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Also, for the life of me I can't understand why the studies don't add in % for people getting terminal degrees in other areas (MD, JD, DDS, whatever).
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<p>It's pretty easy to understand. Thanks to the National Science Foundation's continuous research project since the 1920s, the data is available for PhDs and equivalent degrees. </p>
<p>The data for MDs and Law degrees is not publicly available. I've never seen any indication that it is even tracked on a nationwide basis.</p>
<p>BTW, for the most part, the schools with very high rates of PhD production also have very high rates of MD and Law degree production. MBAs are a bit more variable.</p>
<p>For example, 33 Swarthmore grads were accepted to medical school in 2004. That is nearly 10% of a typical graduating class, in addition to the 21% of a typical class that go on to get a PhD or equivalent academic degree. I can't confirm it from a national database, but I'm guessing that 10% of all graduates from a school going on to medical school is a very high number.</p>
<p>Finally, I find this list particularly useful in identifying some schools with somewhat less selective admissions criteria that are clearly doing something right academically.</p>
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<p>I think there is some merit to what InterestedDad is saying, and I also agree that we may be comparing apples to oranges by lumping all types of schools together, so I took the liberty of doing a bit of sorting. Sorry, but I used the percentages, not the raw numbers. If someone else feels compulsive, they can sort the raw numbers list. </p>
<p>Anyhow, dividing things into "LACs" "Doctoral granting Research U's" and "Tech schools" (Some may think this should just go into Research U's, but I think there is some sense in sorting them out to compare, as someone said, apples to apples), here are the top 5 tech schools, and top 20 LACs and Research U's for PHd production -- the reason it is good to see them laid out this way is that it shows that there are MANY options for students who think they may want a doctorate in the future, and that it is fine to pick a TYPE of school based on fit, rather than thinking - as many do - that ONLY a research U will work. Additionally, this gives MORE parents and students a chance to say they or their children go to a school that is a <em>top</em> producer of PhD's. :)</p>
<p>Tech Schools:
1. Cal Tech 35.8%
2. MIT 18.3
3. New Mexico Institute of Mining 7.8%
4. RPI 7.2
5. Rose Hulman 5.4</p>
<p>My math and statistics skills are beyond rusty, so perhaps others with sharper brains can fill me in on the answer to this question:</p>
<p>Is it correct or incorrect to say that a student who goes to a school with let's say a 20% phD production rate has a greater chance of going on to get a doctorate than one who goes to a school with a 10% pHD rate? </p>
<p>If so, then perhaps that is a truer value statement about these sorts of lists lies, not in saying that school A is more intellectual or effective than school B because school just because A has more students who go on for their doctorates.</p>
<p>One more thought: it does help to consider the SIZE of the school when you're looking at the percentages. An extra student or two each year going on to get a doctorate at a school that has 1100 students can make a huge difference in their percentage rate of production over ten years, whereas you probably need 50 or 100 students to make much difference at a school with an undergrad population topping 30,000.</p>
<p>The only quibble is that Harvey Mudd should be in the Tech School category. It is really not a liberal arts college in any conventional sense. It is a pure undergrad science and engineering school the same as CalTech, probably even less broadbased than MIT. Basically 100% of Mudders major in math, science, or engineering.</p>
<p>I'm not sure that is true, Cur, although it may depend on where the statistic is coming from because sometimes it is hard to read between the lines. According to US News, for example, the entry for Johns Hopkins reads "42% of students pursue graduate study within one year of graduation, 80% within five years...Fields in which students pursue graduate study include...medicine 28%" I used to think that meant that 28% of each graduating class went on to medical school, but when I thought about it, I realized that it may mean 28% of the 80% who go on to graduate school go to medical school, a less impressive percentage. (That gives me an enormous headache just saying it so I am not even going to attempt to compute it!) Similar situation with other published reports of percentages going on to medical school, including, sometimes, the percentage reported by schools themselves, which is why I always suggest asking about the actual NUMBER going on to medical school each year, so you can be sure you are talking about the right percentage for each graduating class, not spread out over several years or based on only those going on to any graduate level work.</p>
<p>ID, you and I think alike. I also was tempted to put Harvey Mudd in the tech school pile. However, I believe their carnegie classification is that of an LAC (could be wrong though).</p>
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There are more intellectual students at many large schools than the amount of students at small schools.
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<p>True. But, the same could be said of any type of student. For example, there are probably more coke heads at UC-Berkeley than there are students at most LACs. In any given semester, there are probably more students who never attend a single class than there are students at most LACs. There are more TAs teaching undergrads than there are students at most LACs. Heck, there are probably some lecture classes that have more students than some LACs have. And, so on and so forth.</p>
<p>What is bull is when somebody says I have to go a small school for fit, when they mean by fit, "intellectual students".</p>
<p>There are more intellectual students at many large schools than the amount of students at small schools.</p>
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<p>Oh, I absolutely agree with your second comment, Dstark. But that is NOT what I mean when I use the word <em>fit</em> My definition of fit is that the student is in the right educational (note: that may or may not equate with intellectual) and social environment for him or her individually. And, true enough, that can be found at many different schools of all types and sizes, but is unlikely to be the same for ALL students.</p>
<p>I think it does make a difference the size of the school- a small group of say 30- or even 300 is going to influence the overall atmosphere more at a school of less than 2000 than a school of 20,000 is influenced by 300 or even 3,000 students.
That was our obervation while visiting anyway- It made a difference when we were walking around campus, sitting in the cafeteria, or even hanging out in the lobby of the library.
At a large university- it was just as likely for conversations to be centered around the game, last nights party, tommorow nights party or what car you are going to buy this summer, as it was for conversations to be a continuation of a classroom discussion or of something else they were reading for class or for pleasure.( actually on campuses of more than 10,000 we never heard conversations that seemed to be "intellectual in nature- and we looked for them)
I think one of my Ds friends mentioned in this seasons USNews issue that one friend left a party where he was having a good time to go back to his room and read a biography of Putin.
maybe all "intellectual" means is lack of social skills or less extroverted qualities?</p>
<p>Emeraldkity4, I have a nephew at Stanford. He told me the same thing you said---- it was just as likely for conversations at Stanford "to be centered around the game, last nights party, tommorow nights party or what car you are going to buy this summer, as it was for conversations to be a continuation of a classroom discussion or of something else they were reading for class or for pleasure". </p>
<p>By the way, he has a gpa of 3.9 and is a very strong student.</p>
<p>I like to split rather than lump (by nature) so I would say that, for example, Caltech and MIT are like a Granny Smith and a Macintosh- both apples, but it would be foolish to ask which one is greenest- since they are not alike in their 'aim to be green'(mission or breadth)-- devil is in the details in some of these....but here is the next question.</p>
<p>Given a graduating class of 400-500 students (ie, small sample size) what difference in % is actually a statistically significant difference? (I don't know, I am just asking). </p>
<p>The guidance counselors at our school show these stats all the time at meetings when they are trying to educate parents, many of them non-American, about what it means to attend a liberal arts college, what the caliber of students is at many of these schools, etc. There is value in that message. The question is whether or not there is value in differentiating between schools based on these sorts of numbers...(and by value I mean statistical significance specifically). </p>
<p>Here is a statistic I would be interested in an answer to...what % of alumni of a given school, who themselves used financial aid to attend that school, apply for financial aid for their children when their children apply to that school for admission. This came up in a discussion of Princeton somewhere...</p>
<p>After all, % of alumni going on to get PhD's tells one measure of a school, and % of alumni going on to be able to send their child to that same school without financial aid tells another. Both are heavily clouded with other variables, of course....</p>
<p>But, statistically speaking, doesn't a larger percentage of something (doesn't have to be doctorates) happening within group A vs. group B (again, doesn't have to be colleges) mean that the members of group A each have a higher probability of whatever happening to them?</p>
<p>Consider for example, City A has a higher percentage per population of murders than City B does. Won't residents of city A have a greater overall probability, assuming the percentages stay fairly consistent over time, of getting murdered? If people who have sex without using birth control have a higher precentage of pregnancies than those that don't, doesn't it mean that if you have sex without birth control you will have a greater probability of getting pregnant? And, if college A has a higher percentage of students who get doctorates over a period of time, that a student attending that school has a greater probability of getting one?</p>
<p>Again, my statistics has rusted in the years since I finished my MBA, so I'd appreciate a brief primer on probability and where the gap may lie in my reasoning.</p>
<p>Given a graduating class of 400-500 students (ie, small sample size) what difference in % is actually a statistically significant difference? (I don't know, I am just asking). </p>
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<p>That's what I was trying to get at, just not as clearly as you have Robrym, when I suggested above that one or two extra students at a school of 1100 getting doctorates each year will make a bigger difference in the percentage than one or two at a school of 33,000.</p>
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<p>Is it correct or incorrect to say that a student who goes to a school with let's say a 20% phD production rate has a greater chance of going on to get a doctorate than one who goes to a school with a 10% pHD rate?<<</p>
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<p>This would be correct only if the PhDs were awarded at random. </p>
<p>The 10% or 20% PhD production statistics measure past performance and may suggest the future trends for the whole population of graduates, but they say very little about the future prospects of one given student. For example, an individual who doesn't bother to apply to grad school has a 0% chance of earning a PhD regardless of how high his school's past output may have been.</p>
<p>Yeah. The commonly used Carnegie classifications focus more on the terminal degree offered by a school rather than the type of curriculum. So, they lump all baccalaureate colleges together.</p>
<p>Here's a list of all of the departments at Harvey Mudd:</p>
<p>Biology
Chemistry
Computer Science
Engineering
Humanities and Social Sciences
Mathematics
Physics</p>
<p>I don't believe that the Humanities and Social Sciences department offers a major. </p>
<p>Claremont-McKenna is similarly specialized in the social sciences. They don't have their own math or science departments.</p>