<p>This thread is going to end up nowhere.</p>
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<p>I used only 7 in the case of the student satisfaction survey (College Pr*wler) because only 7 schools received the top A+ ranking. I cited 6 for average class size because only 6 received the “100” score by that measurement. For Nobels, I stoped at CalTech (17 laureates) because after that, there is a fairly big drop-off with ties or clusters among many schools that do not appear to be contenders based on other criteria (Illinois and Wisconsin, two very large schools, are next in line after CalTech with 11 each). For the other measurements, “10” is just a nice round number.</p>
<p>Look, I’m not trying to “trick” anyone with these numbers. I cite my sources and state the reasons for my opinions. Anyone is free to check them out and come to their own conclusions. </p>
<p>The bigger point: Yes, metrics have some meaning. There are many excellent colleges in this country but to support a high opinion of one or a few, one ought to be able to point to objective evidence that it is excellent in measurable features that matter (such as the ones hawkette cites). However, there is not really a heck of a lot of differences among the top 10 or top 20 schools according to these measures, and there are other hard-to-measure aspects of quality that are even more important. </p>
<p>Chicago is simply the school that I happen to know best among the US News top 10. I also am familiar with one school ranked among the top 3 by US News, having taken a couple of undergraduate-level classes there. Certainly the faculty, undergraduate students and facilities there are exceptional, but I did not find the undergraduate instructional approach equivalent nor do I think the undergraduate curriculum is as well designed. What I observed in the classroom there I would characterize as a “Rock Star” approach, where the professor holds forth, students listen and occasionally ask questions or comment. Chicago professors (no matter how distinguished) almost always employ a Socratic approach that I believe engages the students more closely and demands more of them. Many professors at other schools also use this method, I’m sure. At Chicago it is used almost exclusively. It goes hand-in-hand with a principled, institutionalized approach to primary source content selection and Core curriculum design.</p>
<p>The best LACs offer a similar level of student-faculty engagement. This, I suspect, is why so many graduates of these schools (like Chicago) continue to pursue doctorates in the arts and sciences. They go in with an interest in liberal education; they go out hooked on it.</p>
<p>I think the case for several of the Ivies, Stanford or MIT is that they provide superior “hothouse” environments for leadership in entrepreneurship, technology, finance, etc. In my view that’s not the same as providing the best undergraduate liberal education, but many people understandably value that kind of environment and the success it appears to breed.</p>
<p>tk, I understand that CP only had 7 in the A+ academic range, but again why not use the top ten in all of the other rankings?</p>
<p>and why lie about the Nobels, by saying that next in line of CalTech’s 17 were Illinois and Wisconsin with 11?</p>
<p>for instance are you forgetting Johns Hopkins’ 15 Nobels, Cornell’s 13 or Princeton’s 13?</p>
<p>again, why not use the top ten for all categories, except for the CP?</p>
<p>and while we are at it, if you are talking about undergraduate education, since you have posted the rankings of schools where the most students obtained PhD’s, why not include the top schools where students got accepted to the top Med, Law and Business schools, which Chicago ranks only 14th?:
<a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;
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<p>Here is the link to the complete list of Nobel affiliations from which I was working:
[List</a> of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_university_affiliation]List”>List of Nobel laureates by university affiliation - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>JohnAdams is quite right, Cornell, Hopkins, and Princeton are next in line after CalTech for number of alumni Nobels. It was not my intention to “lie” about these numbers. Cornell, Hopkins, and Princeton are above the CalTech row on the Wikipedia page (because their overall numbers are higher) but when you scroll down past CalTech the next American universities to show up by number of graduates are Illinois and Wisconsin. And according to the Princeton site, it appears the number of alumni Nobels actually is 14 not 13 as stated on the Wikipedia page (which cites the Princeton Nobels page on which I count 14.)</p>
<p>I explained my reasoning for listing the number of schools I did. By all means, include Cornell, Hopkins,and Princeton in the list of Nobels. If you want to include 10 schools from the class size list (expanding it beyond the 100 percenters), sure. That would add Northwestern, Duke, Stanford and Princeton.</p>
<p>With these changes, there is still only one school on all of the lists I cited. However, one other school, Princeton, is on all of them but the PhD production list. And yes, if you swapped the Wall Street Journal count of professional school feeders, Princeton would be among the top 10 and Chicago would not be. So, by that collection of numbers, one can make a case that Princeton offers “the best undergraduate education”. </p>
<p>In my opinion, PhD production is a better indicator of the quality of undergraduate liberal education than the WSJ measure of pre-professional feeders. But there are other ways to look at this issue, as I suggested in the last paragraph of my previous post. Princeton is of course an excellent school, as are all the others on these lists. I tried to suggest how I think a few schools distinguish themselves beyond the numbers. Maybe other posters would like to characterize what they consider other important, hard-to-measure features of the academic programs at other schools.</p>
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No, you couldn’t because there is absolutely no such thing. Surely you are not being serious. Can anyone that has really received an education at a fine university actually be trying to claim there is such a thing as a best undergraduate education? If so you wasted yours or your parents money. What a waste of electrons.</p>
<p>fallenchemist, in important life decisions it is hard to avoid “what is best?” questions.
I would agree that one cannot flatly state that one institution or another offers “the best undergraduate education”. The question needs to be addressed in a nuanced way. </p>
<p>One could try to refine the problem by asking “best for whom?”, “best under what circumstances?”, or “best for what purpose?” The answer to these questions are likely to change the answer to the original question.</p>
<p>One philosophical approach would be to address the original question by assuming one is talking about the best education for the best students, under ideal circumstances, for the purpose of leading the best quality of life. </p>
<p>John Adams (the John Adams) wrote in a letter to his wife,
"I must study politics and war, that my sons may have the liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry, and porcelain.</p>
<p>I would say in a similar spirit that, under ideal circumstances, the best students are likely to choose a liberal education, and that some approaches to that kind of education are better than others. That’s not to say I believe that one school is flatly better than any others.</p>
<p>tk21769 - Now that I couldn’t agree with more enthusiastically. Well said. Sorry for the tone earlier, I guess all the ridiculous ranking threads and best department for this and that threads are starting to get to me, lol. I just really hate to see students making decisions based on such a misguided premise. As I think you said, there are so many great schools, and I think that they differ more by their equivalent to “corporate culture”, the feel and attitude of the place, rather than by what is actually taught in the classroom. Achieving that “I really cannot imagine being anywhere else” level is so much more important than the “I attend the 4th ranked school” level.</p>
<p>Anyway, thanks for the clarification.</p>
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I don’t think this is an achievable approach at all. You would need to apply the same analysis of “best” to the students, circumstances, and quality of life. Those questions are even harder to answer than one about the “best” colleges.</p>
<p>As I’ve said before, I see only two possible uses for rankings of overall institutions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>A measure of how well the school achieves its mission or benefits the community, from the perspective of a prospective donor or taxpayer.</p></li>
<li><p>A measure of how well a school can meet the needs of any possible hypothetical student.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>In terms of purely academic ranking, HJ Newton at Texas A&M compiled some statistics from the NRC rankings in 1995: [NRC</a> Rankings](<a href=“NRC Rankings”>NRC Rankings). The average of nonzero scores matches #1 and the average of all scores matches #2.</p>
<p>The Washington Monthly rankings do an interesting job with #1, though I could see several areas of improvement.</p>
<p>tk so now the topic of this thread has changed to the best undergraduate liberal education?</p>
<p>when did this happen?</p>
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<p>^ I suggested my motivation for framing the question more narrowly in the last paragraph of post #13. You are welcome of course to frame the question in a different way if you think it would be more helpful. Please do. What kind of undergraduate education other than liberal education do you believe best deserves our attention? Technical education? Pre-professional education? Or do you believe that most colleges and universities are offering pretty much the same mix of content, so we can just measure some combination of inputs, classroom conditions, or outcomes to identify the best schools?</p>
<p>Several very respected schools do depart from the liberal education model in interesting ways. We have Ezra Cornell’s famous mission statement, “I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” Accordingly, Cornell offers strong programs not only in the arts and sciences but also in agriculture, hotel management, architecture, and formerly in nursing. Then there is CalTech’s or MIT’s more narrow focus on science and technology. We also have so-called “work colleges”, such as Deep Springs, probably the most selective school in the country. The founder wanted to train young men who were not only intellectually brilliant but who also could provide leadership under stressful conditions at isolated engineering sites. We could probably use a few such people down in the Gulf of Mexico right now. So is Deep Springs a good model for the best undergraduate education?</p>
<p>These approaches and others notwithstanding, most of the Ivy League and other top-N schools at least pay lip service to the value of liberal education in the arts and sciences. If you don’t believe this is a good model, what is better?</p>
<p>This is the PHD production with data points, not just its ranking.</p>
<p>[PHD</a> production with rates presented by Swarthmore](<a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/baccorsum1995-2004.pdf]PHD”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/baccorsum1995-2004.pdf)</p>
<p>Or you can find the actual study here.</p>
<p>[nsf.gov</a> - SRS Baccalaureate Origins of S&E Doctorate Recipients - US National Science Foundation (NSF)](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/]nsf.gov”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf08311/)</p>
<p>The ivy league schools and other top schools have similar rates. Certainly UChicago is not the exceptional than these schools.</p>
<p>Here is another link for the same study but selected different time intervals. There is not much meaningful differences in rates; however, you can make rather interesting presentation using the same study. </p>
<p>[Trinity</a> Univ Baccalaureate Origins Doctoral Recipients presentation](<a href=“Trinity University - San Antonio, Texas”>Trinity University - San Antonio, Texas)</p>