<p>That’s a pretty good analogy. But to follow it along, I would not flatly make that claim. I’d concede that the Latvians are not top performers in major international competitions, and that Americans with their vastly larger population tend to dominate in many of those contests. On the other hand, if the average Latvian is more physically fit than the average American, if the Latvians produce more top amateurs per capita than the Americans, then I would think their population is healthier than the population that produces more super stars.</p>
<p>And it does appear that many professors at top LACs are doing interesting, competent research. Are they publishing the most significant original findings, in the most important journals, in high-stakes fields such as cancer research? Maybe not. But they seem to be motivating and preparing a relatively high percentage of their students to complete “marathons”, that is, to earn Ph.D.s and become practicing scientists. A couple of CC posts are discounting this by suggesting the Ph.D.s their students earn are not from top universities (defined as the 5, 10, or 15 schools with the most top-rated departments). I have not seen convincing evidence of that (not much evidence at all, really).</p>
<p>I read many of the posts on this, though not all.
What strikes me is that Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore and the schools further down the pecking order (Vassar, Haverford, Wesleyan etc.) are most appreciated by the upper crust of Boston, Philadelphia, New York and DC. The Ivy League schools have the name recognition generally to attract the “unwashed” as well as the well-to-do.
Swarthmore fights like the dickens to reach the diversity numbers Yale and Harvard meet with ease.
I do think that liberal arts schools are under-appreciated generally. The best evidence is yield rates (obviously among those who thought well enough of the school to apply in the first place).
In my parent’s mind’s eye, I always imagined my kids attending LACs. The first two didn’t. One was admitted to both Amherst and Williams and chose Ivy. The other applied ED to a LAC like university. I have one more a few years away from college.
The OP is correct in his or her supposition.</p>
<p>This I agree with. I’ve never questioned the quality of the undergrad education provided by the many fine LACs. They do a great job. But when LAC boosters start bragging about all the terrific scientific research that goes on there, that’s when they lose me. That is totally contrary to my experience in three decades of reading the scientific literature. </p>
<p>Nobody who disagrees should take my word for it. Do the journal test yourself. Next time you are in a college library pick up a scientific journal, not Acta Artifacta, but a flagship journal where the important stuff gets published, and flip through for five minutes and note institutional affiliations of the authors. You won’t see many, if any, papers coming out of LACs.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I know what it takes to get papers published in Cancer Research and similar publications because I’ve first-authored papers in that journal myself. Which just goes to show that you don’t need to be a genius to do it. If I can do it and LAC profs can’t, they must not be trying very hard.</p>
<p>^^ Would that university librarians governed themselves accordingly, they’d save a ton of money on journal subscriptions!</p>
<p>No one expects a biochem-molecular biology professor teachng four courses a year, with no post-docs or TAs around, to publish in JAMA (at least, not every year.) But, for purposes of acquainting first-rate undergraduates with the peer-review process, there are plenty of venues. I might ask, how many of those Cancer articles are co-authored by students?</p>
<p>Most LAC boosters on the topic of research are not talking about cutting-edge research but rather research opportunities for undergraduates – and research opportunities that start sooner rather than later. If an LAC supporter thinks that scientific research done at LACs is the equivalent of that being done at the better research universities, then he would be wrong. The best, most ambitious scientists always head to the schools that will provide them with a solid group of graduate students and state-of-the-art facilities.</p>
<p>That said, for the past two years, my D has worked during the school year for a professor at her LAC and during the summers/breaks for a professor at a research university. Although the studies are different, her duties in both are roughly the same. She meets with both PIs once a week to discuss progress and issues. The ONLY difference I’ve seen between the two is that her LAC professor asks her input about future directions, and her research uni PI has her supervise his summer undergraduates – differences that reflect the individual situations. My point is this: at the undergraduate level, most will be learning lab procedures, experiment design, data collection, etc. that could be learned anywhere that permits undergraduates to join labs. In labs that are doing groundbreaking work, the undergraduates are often relegated to areas where their learning won’t mess up the results if they make a mistake.</p>
<p>Okay, I’ll admit to skimming at this point (to stay sane), but if the sole reason to go to college is “research opportunities” then, whatever, fine. Please squirrel those go-getters away someplace so that those who are there to, well, learn, can do so in peace, whether they’re students in LACs OR the vast majority of students happily pursuing liberal arts majors in big U’s.</p>
<p>I’ts ridiculous that the fairly simple, and simplistic, proposition this thread started with has descended into the reduction of “research, research, research” as if everything else is just dreck.</p>
<p>But, have at it. What do I know–I was an English major…:)</p>
<p>FWIW, Garland, my husband is a science prof at a research university, and he much prefers the liberal arts model for undergrad. He believes well-rounded students (as opposed to those who must choose their academic school or major upon entrance) make the best researchers because they have honed their critical thinking skills in a variety of disciplines. Of course, you don’t have to go to a LAC to get that type of education.</p>
<p>It says a lot that he thinks our D’s LAC education has been first-rate.</p>
<p>Well, I went to a huge U myself, as did my H, and S went to a midsized one. D went to a LAC. I think you can get a great education in a lot of different places. We all, in whatever form, attended a liberal arts school, getting liberal arts educations. So I agree with your H!</p>
<p>You ought to have read most of the thread. The new focus on research came about because some LAC boosters were claiming you could get as good, if not better, research opportunities at LACs as at research universities. There also seemed to be a line of thought that students who are focused on math, science and engineering do not get a general education. Thinking about it, my two Ss got pretty much the same number of Gen Ed requirements, albeit using different types of classes to fulfill them–as they should. One was a history major at a LAC and one was a math major at mid-sized research university.
Even Caltech and MIT have gen ed requirements, for pete’s sake! That’s how I met a young man who was nominally a biology major but spent his time learning Renaissance history at Harvard: he’d gotten hooked on history when he had to fulfill the HASS requirements. The way from Biology to Renaissance history actually started with a course on Chinese history!</p>
<p>This above is why I said that you don’t necessarily have to attend an LAC to get a liberal arts education. I met my husband, a math and engineering major, in the drama department. </p>
<p>But I know first-hand that a research university can APPEAR to have a liberal arts philosophy by requiring general ed courses but in practice be more pre-professional because the departments/schools require a rigid curriculum that offers little opportunity to take electives. You can usually (but not always) tell a pre-professional university by its offerings of undergraduate business, journalism, architecture, and engineering majors, particularly if there are separate schools that students must apply to. Among the Ivies, Penn is considered the most pre-professional. </p>
<p>Students would be well-advised to consider each university separately instead of dividing along research/LAC lines.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what that has to do with anything, though. The liberal arts major at a preprodessional u isn’t taking the courses in journalism, engineering, architecture – so how does their presence affect him?</p>
<p>All the above talk about research is not irrelevant to the original question. The discussion gets to the heart of perceptions vs. the reality of college quality, and how we know what we think we know about these things.</p>
<p>If LAC professors were publishing wonderful, ground-breaking research in Botany or Zoology, who among us would be reading it? Not that I expect they are, or aren’t. I really do not know. It seems there’s a lot we don’t really know about faculty quality from school to school. There’s no “SAT score” for that. So even if we could accurately measure public perceptions, it would be hard to assess if these perceptions are accurate.</p>
<p>Perhaps we can at least agree that to be a first rate educator, it’s not enough just to have great classroom presence. You need expert knowledge, too. So professors should be contributing to their fields, enough at least to maintain knowledge and skills, to be exposed to continual reflection on important issues (if not leading the way forward). However, it appears that none of the major rankings are designed to capture faculty expertise and teaching quality in a principled, balanced way. Who knows what’s really driving the USNWR peer assessments, if it’s anything more than a “halo effect”?</p>
<p>I do think it’s a good sign if a College web site lists specific faculty research accomplishments (publications etc). Even if it’s “cherry picked”, even if it does not tell you the relative impact of the school’s work in each field. You want some indication that professors don’t stop learning after they get their doctorates or tenure.</p>
<p>Then I’m being dense apparently. Forget the sciences for a moment. Let’s concentrate on a philosophy major. Philosophy major A goes to a top LAC. Philosophy major B goes to the liberal arts college (or whatever it may be called) of a top university. It so happens that the university also has engineering, journalism and architecture but our philosophy major doesn’t take any courses in those areas. Assuming student bodies of equal merit, what’s the difference? Except that philosophy major B might room with an engineering or arch major.</p>
<p>I would. Because in addition to specialized journals in my narrow field I also read the top general science journals such as Science and Nature - as do most scientists (I bet Mollie reads them too). And truly ground-breaking research in Botany or Zoology regularly gets published there. And like the rest of science, very little if any of it is coming from LACs.</p>
<p>As I said in post #220, LACs may well be tops in the world in areas other than hard science. I really have no knowledge of that. If the LAC people claim that I’ll happily take their word for it. However, if the people claiming that are the same ones who are erroneously asserting that the LAC scientific research is top notch, I’ll have to take their further claims with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>I wasn’t a science major and I doubt either of my children will be either. So all this about research is a big blah blah blah as far as I am concerned, and like garland said. So, educate me. For a student who intends to major in one of the humanities, what’s the essential difference between a top LAC and the liberal arts / arts and sciences school of a top university? Aside from personal preference of course. You don’t need big fancy labs to study philosophy or French lit or classics.</p>
Haha, that was my reaction to the initial quote – hey, I read them! :)</p>
<p>I think there is value in being an undergraduate in a really stellar lab, because you get caught up in the excitement and awesomeness that is big science. I was in a leading lab in the field as an undergrad, and I worked on a central part of an important project, and I was a co-author on the paper that was eventually published in a great journal.</p>
<p>Those sorts of accomplishments aren’t necessary for a further rich scientific career, but they certainly help. I’m never reminded of this more than when I’m applying for competitive fellowships as a graduate student – they still care where I did my undergraduate work, and under whom, and they see it very much as a mark of my scientific ability that I was published in a well-respected journal as an undergraduate. I don’t think my undergraduate background is vital to getting fellowships (although it did the vital job of getting me into a great graduate program in the first place), but when it comes to competitive fellowships, I’ll take all the advantages I can get.</p>
<p>And for the record, I think research is valuable for everybody, because it reflects the extent to which undergraduates can become involved in the knowledge creation process, rather than being passive vessels in which to pour information.</p>
<p>I’d imagine that the collections of rare manuscripts and primary source material that research universities amass can be of great use to people interested in history and __ - studies.</p>
</p>