<p>If the field you are looking at is say Philosophy, and the university with 500 graduates has various specialized colleges where 495 students go, and then a great liberal arts college where the 5 future philosophy phds attend. In this case, the stat would not be meaningless. It would illustrate the fact that the small school is non-diverse, but the big one is. It is meaningful for that.</p>
<p>If you want to see if the school's program is good in a particular area, look at the program. Number and breadth of upper-level courses offered, number of dedicated faculty, undergraduate research opportunities, etc. IMO.</p>
<p>How about some real world hypotheticals? Your examples are absurd.</p>
<p>I am not aware of any college or university that sends 30% of its graduates to medical school. Or that sends 60% of its graduates to a successful PhD completion.</p>
<p>You can't ask a question like that in a vacuum -- it's meaningless. Information like the PH.D. list (and a med school list, and a law school list, etc. etc.) is helpful for any one person looking at and comparing schools (particularly schools that share a lot of similar characteristics) to determine what would be best for them, but that's about as far as I would take it.</p>
<p>It's interesting looking backwards--when you are in a PhD program, a lot of your peers come from liberal arts colleges and elite universities (at least in some fields). It was kind of a neat experience, after feeling like an odd duck who didn't go to Behemoth U, you're suddenly amongst people who "got" what you did.</p>
<p>I think making the choice to go to a liberal arts school means one embraces educational values that are also very much in line with a pursuing an "intellectual" life later. </p>
<p>There is probably also some class at work here, too. It isn't always so obvious on CC, but there are many people who don't see the value of a liberal arts education, who wouldn't want to go (or to let their kid go) to a place that didn't prepare one for a specific job after college, etc. And those people also aren't going to tend to go for a degree like a PhD. </p>
<p>I can recall conversing with a few of my colleagues who had been the first in their families to go on to college and were now in a PhD program. They confessed their parents were mystified with their choices and really saw the PhD as a bunch more not-terribly-useful schooling. In contrast, those of us who were faculty kids and whose parents had similar education-heavy backgrounds enjoyed more familial support. I mean, our parents knew it was a bunch more not-terribly-useful schooling, but they were still supportive. LOL. Just kidding. Sort of.</p>
<p>I gree certain kinds of places can boost aspirations, as well--the peer stuff has been pretty well documented, plus places that allow undergrads to do research, to get to know faculty, are going to put a PhD spark into some students. But the fact that these places attract a certain type of student, who might already possess "academe-leaning" values, also can't be discounted.</p>
<p>I'm making up new words because I don't like the normativeness of "intellectual" and "academic." Of course, maybe they only sound like positively loaded words to me because I'm in the thick of it.</p>
<p>"How about some real world hypotheticals? Your examples are absurd."</p>
<p>Ummm...the examples were provided to illustrate a point. Many of the "statistical" PHD production posts I read on cc by the same poster are irrelevant, outdated, absurd, AND repetitive. Perhaps they are continuously interjected in numerous unrelated threads in order to illustrate a point as well....... :)</p>
<p>IMO, finding "real life" examples is too much work, and unneccessary, when the general principle can (and has) been effectively illustrated using made-up hypotheticals.</p>
<p>Emeraldkity4, which departments are Reed's strength?</p>
<p>Not having ever been to 4 year college- it may be more difficult for me to judge, but the strength of Reed IMO is that they require a lot of writing in all subjects- that they require teh same humanities class freshman year of all students, and that they require passing a qualifying exam junior year of all students in your major and that they require a senior thesis to be written by all students and defended to professors in your major as well as community members.
( if you pressed me on picking a dept- I would say that they have more eventual science phds ;)</p>
<p>Whew! This list generates some warm feelings.</p>
<p>I have to admit that I have a personal axe to grind. I am a grad of Kalamazoo College who went on to earn a Ph.D. There is no doubt that this list tends to reward schools whose emphasis is on a liberal arts currculum, whether a smaller school like Kalamazoo or a larger school like U Chicago and that larger numbers of Ph.D. aspirants can be found at larger schools. Still , recognizing that limitation, this list does have something to tell us. Kalamazoo's ranking has been high for a number of years: it's not just the result of some statistical blip. If you are an academic kid, the kind who loves learning for its own sake, you will get the kind of support you need to pursue that goal at a school like Kalamazoo. Moreover, you do not have to walk on water to get into K College: you just have to be an above average student. I do not have statistics for MD and JD placements, but I do know anecdotally through the alum office that these are also high. </p>
<p>The sad thing is that, whatever its virtues, this list frankly has no influence on students who are out there choosing schools. It provides us with an opportunity for theoretical argument but that's about it. Applicants look at U S. News, Princeton Review, or even the list that shows student preferences in terms of yield, but I've seen few students on the Ivy boards concerned with stats on entrance to doctoral programs.</p>
<p>Kalamazoo College is virtually unknown on this board despite its high ranking on this list. Partly that's the fault of the college which has deficient PR and partially it's the result of our screwed system of values. In the entire time I've been here, I've spoken with a handful of people who are interested in the school, but no more than that. There are other names high on that list worthy of consideration that students on this board tend to ignore. If this list can serve some purpose in combatting the tunnel vision that I see all too prevelent on these boards and getting us beyond the heavy hand of USNWR, I would commend it. Unfortunately, however, that is not the case, since the list is largely ignored.</p>
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IMO, finding "real life" examples is too much work, and unneccessary, when the general principle can (and has) been effectively illustrated using made-up hypotheticals.
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<p>The "general principle" that Sokkermom appears to be espousing using her fictious examples is one of a zero-sum game -- that school producing large percentages of PhDs will produce few MDs or few lawyers or few business men and women.</p>
<p>I am challenging her to provide real world support for her "general principle" because I do not believe it is true. For example, I believe that Harvard produces large numbers of all of the above on a percentage basis and that the reason it produces so many PhDs is that it produces a lot of graduates who go on to higher degrees, period.</p>
<p>Please do not suggest a "general principle" that you think I may be espousing. My real point is simple, and I said it in post #54, and tried to hypothetically illustrate it. Since you misinterpreted the hypothetical illustration, here is my point again for the last time. Period.</p>
<p>"the number of PHDs a school produces in no way determines the academic quality of an institution, nor does it in any way determine the intelligence of the student body."</p>
<p>You can post your PHD production statistics another 1,000 times and you will not convince me otherwise. But thank you for the challenge.</p>
<p>Going on to Ph.D., when? The median time from start of Ph.D. to graduation for my particular area was 11 years. It would take some long term study to determine actual numbers. Further, there are doctorates that are not Ph.D.'s, the Ed.D., DSW, and Psy.D. for example. In addition, all doctoral programs are not created equal. Some are little more than union cards for sitting professionals or educators, others can be had online, etc. Although the information is of interest, as with everything else, it is just one more little piece of information to ponder ...and discuss.</p>
<p>well, being a relatively new CC dad, & an information junky albeit, I'm just looking to gather info to help in my S's college selection & decision making. The PhD listing, while perhaps a bit abstract from my S's situation, certainly forces one to think about the college end game, and for that I am thankful. I have also learned about some anomalies in my perceptions, like the Kalamazoo example. Will this list ever see the light of day on my S's desk?...probably not, but dad will keep it on his list of lists as we go thru the process.</p>
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"the number of PHDs a school produces in no way determines the academic quality of an institution, nor does it in any way determine the intelligence of the student body."
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<p>Logically, I would assume that you would say the same thing about the number of MDs, JDs, and MBAs. Is that your hypothesis?</p>
<p>Now that I think about this a little more, the methodology behind this is important. Does one look at at graduating class (undergrad) and then start following for 5 years, 10 years, 15 years? If 5 years, few Ph.D.'s would be recorded (more MD's & JD's), if 10 years many more Ph.D.'s, but probably at least 30% (speculation) not recorded, and if 15 years, then most picked up (the longest to Ph.D. (continuously) in my program was 27 years!). There would be a bias for quicker, often less rigorous programs early on in the study as well (yes, it is possible to finish a top program quickly, I just think the data would be skewed to the less demanding).</p>
<p>The data I posted was offset by five years. The percentages were based on the actual number of undergrad degree awarded by each school from 1989 to 1998 and the terminal academic doctorate degrees earned by those graduates from 1994 to 2003. So, it will capture at least some PhDs that took 15 years to complete.</p>
<p>I would have liked to have offset the data by an additional year or two as I believe that seven years is the national average for PhD completion, but the IPEDS database on undergrad degrees was missing a year that made it impossible to get an accurate 10 year total. You have to use totals over a number of years because there is a lot of year to year variation, particularly when you start looking at specific fields such as engineering or math. The data for some of the fields is already too thin for meaningful distinctions.</p>
<p>The Centre College historic report used essentially the same methodology.</p>
<p>The specific offset doesn't change the rankings much. I had done an earlier version that used current enrollment for the denominator. However, getting historic data for actual baccalaureate degrees is important for schools that have grown disproportionately. For example, Chicago has recently grown dramatically from 2700 undergrads to over 4000 undergrads. Thus, if you use current enrollment, you understate their actual per capita PhD production. Also, using current enrollment penalizes many of the large state universities that have historically low graduation rates. So, when I changed to actual bacallaureate degrees awarded, placed like UChicago and Georgia Tech climbed signficantly.</p>
<p>BTW, both of these reports include PhDs as well as equivalent terminal doctorate degrees including Education, Divinity, Music, etc. They do not include professional degrees such as MD, vet., dentistry, law, etc.</p>
<p>cami215, what an excellent post. I know and respect KZoo, but then I'm just down the road. </p>
<p>As I recall, all PhD candidates fill out a little form, a super-brief survey, really, before getting their degree--it's clearly marked as being data for the NSF or whomever. This is collected (and perhaps forwarded) by the doctoral-granting instititution. I mention this because isn't it likely that this is the source of the data that is used? In other words, they don't take a national bachelors cohort and track it forward. They take a national cohort of PhDs and track them back.</p>