I wish to be a paleoanthropologist and/or become a professor or work in a museum. I’m only interested in physical anthropology. The problem is i’d like to be paid more attention in preparation for grad school and though Beloit is known for anthropology they only have two professors teaching anything related to physical anthropology. In the off chance that the path i’m taking is troublesome i’d like to minor or major in Museum Studies. Which one should I to disregarding the cost? You should assume that i’ve been accepted to all three and price/location is not a problem.
You seem to understand the trade-offs. You’re likely to get more personal attention at a small LAC like Beloit, but fewer professors and courses to cover every area of interest. You’re the one who must decide which is more important to you. The one way out of this dilemma would be to find a different school (one that that is good at both course variety and personal attention). Such a school (a UChicago, maybe) is likely to be more selective.
Think about how you would compensate for the one shortcoming or the other. Would you be good at seeking out professors during office hours at a large state university? Or, would you be more adept at finding off-campus opportunities (internships, etc.) that you might not find on the campus of a small LAC?
The thing is, even a big state school like UIUC won’t have that many anthropology majors (about 30-40 graduating each year), so once you get through the big underclassmen intro classes, you’re likely to get as much individualized faculty attention as at a LAC (at least in your major), yet you’ll have more variety of faculty, research areas, and courses.
This is true for many non-pre-professional majors at big publics, BTW.
ON the other hand, Beloit has exceptional success in that area (it’s one of their specialties) so they must be doing something right… In short, your odds of becoming a professor or a paleantropologist are greater if you attend Beloit. Is there any way you could have one or two “semesters away”, in partner institutions perhaps? In addition, email them to ask whether their R1 program applies to anthropology (you’re partnered with a researcher at a big research university.)
I tend to recommend large universities for specialized subjects, and bioanth is one of those disciplines. As you’ve no doubt realized, a good biological anthropology program is much more difficult to find than decent cultural anth programs, which are a dime a dozen. Even schools known for anthropology are often weak in the field. Chicago, for example, has a single scholar working in biological anthropology. (NYU, not known among the general populace for anthropology, has 7.) Even most of the LACs with high PhD production rates for anthropology have either no bioanthropologists (Reed, Wesleyan, Marlboro) or only one (Grinnell, Bryn Mawr) on faculty. Beloit is the best of the LACs in this regard, at least among those I’ve ever come across, but it is still a small and limited program.
Unlike cultural or linguistic anthropology, which often require little to no specialized technology, good research in biological anthropology frequently necessitates lab equipment befitting a science department - anatomy labs, computer modeling technology, primate (living) and/or osteology (dead) collections, etc. It is therefore beneficial to look for colleges with at least a halfhearted emphasis on the subfield.
The situation at mid-sized universities is somewhat better. (Duke has long had a premiere program, of course, and Harvard, Yale, Penn, and NYU are also quite good. Emory, Tulane, GWU, BU, and Case Western are other viable options.) Nevertheless, there are not many good bioanth programs outside large public universities, and they range from pretty selective to extremely selective.
You’re most likely to find a strong and vibrant bioanth program at Illiniois, though you could do worse than Minnesota or Beloit. (The best options in the Midwest for bioanth, however, are Michigan and especially Wisconsin.) Your major classes are likely to be fairly small, but classes outside anthro may be larger. The questions posed in post #1 are valid. Large flagship publics offer countless opportunities for a go-getter, but people will not hold your hand at a university like Illinois or Minnesota. Consider carefully whether you’re capable/willing of tracking down resources and opportunities yourself.
I couldn’t disagree more.
(1) The anthropology PhD production data lumps all subfields together. A college that does not offer bioanthropology or linguistic anthropology is a terrible choice for a student interested in those disciplines, even if it ranks quite highly in anthro PhD production. Marlboro, as noted above, is a good example.
(2) PhD production data uses the total number of undergraduates as the denominator, an absurd method of comparing LACs to large public universities which have many, many fields in which a PhD is not a popular goal (journalism, music, engineering, nursing, architecture, agriculture, etc.). A better measure would be PhD production using the number of undergraduate majors in that subject – but that is rarely calculated and even more rarely cited here.
(3) PhD production data does NOT account for the quality of PhD programs.
(4) The number of PhDs produced does not have the slightest bearing on an individual’s application. If you are a strong, competitive applicant, it does not matter if your department has produced 200 PhDs or 0. There is no doubt whatsoever that all three of these institutions can prepare a motivated student for graduate school. A department can be VERY strong but produce very few students interested in a PhD – and often for perfectly good reasons. As questionable as a law degree may be these days, it’s much better than getting a PhD in classics or philosophy with dreams of academia!
@warblersrule basically took the words out of my mouth, and with more specificity than I could have given. Very good, discipline-specific advice. Physical anthropology is highly research-oriented, and it’s also not an easy discipline to achieve career success. Also true, in my experience, that cultural anthropology is more plentiful – thus choose wisely. With that in mind, I’d also recommend attending the major research institution with the strongest disciplinary program possible. And given your choices, UIUC. And yes also to Michigan and Wisconsin as even better.
Yes also to this: “Your major classes are likely to be fairly small, but classes outside anthro may be larger. The questions posed in post #1 are valid. Large flagship publics offer countless opportunities for a go-getter, but people will not hold your hand at a university like Illinois or Minnesota. Consider carefully whether you’re capable/willing of tracking down resources and opportunities yourself.”
The resources at the major institutions will be there, but you must be willing to do the legwork. I had a wonderful experience, working with a renowned scholar at another major research U., for my honors thesis. And I received departmental and financial support to do so. That was completely of my own volition – nobody would have handed it to me, and many didn’t even think it possible. So the high-powered research institutions can offer great support, if you are willing and able to capitalize upon it.
One thing going for you, assuming you stick with this specialization, is that you’ve already determined such at a (relatively) young age.