. This represents a 37 percent increase over students planning for those careers five years ago. Other popular majors are political science (801), finance (760), biology (650), and history (627).

The history department’s tally—up from 451 five years ago—is at a 25-year high, a mark also achieved by the departments of philosophy (with 282 majors) and German studies (26). History Chair Alan Rogers attributes his department’s gains to a growing appreciation that “in columnist Thomas Friedman’s words, ‘the world is flat.’” The department, he says, has “globalized [its] core” and drawn students to electives on “American foreign policy, India, Japan, China, Latin America, Africa, and Middle Eastern and Islamic studies.”

Within the Carroll School of Management, 760 finance majors account for 38 percent of undergraduate enrollment. They are followed by marketing majors (396) and accounting majors (328). The most popular majors in the Lynch School of Education are human development (315) and elementary education (243).

The trend toward declaring a minor has accelerated since 1995, when 333 undergraduates declared minors in 17 areas of study. Last fall, 1,409 students declared minors in 72 areas. In the College of Arts & Sciences, the most popular minors are international studies (136), history (132), and Hispanic studies (99).

The fall 2005 enrollment figures include 5,908 undergraduates in A&S, 2,000 in the Carroll School, 753 in the Lynch School, and 358 in the Connell School of Nursing. Forty-nine states (South Dakota unaccounted for) are represented. International students total 163.