<p>"Those very high on the list also include many schools with large ethnic diversity, including Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Swarthmore, etc. I actually think you might find a correlation between PhD production and schools with an aggressive commitment to ethnic diversity."</p>
<p>Relative to other schools, elite schools aren't diverse. Period. Schools where 40-60% of the school's students come from the top 5% of the U.S. population in income just ain't. Of course, if you want to tease out the percentage of low-income Hispanics and Black students at Princeton, Swarthmore, Yale, etc. who go on to earn Ph.D.'s, be my guest.</p>
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mit is for sure ethnically diverse, but also has a huge frat presence and a problem w/binge drinking
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<p>Not by any statistical measure. I would be willing to bet that MIT's surveyed binge drinking rate is below the national average.</p>
<p>A minute later:</p>
<p>Oops. I was wrong. The first MIT survey that popped up in Google shows that MIT's binge drinking rate (using Wechsler's methodology) was not "below average" but well below average: 23% at MIT versus 44% nationally. That's the lowest surveyed rate I've run across. Not surprising, given MIT's urban location and extremely high Asian-American enrollment.</p>
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Relative to other schools, elite schools aren't diverse. Period.
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<p>That's true. I doubt that per capita production of PhDs or per capita production of Wall Street investment bankers or USNEWs rankings, or median SAT scores or any of a thousand other datasets would be of much interest to students choosing between their two local community colleges.</p>
<p>Conversely, there doesn't seem to be a great deal of interest in comparing community colleges in this particular forum.</p>
<p>The sample size low-income Pell Grant-receiving Hispanic and African-American students at Swarthmore is what, 2% of the student body, if that? So what you are saying simplify confirms what I suggested - that Ph.d. productivity may simply be a product of self-selecting demographics. </p>
<p>I have no idea why you believe that highly intelligent female students or low-income, first-generation college students - including those who attend prestige colleges, and a very large proportion at Swarthmore - and who disproportionately choose social work, advanced nursing, or teaching as careers are of no interest to this particular forum.</p>
<p>I don't understand this policy from Swarthmore. Does this still exist?</p>
<p>"Fri., Apr. 6, Yale announced that it would reimburse students for financial aid lost under the Drug Free Student Aid Amendment to the Higher Education Act, which withholds federal funding from students convicted of drug offenses.</p>
<p>Despite intense media coverage following Yale's recent decision, Yale is in fact the fourth college to adopt a financial aid policy that negates the effects of the controversial amendment. Hampshire College, Western Washington University, and Swarthmore College have all taken similar action." Deputy Director of Public Affairs Thomas Conroy said, "The important thing was to inform Yale students of the policy, which was why it was announced to the student press."</p>
<p>"But ultimately, the University's policy change is perhaps less groundbreaking than the media has suggested. Only drug users or buyers will receive protection under the new policy. Those who sell drugs, however, will still have their federal aid suspended.</p>
<p>The students who are eligible for protection under Yale's policy will be required to attend a rehabilitation program at University Health Services. In addition, because the federal government retroactively reimburses students after they attend a drug treatment program, Yale will eventually recoup its loss.</p>
<p>In contrast, Swarthmore's program reimburses both drug buyers and sellers and does not require these students to attend any kind of treatment program."</p>
<p>Why not? If they are sellers and still out on the street their offense could not have been great. There is more chance of producing productive citizens this way. I knew several students who sold small amounts of drugs back in the day, one is now a federal judge (conservative republican), others are all successful. I think Swarthmore is betting the kids they help out (who have what it takes to attend) will turn out likewise.</p>
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If it's Top 20, then, you'd argue that the "prevailing" culture is one slanted towards PhDs? I don't see that, not when three times as many students got J.D.s, etc.
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<p>Hoedown, I don't believe that schools the size of Stanford or Harvard have a "prevailing" culture in the same way that LAC's do. I think you have to look at these schools as a collection of different (often very different) subcultures. Harvard is certainly that way.</p>
<p>Also, in an ideal statistical world, I would prefer that it were possible to sum future MDs and future PhDs -- particularly future science PhDs. I think these two groups include exactly the same students to a very large degree. Especially at the top schools where a big chunk of the pre-meds are headed to research-oriented med schools. It seems rather apparent that pre-meds and engineering students are generally academically-engaged, if only out of necessity.</p>
<p>As for Williams: historically, it has been considered one of the most academically rigorous and "engaged" schools in the country. The athletics emphasis in admissions is a very recent development (starting in the 1980s, as far as I can tell) and not something that would have any impact on historic data. Colleges are like ocean liners. They turn very slowly.</p>
<p>It's not yet clear whether Williams' academic focus will change over time, although 25% of next year's seniors choosing to major in the Economics department is off-the-charts (double the highest previous levels) and indicates that there is some shifting. Williams does specifically identify and tag potential future-PhD and science-research students in the admissions process to ensure a sufficient cohort (and probably as a bone to the faculty). I assume that most elite colleges do the same thing.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Williams does specifically identify and tag potential future-PhD and science-research students in the admissions process to ensure a sufficient cohort (and probably as a bone to the faculty). I assume that most elite colleges do the same thing.
[/QUOTE]
I've never heard of this before. My son may have been so tagged. But once he had visited Williams (after being admitted there), he concluded that even though Williams had an excellent reputation for its academic quality, both the jockiness of the place and its isolation were not a good fit for him.</p>
<p>But, again, let's look at the prevailing culture argument, even at Swat. I'm sure that, among female and low-income students, they produce more future social workers and teachers than Ph.Ds. And I don't think that's a bad thing. But we don't talk about the social work or high school teaching culture, but rather about the subculture of predominantly higher income, overwhelming white (and, historically, more male - though that is changing) students who head off for Ph.Ds. It provides for a very distorted picture, though it may be one the school likes to embrace, even as it works against a commitment to a higher level of diversity.</p>
<p>
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I have no idea why you believe that highly intelligent female students or low-income, first-generation college students - including those who attend prestige colleges, and a very large proportion at Swarthmore - and who disproportionately choose social work, advanced nursing, or teaching as careers are of no interest to this particular forum.
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</p>
<p>I have no idea where you got the idea that I believe that. I've certainly not said it. I did say that there is little to no interest in community college admissions on the College Confidential forums. That's simply an empirical observation.</p>
<p>Personally, I've very interested in seeing the numbers you come up with for those fields, too! As you know, Swarthmore is one of the LACs that has an education department and has a particular emphasis in the area of urban education.</p>
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I don't understand this policy from Swarthmore. Does this still exist?
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</p>
<p>This is kind of straying off topic, but to answer your question, yes the policy still exists.</p>
<p>To understand it, you have to understand that Swarthmore has historically taken a politically conservative stance on issues of government mandates. It is a matter of principle.</p>
<p>The first example came during the 1950s, when Senator McCarthy passed federal regulations requiring students to sign anti-communist loyalty oaths in order to receive federal student aid. Swarthmore's Board of Managers believed that it was wrong of the federal government to dictate students' political beliefs, so they voted to withdraw from the federal aid program entirely and replaced those dollars with school funds. They remained out of the federal aid program until the McCarthy provisions were repealed during the Kennedy administration.</p>
<p>A second example of the same principled policy occurred when registering for the draft was a requirement for federal aid dollars.</p>
<p>The current policy is consistent with that long-standing philosophy.</p>
<p>As a practical matter, you have to be enrolled at Swarthmore to receive Swarthmore financial aid. The student who was charged with a drug offense last fall was not enrolled at Swarthmore the following semester.</p>
<p>As a second practical matter, only a small percentage of Swarthmore's financial aid is federal funded. The average aid package for financial aid students is $27,421. The average Swarthmore funded part of that is $21,426. The difference includes the federal aid, federal work study, federal loans, and scholarships from outside sources.</p>
<p>"Monydad, face it. Cornell just isn't an intellectual place. </p>
<p>Aren't you glad you discovered CC? You didn't know you were living with such a delusion. "</p>
<p>Cornell will obviously show up someplace- just much further down than it should be IMO. Which can distort the perceptions of students applying to only highly selective colleges and who are trying to draw distinctions. They may easily come to fallacious conclusions/ distinctions due to some of the subtleties underlying the construction of this list, as I have described.</p>
<p>Besides, Cornell is just one example I happen to know something about. I'm sure there are schools that don't show up anyplace on the list precisely because of their other special-mission schools. Maybe NYU is not such a bad place for a budding history scholar to study; I don't know. Is Tisch School of the Arts and the Stern School of business all lumped into the data for NYU? I don't even know all the discrepancies that are present up and down the list, for reasons of this sort. I just know they are there, based on the schools I do know about.</p>
<p>Monydad, maybe people that like bigger schools should just focus on post 11.</p>
<p>From post 11...</p>
<p>OK, here's the top 200 for the most recent 10 year period. The first number is the total undergrads who went on to get a PhD or equivalent. The second number is the total number of undergrad degrees granted by each school over the 10 year period.</p>
<p>1 University of California-Berkeley 4,470 *** 56,363
2 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor 3,134 *** 53,612
3 Cornell University, All Campuses 3,033 *** 33,736
4 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 2,931 *** 61,136
5 University of Wisconsin-Madison 2,667 *** 58,176
6 University of Texas at Austin 2,613 *** 73,365
7 Harvard University 2,545 *** 17,855
8 Pennsylvania State U, Main Campus 2,519 *** 79,507
9 University of California-Los Angeles 2,454 *** 54,970
10 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2,078 *** 11,348</p>
<p>Or maybe, we should use rankings based on public perception.
I bet the big schools would do pretty well.</p>
<p>Looks like a good list to me. The only school I would have qualms about would be Penn State, but that's because I've seen its lofty spot on another list (binge drinking rates).</p>
<p>Let's just stick to basketball rankings, period. Who really gives a hoot about academics and intellectual cultures and aspiring PhD's anyway? </p>
<p>P.S. That way, my kid's school would be ranked pretty high...and some of the more intellectual schools might not even make the "top 100"...:) :) :)</p>
<p>In fact, one of the best things we parents could probably do instead of debating lists ad infinitum would be to post a sticky thread that contains nothing but every possible list anyone is willing to invest the time to come up with. Endowment, per student endowment, enrollment, grad rates, median SATs, BCS rankings, minority percentages, Pell Grant percentages, financial aid percentages, percentages of majors in departments, and so on and so forth.</p>
<p>If we promised to post no commentary whatsoever, it would be a tremendously useful statistical resource for potential applicants and their helicopter parents to use as they see fit.</p>
<p>One more thing: I don't understand these binge drinking surveys. Are the surveys actually conducted when the students and /or survey takers are inebriated or sober? How do you know????</p>
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If we promised to post no commentary whatsoever, it would be a tremendously useful statistical resource for potential applicants and their helicopter parents to use as they see fit.
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</p>
<p>No comments? I'd like to see that. </p>
<p>From what I can see, there are some CC posters that glom onto any rankings that make "their" school look good--and will go out of their way to discredit rankings which aren't favorable. Find me a study that shows students from Institution X eat more of onion rings per capita than most, and we'd get this: </p>
<p>"It just goes to show you that ____ students are down-to-earth. No false snobbery here, despite their excellent academic credentials. They are willing to embrace and enjoy even the most mundane of foods, the most pedestrian of fried treats. Not to say that the food is bad--their dining halls are excellent. Furthermore, I think it's an encouraging sign that these students aren't hung up on the body-image concerns that plague so many young people. Not afraid of the grease, these kids aren't--they're a lot more self-actualized. Finally, I think it shows that they're distinctive--most students do the easy thing and get french fries with a burger. ___ students are a little different."</p>
<p>Some people would spin anything--even onion ring consumption--into a valuable and discerning endorsement of institutional quality.</p>