Top 16 Milers in NCAA D1 and their respective majors

Jonathan Davis is majoring in history. Probably not an athletic major.

Stanford’s Grant Fisher and Sean McGorty are both enginerering majors and will unleash excellent 1500m or mile times this year. Sean has run 3:53 indoors. Grant recently anchored his schools DRM record running a 3:55 1600 m split. Both of these guys, along with Prakel at Oregon, counter balance your list.

History is an easier major

Social work? Geography? These are not legitimate majors.

100m wrote:

Social work? Geography? These are not legitimate majors.

I work as a social worker; why is it not a major? Most quality social work positions actually call for a masters degree. Social workers work all over the place...court houses, schools, hospitals, counseling offices to name a few...

disagree about social work. but yeah geography????

My rank based on major and school:

1) Ben Saarel...............Colorado.................Engineering Physics/Computer Science

Tough double major at a school with a good Physics rep.

2) Neil Gourley.............Virginia Tech............Mechanical Engineering

Tough major at a strong technical school.

3) Vincent Ciattei..........Virginia Tech............Engineering Sciences & Mechanics

Tough major at a strong technical school (presuming this is a more general version of Mechanical Engineering?)

4) Sam Prakel...............Oregon...................Biochemistry

Tough major at Oregon Klown Kollege.

5) Amos Bartelsmeyer........Georgetown...............Master's in Finance

Moderately difficult program at a well-reputed business school.

6) Diego Leon...............Montana State............Mathematics

Math is one of the toughest majors conceptually, but Montana State does not have a good reputation. Also could be a teaching option which would be less conceptual and easier.

7)Zach Perrin..............Colorado.................Integrative Physiology

8) Josh Kerr................New Mexico...............Exercise Science

9) Patrick Joseph...........Virginia Tech............Geography

10) Jonathan Davis...........Illinois.................History

11) Justyn Knight............Syracuse.................Social Work

12) Jonah Koech..............UTEP.....................Therapy

13) Carlos Villarreal........Arizona..................Criminal Justice

the statistic I really want to know is how many top sub-elites work in shoe stores because it seems to be a cliche

I don't get quite why either, it doesn't give you any more insight or savings on the shoes these days compared to the internet, research and discount codes

and thinking your shoe salesperson knows about shoes is like going to radio shack and thinking their sales people somehow know about computers or electronics - the people that hire them really do not care, they just want someone who is going to reliably show up when scheduled to work and not steal from them

so your argument for a shoe store not hiring people who know about shoes is that you think a person is dumb for thinking that the person they are buying shoes from knows about shoes?

Where on Earth are you getting Saarel's GPA down to the third decimal point...?

That being said, I have no idea why you question Oregon's curriculum in comparison to some of the other schools on there. Of the students you listed, Gourley, Ciattei, and Bartelsmeyer come respectively from Virginia Tech and Georgetown, which are respectable.

Saarel is at Colorado, and Leon is at Montana State. I assume you have not studied at all 3 institutions, so you do not actually have a personal method of measure to compare them. Going solely by ranking, "Oregon Klown Kollege" is currently 103, while Colorado is 90, and Montana State is 200+. If Oregon's curriculum is supposedly a joke, then Colorado's is nearly as bad, and Montana's is likely far worse.

For those who claim that ranking isn't everything, I agree. Unfortunately, given that no one person has sat and evaluated the curriculum of every school in question, I doubt there's a better measure. If you have one, I'm happy to hear it.

The admission standards are quite different at various colleges but they are all hiring professors from the same national pool so I think it really comes down to the major. The toughest admission standard colleges have high graduation rates while the low standard colleges have low graduation rates so again I think the difficulty is relatively equal once you get there. Most of the dumb kids end up dropping out or switching majors to social work.

A couple of points.

First, while I cannot back this up with statistics, this strikes me as a tougher set of majors than you would get if you picked 16 random students at most non-engineering school college campuses.

Second, let's break these down into groups. Really, there is only one head scratcher of a major here in terms of career preparation, and that is the geography major. Who knows, why he picked that major, and who knows what his plans are. A few other majors seem to have potentially limited earnings potential, but are solid options as careers nonetheless.

- 3 of 16 have majors oriented around physiology or physical therapy. Nothing wrong with becoming a coach or a physical therapist.

3:54.72.....Josh Kerr................New Mexico...............Exercise Science

3:

55.81@....Jona

h Koech..............UTEP.....................Therapy

3:

57.28@....Zach

Perrin..............Colorado.................Integrative Physiology

- One non-specific liberal arts major. He could decide to become a high school teacher, a lawyer or go on to grad school for an advanced degree. No shame here.

3:55.46#....Jonathan Davis...........Illinois.................History

- I will put these two together because they fit into the same "prepare for a specific career which provides a community service." The Crim Justice major may become a law enforcement office, a paralegal or a lawyer. Either way, we need people doing these important jobs.

3:55.82.....Justyn Knight............Syracuse.................Social Work

3:57.64.....Carlos Villarreal........Arizona..................Criminal Justice

- Hard science majors. These guys are going to do just fine. Enough said.

3:56.56#....Vincent Ciattei..........Virginia Tech............Engineering Sciences & Mechanics

3:56.89.....Sam Prakel...............Oregon...................Biochemistry

3:57.19#....Neil Gourley.............Virginia Tech............Mechanical Engineering

3:57.37#@...Diego Leon...............Montana State............Mathematics

3:

57.46@....Ben

Saarel...............Colorado.................Engineering Physics/Computer Science

- Masters in Finance from a top private school in the country, with deep roots and connections? He may have the highest earning potential of the group.

3:57.53.....Amos Bartelsmeyer........Georgetown...............Master's in Finance

- I have nothing on a geography major.

3:56.58#....Patrick Joseph...........Virginia Tech............Geography

- Doesn't quite seem fair to criticize an unknown.

3:

55.95@....Kase

y Knevelbaard........Southern Utah............**UNLISTED**

3:

56.85@....Cole

Rockhold............Colorado St..............**UNLISTED**

3:57.23.....Reed Brown...............Oregon...................**UNLISTED**

Couldn't just sit here and let the label of my entire college career be disrespected... I study Geospatial information systems with a minor in sustainable environments. I'm sorry I didn't fall into the cookie cutter engineer or physiology major of an athlete.

PatrickJosephTheGeographymajor wrote:

Couldn't just sit here and let the label of my entire college career be disrespected... I study Geospatial information systems with a minor in sustainable environments. I'm sorry I didn't fall into the cookie cutter engineer or physiology major of an athlete.

Yep!! Thanks for standing up for yourself and geography and geosciences in general.

I have a degree in Geography and GIS, and am now working as a researcher at the USGS. It's quite legitimate.

I honestly did not mean to disparage that major. I honestly meant that I don't know what to make of it or what the reasoning was behind it, and thus it was a head scratcher of me. I tried to make that clear by my comment that I didn't know why he chose it - as in he may have had a good reason, but it is not one that is as readily apparent as the others.

Cookie cutter athlete engineer? Colleges have hundreds of female athletes. I guess you are not considering them because almost none are majoring in engineering. Look at most football and basketball rosters and you don’t see many there either. Maybe you are just talking about distance runners who are normally some of the smartest athletes.

Very undiverse list. No Women's or Gender Studies. We need to petition for this event to be cut from the track program.

Predictor wrote:

Cookie cutter athlete engineer? Colleges have hundreds of female athletes. I guess you are not considering them because almost none are majoring in engineering. Look at most football and basketball rosters and you don’t see many there either. Maybe you are just talking about distance runners who are normally some of the smartest athletes.

To be fair this post is really only comparing D1 male distance runners

Social Worker wrote:

100m wrote:

Social work? Geography? These are not legitimate majors.

I work as a social worker; why is it not a major? Most quality social work positions actually call for a masters degree. Social workers work all over the place...court houses, schools, hospitals, counseling offices to name a few...

I actually think social workers serve a vital function, but it should not be an undergraduate major. Social work should be a graduate-only degree, just as there should be no such major as ‘pre-med.’