<p>My favorite assumption is that school has to be one thing or another (intellectual or frat scene, sports oriented or serious). I happen to be a former sorority president who attended every single football, basketball, and baseball game my school played. I also got a Ph.D. when I was 27. Out of just those that I know about, I had three other sorority sisters complete Ph.D.'s by the time they were 29 (oh and one is a Ph.D./M.D.). I couldn't even begin to count those that went on to master's degrees in any number of fields or who completed their J.D. Our undergrad was at a tier three state school. My father is a former college baseball player at a Division I school, a former frat guy, and he got a doctorate in Business Administration when he was 27. Schools don't have to be one or the other.</p>
<p>dstark: Fortunately or unfortunately, more than a few do! </p>
<p>S IM'd me last night while taking a study break to eat "dinner" provided by his house in the common room, at 12:15 AM his time. I don't think I could have gone that route, but he seems to be enjoying it. First years are already talking about their Ph.D. aspirations.</p>
<p>Teach2005, I calculate all those events happening at .189765%. (Rounded off). :)</p>
<p>idad, I'm afraid to ask. Where does your son go?</p>
<p>I can assure you that students are doing this at big schools too.</p>
<p>Inter..dad--obviously humor and sarcasm were not taught where you went to school. My school pretty much lived and breathed it. Guess that's why we created "Airplane" and The Onion and Swat grads created ???</p>
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Interesteddad, the problem I have with your posts is you imply that in order to get an academic atmoshere at a school you have to have a large percentage of students become PHDs.
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<p>Where have I implied that?</p>
<p>I don't know of a school where a large percentage of students become PhDs. Nor a large percentage of students becoming MDs. Nor a large percentage of students becoming JDs. In all cases, these are minority groups within the student body as a whole.</p>
<p>There are plenty of schools that have a notoriously demanding academic program and a campus culture of rigorous study without signficant PhD production. Davidson is a good example.</p>
<p>I certainly do not believe that schools like Emory, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, and Dartmouth are a walk in the park academically. I expect that their classes are every bit as difficult as those at the PhD factory schools.</p>
<p>I honestly do not view PhD production numbers as a "quality" indicator at all. I think the usefulness of the numbers is as a descriptive measure that sheds some light on the campus culture and what the prevailing college experience might be like. No better example exists than the contrast in between the two equally excellent Chicago-area universities. </p>
<p>Even then, the numbers aren't that important for well-known schools with very clearly defined cultures. They can, however, be instructive for learning about schools that are less familiar. To cite an example mentioned in this thread, I would have had no reason to focus on Kalamazoo College. But, in compiling these lists, Kalamazoo popped up so frequently that it certainly piqued my curiousity. My daughter was not interested in a Michigan school, but lots of people from all over the country read these forums. Who knows, there might be someone for whom Kalamazoo is the perfect school, but who might never have even thought to look into it.</p>
<p>As for campus culture issues. I do see some potential correlations between high PhD production and other attributes. For example, very few of the top 50 per capita PhD producers have signficant frat scenes or above average binge drinking rates. I only see 2 or 3 of the top 50 where anyone would consider suggesting the presence of a "big party scene" as the term in commonly applied. I only see 2 or 3 of the top-50 PhD producers that could be described as having powerhouse atheletic programs. Although there are exceptions, a sizeable number of the top-50 have relatively high percentages of ethnic diversity relative to their geographic peers.</p>
<p>Lets see: Stanford has a pretty good PhD rating (though perhaps a high pre-professional rating too). It has a lot of diversity and big time sports. Now, if it could only ramp up the party scene it would be perfect.</p>
<p>interesteddad, I'm not sure you're being consistent. On the one hand, you say, </p>
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I don't know of a school where a large percentage of students become PhDs. Nor a large percentage of students becoming MDs. Nor a large percentage of students becoming JDs. In all cases, these are minority groups within the student body as a whole.
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but then you say
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I think the usefulness of the numbers is as a descriptive measure that sheds some light on the campus culture and what the prevailing college experience might be like.
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</p>
<p>I don't understand why the outcomes experienced by a minority of students--in fact, possibly a quite small minority--would be evidence of the "prevailing" campus experience.</p>
<p>"I honestly do not view PhD production numbers as a "quality" indicator at all. "</p>
<p>The above quote is from ID's most recent post. After 167 posts, we agree on something. Yipee!!!!!! :)</p>
<p>Hoedown:</p>
<p>It doesn't take a majority to establishing a prevailing campus culture. For example, less than 50% of the students at Williams are varsity athletes, but the school has a very strong athletic "feel", described by one professor as "a Nike camp with enrichment classes".</p>
<p>Similarly, Greek membership is under 50% at both Dartmouth and Vanderbilt, but the frats and sororities define the prevailing social scenes.</p>
<p>Looking at it from the professor's perspective, you plan your courses differently if you know you have a sizeable minority of students who are engaged, inquisitive, and willing to learn on their own. Basically, you don't pablum feed students or lay it all out in powerpoints for them to digest at test-time. You ask them to think more, to conduct independent research, and to discuss and argue.</p>
<p>Of course even in large universities, you can teach undergrad classes like that especially in honors courses. But you can't generally teach only such courses, nor focus your teaching at the grad level where most students are expected to be engaged and highly self-motivated.</p>
<p>"Looking at it from the professors' perspective, you plan your courses differently if you know you have a sizeable minority of students who are engaged, inquisitive, and willing to learn on their own."</p>
<p>Yup. It's one of the reasons I preferred teaching (the last course before graduation) at the Community College of Philadelphia to the University of Chicago (30 years ago). Now, if they'd only come in with necessary skills.... But, in every case, over a seven-year period, I always had at least one or two, or sometimes three, students at the community college who were as engaged, inquisitive, and willing to learn as my top students at Chicago, and were as smart as well. They also averaged from 5-10 years older, and benefitted from their experience. But I'll bet only one or two of those I taught over that period ended up with Ph.D.s, though there were lots that ended up with masters degrees in teaching, social work, and advanced nursing.</p>
<p>Dstark...Thanks for putting that into numbers for me. I did have a minor in stats during my doctoral program. I always have to debate whether I'm social with a hidden nerdy side or a nerd with a hidden social side.</p>
<p>You do not see to many rankings dominated by schools known for their undergrad focus (so many LACs in this case). Is it a coincidence or is there a connection?</p>
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It doesn't take a majority to establishing a prevailing campus culture. For example, less than 50% of the students at Williams are varsity athletes, but the school has a very strong athletic "feel", described by one professor as "a Nike camp with enrichment classes".
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</p>
<p>So on what basis do you believe the PhD-aspiring minority will dominate above and beyond all the other influences (minority or otherwise) on culture? That is, how can we know that those PhD-seeking undergrads will influence the culture more than the jocks, more than the students who want MDs, more than the students who aspire to the Peace Corps, more than the people who are into the social scene, more than the greeks, etc.?</p>
<p>I don't understand the mechanism, even with the caveat that professors may teach to the PhD aspirants. Why would the "intellectual" students prevail above all other factors on campus? </p>
<p>Or to use your example, why do the athletes have more cultural influence than those students at Williams who may end up seeking a PhD (we know there are some)? There are athletes on many campuses, including those high up on the ranking.</p>
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Is it a coincidence or is there a connection?
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</p>
<p>I know it's a lot to wade through, but people have ventured some guesses on the previous pages. It may partly be the kinds of students attracted to an LAC, it may partly be the peer influence of high aspirations, it may partly be the close student-faculty relationships, etc.</p>
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So on what basis do you believe the PhD-aspiring minority will dominate above and beyond all the other influences (minority or otherwise) on culture?
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</p>
<p>The PhD-aspiring students are not the cause of a campus culture. They are the result of a campus culture, usually one that was well established before they were born. PhD aspiriations really have nothing to do with it. That just happens to be a readily available, albeit imperfect, statistical measure - a proxie.</p>
<p>I don't think these students "dominate" at all of those schools. Most schools have a mixture of students, some who are academically engaged more than others. However, they do achieve critical mass sufficient to perpetuate a campus culture at these schools -- either as a prevailing culture or a strong minority.</p>
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Or to use your example, why do the athletes have more cultural influence than those students at Williams who may end up seeking a PhD (we know there are some)? There are athletes on many campuses, including those high up on the ranking.
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</p>
<p>Because Williams admits and yields more recruited varsity athletes on a percentage basis than any other school in the country -- 28% of this year's freshman class were identified by the athletic department as likely 4-year varsity athletes. It is a self-perpetuating campus culture, just like UChicago's. The campus culture is immediately reinforced three days into orientation when more than half of the freshman class takes off for four days of rafting or rock-climbing.</p>
<p>I haven't read all of this thread, but I dislike the Ph.D. production #s for several reasons. Among them:
1) Contrary to the first post, the stat is NOT based on the number of undergrads at each institution. It is based on % of Ph.D.s out of the number of GRADUATES of the institution. At College A, there are 1000 students in each incoming class. Of those, 850 graduate. 70 go on to get Ph.D.s. (8.23%)At College B, there are 1200 students in the incoming class. 600 graduate and 55 get Ph.D.s. (9.16%) College B will rank higher in the Ph.D. production stats. I find it hard to believe that's proof of a more "academic" atmosphere at College B than College A. Before you get cared away by how wonderful some second and third tier LACs are based on Ph.D. production rates, look at the graduation rates. The rankings would change dramatically if they were based on the percentage of Ph.D.s earned by students who matriculated as undergraduates.
2) Universities with combined BS or BA/MD or six year "med sci" programs usually do poorly, simply because they usually have a higher percentage of MDs in each class. This is one reason that Dartmouth and Brown aren't ranked as highly as some of the other Ivies. Personally, I don't think the fact that a certain % of each class is reserved for future M.D.s (and of course, some students who aren't in the combined programs still get M.D.s) makes them worse schools than colleges without such programs. Indeed, I think that the undergrad science courses and especially research opportunities are improved by the MD tract. If you think future physicians are less intellectual than future Ph.D.s in nursing, use the Ph.D. production %s to judge schools.
3) Schools with strong performing and visual arts programs also don't do as well in these rankings, unless there's a separate conservatory (e.g., Oberlin). People who go into these fields rarely get Ph.D.s--and those that do are often the ones who couldn't make a good living as performers/artists. If you think that a school that produces a lot of Ph.D.s in fields like communications or speech is better than a school that produces players in symphony orchestras or famous sculptors or an architect like Maya Lin, well, use the Ph.D. production stats.
4) To a lesser extent, point 3 applies in fields like creative writing. If you are a successful published writer, you don't get the Ph.D. If you can't get published, you might get a Ph.D. in English to teach.</p>
<p>For me, an interesting statistic, apparently unavailable, would be the percentage, ten or so years out, of PhD's (and whatever else counts as academic/intellectual/whatever) vs. MD's (without accompanying PhD's), JD's, MBA's (and whatever else counts as professional terminal degrees for the type of institution in question. More simply, the pre-professional vs. academic balance.</p>
<p>Don't tell me that many pre-professionals are brilliant undergraduate academics. I know. Don't tell me that the business majors at State College end up as CEO's. I don't care. Don't tell me that idiots become Congressmen. That is not news. Don't tell me that poets and HS English teachers are more valuable than any of them. What can I do about it?</p>
<p>I don't know that it unfairly penalizes schools that are strong in arts and music. 17% of Julliard undergrads go on to get a doctorate degree, which would put them at #6 overall in per capita production.</p>