Are liberal arts colleges perceived as second tier?

Parents Forum
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<p>That is simply false. at MIT 70% of student participate in cutting edge research every year. They are typically involved in small teams including graduate students, post docs and professors. Their work and contribution is often hardly distinguishable from that of the graduate students. Many undergrads are named on the papers published in major journals, some even as first authors. </p>

<p>While just a sophomore, our D has been participating in major neuroscience project on the neurobiology of autism since freshman year. When the team was getting ready to start with patient enrollment, she found flaws in the study design that would have confounded the results and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary MRI imaging. The head of the lab, a NAS member, thanked her personally for possibly saving the study. She is of one the named authors on the study which will be published in major neuroscience journal. Her situation is far from unusual. </p>

<p>In many ways, undergrads have advantages in research labs over the graduate students. They get to be involved in the exciting research part, without the administrative burden generally the responsibility of the grad students. It is understood by the lab that they have significant academic duties outside of the research, so that their schedule is much more flexible. They can more easily change projects if they don’t like what they are working on or want some variety of experiences, something virtually impossible for graduate students. They can also have a more relaxed mentoring relationship with the professors who run the labs who often seek to to recruit the undergrads to stay on as grad students. </p>

<p>Studies have shown that the mind goes through some of its most active development phase during the critical late teens-early 20s. For future scientists, the ability to take advantage of that period and interact and learn from the “Masters” in the field can be an invaluable opportunity. Som mid-size research universities go out of their way to provide these mentoring and research opportunities to their undergraduate students.</p>

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<p>Marite–I read enough to figure out that much. However, the mass of the discussion seemed to turn early and decidedly to the research question. I’m glad to see it widening in scope again.</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl, it is rather hard for any educated person to be isolated from issues raised by the physical and biological sciences. One would hope any good college will expose students to these issues. Do you want them to be presented by people who really know what they are talking about, or do you want to settle for the Cliff Notes version? Personally, I’d prefer that even “Physics for Poets” courses were taught by real, practicing scientists whose hands are a little dirty from research (because science is something like a contact sport, not just a fixed body of knowledge.)</p>

<p>Is the American LAC just a throw-back to an 18th or 19th century model? Most of these schools were founded before the late 19th century to train young men for the ministry or law. Everything changed when Hopkins, and a few years later Chicago, introduced the German model of the research university into American higher education. Most state universities adopted that model; schools we now call the “Ivy League” universities morphed into it. LACs did not. This raises legitimate questions about what we should expect from higher education and whether LACs are meeting those expectations. If we want colleges primarily to be knowledge factories, maybe not. If want them to do the best possible job preparing people for leadership, then I dunno, maybe LACs do it better. Though I still think exposure to real research would be a good element of that kind of training.</p>

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<p>so, tk21769, do you think LAC’s, in general, are more likely to practice the ‘cliff notes’ version of teaching science and are therefore inferior to universities?</p>

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<p>I’m not a scientist, so perhaps I don’t know “real” research when I see it, but looking at, for example the CVs of the biology professors at Oberlin, it certainly looks like plenty of real research is going on, and the biology department web site indicates that undergraduates are participating in it. </p>

<p>Whether or not LACs offer “better” research opportunities than research universitiies may be arguable. But I don’t think anybody can argue that LACs offer no research exposure at all, or that their science professors aren’t “real, practicing scientists.”</p>

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<p>I already had a double major (econ and math). I had the equivalent of a minor in poli sci and pursued higher level courses in my language of choice. I took exactly 2 science courses – both were distribution requiremts and probably geared more towards the non science majors. Why is that “bad”? Wouldn’t it be more important that those profs were engaging and accessible than that they be the leading research scholars in their field?</p>

<p>And you’re still not answering the question. How ate the distribution requirementa in science that a philosophy major takes appreciably different in an LAC vs a university? (again assuming equal caliber students and profs). Am I missing something?</p>

<p>There’s a huge science-über-alles thing going on in this thread.</p>

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<p>One never knows what studies will pop up where:</p>

<p>“A Longitudinal Study of Latvian Long-Distance Runners,” by Dr. Jesuis Fond du Lac, Littelnone College</p>

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<p>Mollie –
It is my understanding that you are currently at a high ranking research university in a science-related field.</p>

<p>If you don’t mind answering…about how many students are there in your program? Do you know how many, if any, attended LAC’s for undergrad?</p>

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<p>2boysima–did you see post #205? btw, i think Brandeis is not considered a LAC.</p>

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<p>You might wish physics for poets was taught by preeminent research scientists. Is that what the poets want though?</p>

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<p>Not necessarily. All I am suggesting is that the ideal college should seek a healthy balance between research and instructional activity (that is, between the creation and dissemination of knowledge). One sees posts on CC suggesting that undergraduates don’t need research, that humanists don’t need physics, that scientists don’t need the humanities, that to get a good job you don’t need the liberal arts, etc. etc. Each of these strikes me as a rather parochial view for an educated person to have. </p>

<p>So the problem for the college-shopper becomes, how do you know if a school is striking your idea of a good balance?</p>

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<p>How do we know that the professors are truly of equal caliber?
I can compare the strength of departments & faculty at national universities by considering departmental peer reviews (such as the unfortunately outdated NRC-95), journal citations, awards, etc. If professors at a small college have no pressure to do research and publish, how can we be confident that they stay current in their knowledge years after they left graduate school? I like to think that at the best LACs they do, but don’t know of any assessments that reliably measure this.</p>

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Well, who are the most reliable authorities on the matter? The physicists, or the poets?</p>

<p>You say you were an economics major. Currently, I understand that field is undergoing something of a challenge to its basic assumptions about the rationality of economic decision-making. The emerging field of behavioral economics was born out of collaboration between a Chicago economist and several Stanford psychologists. Let’s hope their findings are being informed by a solid understanding of how to set up sound experiments and interpret data. I think the best models for controlled, repeatable experiments come from the natural sciences. What’s a better way to learn that process, from a textbook or by doing some original research under expert supervision?</p>

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<p>Didn’t see post #205…but I would expect, in terms of sheer numbers, that most of the students wouldn’t come from liberal arts colleges. Just wondering what % of them are liberal arts grads…and if it’s higher than their representation in the total population of grads in this particular field of science.</p>

<p>(By the way…Science emphasis started with an early post by a certain poster…who has a large percentage of anti-LAC and anti-humanitities posts on this forum!)</p>

<p>Here’s another great article reviewing quite a few of the arguments listed on this thread. It agrees that the facilities at research universities are better , but it’s filled with stats…about accomplishments of Liberal Arts grads in the sciences, including that “the leadership of U.S. science also benefits from a disproportionate representation of liberal arts college undergraduates.” It’s a little old…1999…but the points presented remain current…if compared to what’s been mentioned on this thread!</p>

<p>“Someone unfamiliar with undergraduate research in the sciences
might feel quite safe in predicting that the quality of the
research would be far better at research universities than at
liberal arts colleges. After all, the amount of research-grant
funding, the availability of state-of-the-art instrumentation, the
research reputation of the faculty, the quality of the library,
and the frequency with which highly successful scientists visit
to give seminars and share research ideas all weigh heavily in
favor of the research universities. More specifically, while successful
college professors might raise tens of thousands of dollars
a year to support their research programs, successful university
professors often raise half a million dollars per year.”</p>

<p>“Why then do the large grants, expensive equipment, and
famous laboratories available at research universities not lead
to overwhelmingly superior undergraduate research opportunities?..
University research labs survive on the productivity of their graduate
students, postdoctoral fellows, and technical staff. The grant
money, the access to multimillion-dollar instrumentation, and
typically the best projects go mainly to these more advanced
scientists. Undergraduate research is promoted because of its
educational value, but it does not determine the research productivity
of the laboratory. In contrast, the research at liberal
arts colleges is carried out almost entirely by undergraduates
and faculty members, and the productivity of the undergraduates
largely determines the research productivity of the laboratory.
As a result, the faculty member spends more time organizing
each project, more time training the students, more effort in
troubleshooting the technical problems that inevitably hinder
progress. … The greater investment in time and effort spent with undergraduates
at liberal arts colleges more or less compensates for the
fact that research universities are better set up to carry out
research.”</p>

<p>“The leadership of U.S. science also benefits from a disproportionate
representation of liberal arts college undergraduates.
Considering those elected to membership in the National Academy
of Sciences in a recent two-year period who were educated
in the United States, 19 percent obtained their baccalaureate
degree from a liberal arts college.5 Thus, liberal arts college
graduates not only obtain Ph.D.’s but go on to excel in their
field of research at a rate at least two-times greater than
bachelor’s degree recipients in general.”
<a href=“http://www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/daedalus/cech_article.pdf[/url]”>http://www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/daedalus/cech_article.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>We need an additional metric: What colleges do for their students. For each school, we need a standardized composite exit percentile range (SCEPR, composed of GRE, LSAT, MCAT, all available scores) to see the improvement over the entry percentile range (GPA, SAT, ACT). That way, a HS student at a given entry level can compare the 25th-to-75th exit levels of various schools when looking for a match and fit.</p>

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<p>I don’t think that Coureur was arguing that LACs were not overrepresented proportionally to the number of their grads; he was arguing that they are not well represented in absolute numbers in the peer-reviewed journals in his field.</p>

<p>The Baccalaureate Origins of Ph.D.s in Science and Engineering I quoted earlier makes the point that 41% of S&E Ph.D.s come from research universities and that LAC graduates are represented at twice the rate (about 18%) of their proportion in the college population (9%). So there is something for everyone.</p>

<p>Garland:<br>
The reason this thread has taken a direction toward the sciences is not sciences uber alles; it is because science is the one area in which universities may have an edge over LACs both in terms of lab equipments and course offerings thanks to the presence of graduate students. Believe me, if we could have found a LAC that offered the courses my S wanted reliably (i.e., year in year out, instead of on some rotating basis, he would have gone there!</p>

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<p>I essentially asked a similar question (largely in response to this thread) in another thread, albeit in a more roundabout manner. Perhaps I should’ve just posted it here:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/728880-importance-research-humanities-majors.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/728880-importance-research-humanities-majors.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Vossron:</p>

<p>My s’s V&M GRE score was exactly the same as his SAT V&M score! In both cases, I suspect the ceiling effect would make it impossible to judge value added (S took the SAT when he was already taking college classes).</p>

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<p>Seniorslacker:</p>

<p>As in everything, it varies greatly across programs. At top programs, in the humanities and social sciences, a writing sample is often required. This is supposed to show the applicant’s ability to do independent research, to frame a topic, show evidence of the appropriate literature and of good writing skills.
Again, at LACs and universities, each institution’s resources are important in facilitating research, whether it be library research (try writing a paper relying solely on inter-library loans) or doing fieldwork, or acquiring the necessary languages to do that fieldwork adequately. At Harvard recently, David Rockefeller gave $10 millions to a program that sends students abroad either to do fieldwork or to do a summer program (I believe they are all led by Harvard faculty). LACs such as Swarthmore and Williams also have the resources to support their students doing research abroad. Someone once told me that Williams “throws its money at its students.” But many more LACs and universities have more modest resources (and that’s not counting the present financial crisis).</p>

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<p>Let’s also not forget that all Universities are not equal. Some can or will do more for undergrads than others. Often friends who have kids at some Universities report their kids are on archeological digs abroad, doing art research in Italy, interning at prestigious labs, etc., while others at major U’s some are scrambling to find opportunities. One has to carefully evaluate the opportunities available at whatever school one is thinking of attending.</p>

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<p>Marite–I have no doubt that is your point of view. I do not think it is shared by many other posters on this thread. there is a surprising amount of contempt which dismays me (just as in other threads when LAC fans dismiss U’s as impersonal lectures hall, which also dismays me.)</p>

<p>I have never yet and never expect to see an LAC vs. Uni’s thread which didn’t sink into the same sorry morass.</p>