Better rates of grad school attendance from small LACs than an Ivy?

Parents Forum
21

<p>For lots of folks - especially first generation students, some racial and ethnic minorities, and low income folks - Ph.D. programs are for losers, or at least the misguided. You can't help support your family (very soon, or ever), can't help pay the tuition bill for younger siblings, won't enter a profession where you can help family members, likely won't start a business that can be passed on, can't return easily or dependably to one's home community. In other words, pursuing Ph.D.s are just not very desirable. So, under some circumstances, the fact that many students pursue Ph.D.s might be viewed as a negative. It's one reason why there are so few African-American, Hispanic, and (relative to college attendance), Japanese-American and Chinese-American faculty (I'm putting aside other Asian minorities, for whom these issues are exacerbated.)</p>

<p>The same, however, is not necessarily true of grad school attendance - engineering, architecture, social work, education, etc. We can't conflate the two.</p>

22

<p>
[quote]
But the criticism that these are too pre-professional seems to always be directed at HYP; and yet, of all the Ivies, they have the highest rate of sending graduates on to Ph.D. programs.

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<p>I've never thought of Harvard as "too preprofessional". That's why I was chuckling at your "It's known..." lead-in above. I would make no assumptions; I just know that I have never found anything on the Harvard website, so I'm leaving the research up to you!</p>

<p>Here's the breakdown of all Swarthmore alumni:</p>

<p>
[quote]
The top career fields of all alumni are:</p>

<p>business (20%)
healthcare (11%)
law (11%)
teaching at the elementary & secondary school levels (9%)
teaching at the college level (9%)

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</p>

23

<p>ID, just follow the thread started with the Deresiewicz article.
I haven't found anything on the Harvard website, either. A Crimson article claimed that 33% of graduates go into i-banking, which is a great many more than at Swarthmore.</p>

24

<p>
[quote]
But they don't answer the OP's question. Ph.D statistics do not get close to answering the question as to whether there are better rates of grad school attendance from small LACs as opposed to an Ivy?

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<p>Here are the percentage of Swarthmore graduates from five recent graduating classes who have attended grad school. Since 21% of Swarthmore grads get PhDs, you can see that PhDs account for less than half of the post-grad programs. The list includes everything from nursing to vet to MD to JD to Divinity to M.ED. to MSW to MPP to MBA to a signficant number of MFAs and a ton of unspecified MS and MA.</p>

<p>1999 57%
2000 44%
2001 40%
2002 46%
2003 45%</p>

<p>One of the reasons that we see so little hard data on this stuff is that it is constantly changing for at least a decade after each class graduates. Especially today, most students do not go directly from college into professional schools. It's more likely to go directly to PhD programs because, as you daughter found out, PhD programs pay good money amd benefits. It literally "beats working" for many students. Med School and Law School don't pay.</p>

25

<p>True, my psychology PhD program was essentially free (I borrowed a little at low interest to have a more comforetable life style while in school). My best friend, who borrowed $70K to get a professional degree in psychology--versus my academic degree--well, she has big debt.</p>

26

<p>Idad:</p>

<p>Years ago (but during the period covered in your stats) I talked to a Harvard administrator who bemoaned the pre-professionalism of the students (guess what? she had a Ph.D. in History). She specifically claimed that Wesleyan turned out more Ph.D.s than Harvard college proportionally. That is not borne out by the stats. </p>

<p>You are right that students nowadays are more likely to take time off before going on to grad school. In my days, everyone went right away (because of the draft).</p>

27

<p>
[quote]
ID, just follow the thread started with the Deresiewicz article.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If that's the guy who didn't know how to talk to his plumber because he was an elite snob, I can't read the thread. I saw the quote several weeks back on Tim Burke's blog and threw up a little bit in my mouth.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I haven't found anything on the Harvard website, either.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Harvard's website is like shopping at KMart. You never find what you went there to get. I think it's intentionally inscrutible to navigate. I quit trying.</p>

<p>
[quote]
A Crimson article claimed that 33% of graduates go into i-banking, which is a great many more than at Swarthmore.

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</p>

<p>If 33% of Swarthmore grads were going into i-banking, they should shutter the doors because they would be failing miserably at the school's stated mission. Of course, a Swarthmore grad, Jerome Kohlberg of Kohlberg, Kravitz, and Roberts, is generally regarded as the father of the leveraged buyout and the building named after him on campus is gorgeous.</p>

<p>I don't believe the 33% figure for a second. Here's the problem. The only "stats" that colleges can easily collect are from the exit surveys seniors do just before graduation. This captures a fairly small percentage of graduates. Most college students either don't know what they are going to be doing at that point or plan to do something other than their long-term career. Swarthmore's stats consistently show a couple of consulting firms as the leading employers of Swarthmore grads, but that's skewed from the sample. The other problem is that these surveys often capture what students are "planning" to do in the future. For example, Swarthmore's exit surveys show 87% are "planning" to go to grad school within five years. Of course, the real percentages five years out don't bear that out.</p>

28

<p>The premise of this thread is absurd. Many professors at Law Schools don't have PhD's- are they less scholarly than the PhD's in Organizational Behavior? Professors at Med Schools have MD's- the terminal degree for teaching, patient care, etc. I could list for you the ridiculous PhD's that are out there from colleges you have never heard of; the rate of PhD production is a pretty meaningless metric if you are going to use it as a proxy for intellectualism of a colleges student body.</p>

<p>Another meaningless statistic is the percentage of the seniors going into I-banking. Virtually every top program is a two year, in and out deal. Students at top U's (yes, even Swarthmore) take these jobs because they've discovered like Willie Sutton that "that's where the money is". After two years you are bid farewell from your bank- the kids who have done well and not dropped out or been flushed out typically head off to B-school- some of whom end up doing something completely different once they graduate, including Public Sector/non-profit jobs. The kids who flush out or drop out still get the bank on their resume, still get the dough they've earned to pay off their loans, before they head off to Journalism grad school or to become an organic sheep farmer or get a Master's in Music education. Just because a 22 year old takes a job at a bank upon graduating from Princeton doesn't make that kid a banker three years later....</p>

29

<p>
[quote]
The premise of this thread is absurd. Many professors at Law Schools don't have PhD's- are they less scholarly than the PhD's in Organizational Behavior? Professors at Med Schools have MD's- the terminal degree for teaching, patient care, etc. I could list for you the ridiculous PhD's that are out there from colleges you have never heard of; the rate of PhD production is a pretty meaningless metric if you are going to use it as a proxy for intellectualism of a colleges student body.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I never saw any premise like that stated. Maybe you are thinking about another thread?</p>

<p>The question was on percentage of grads going to grad school. It just so happens, unfortunately, that the only widely available and consistently applied data is the PhD completions data collected by the National Science Foundation since 1920. It would be nice if the med school admissions group, which collects this data, would make it publicly available, but they don't. Same with law school completions, but they don't. I would dearly love to add a column for MDs and JDs to my spreadsheet of doctoral completions by field. It's absurd that the data is not available.</p>

30

<p>Blossom: The failure of many law professors to live up to the scholarly standards of the PhD faculty elsewhere in their universities has been a constant source of anxiety and inferiority for law faculties for roughly the past 50 years. In many cases, they ARE less scholarly. In any event (a) it is increasingly common for law professors to at least have some significant graduate training in non-legal fields, if not always a PhD, and (b) non-adjunct, academic law professors represent such an infinitessimally small percentage of law school degree holders that you can pretty much ignore them when talking about JD holders. A JD is not a degree that implies scholarship beyond a pretty rudimentary level.</p>

31

<p>Wow! Thanks for the stats. I just bounced a couple of colleges off my list!</p>

32

<p>A couple of things:</p>

<ol>
<li>interestedad mentioned this in passing, but it bears emphasis: these stats can be very misleading, especially for large, multidimensional universities. About 60% of Michigan's undergrads are in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts---essentially studying the same liberal arts curriculum as students at a LAC. The rest are in pre-professional schools (I won't call them "vocational schools" as intereteddad did); things like engineering, pharmacy, nursing, business, where Ph.D.s are far less likely. You can't assume that all the Michigan undergrads who go on to earn Ph.D.s are in arts & sciences fields, but if you looked just at LS&A grads, the percentage getting Ph.D.s almost certainly would be several points higher, perhaps more on the order of 8 or 9% rather than just under 6%. Also note than in sheer numbers of their graduates earning Ph.D.s, schools like Berkeley and Michigan dwarf the smaller LACs and even the Ivies.</li>
</ol>

<p>2) The percentages of graduates from schools like Caltech, Harvey Mudd, Swarthmore, and Reed going on to earn Ph.D.s are impressive indeed. But I'm a little jarred when I compare Swarthmore's 21.1% Ph.D. rate with another figure interesteddad cited (post #24): 9% of Swarthmore grads are college professors. That's a high percentage, too, but it means fewer than half of the Swarthmore-launched Ph.D.s end up in academia. Where do the rest go? No doubt some end up with Ph.D.s in engineering, education, and other fields where that degree may be an additional job qualification in non-college/university settings. But we all know how tight the academic job market is in many arts and sciences fields---the fields Swat grads are presumably most likely to pursue. I fear it suggests a significant fraction of Swat grads may be slogging their way through Ph.D. programs only to find no academic job--or at any rate, not an adequate, full-time, tenure-track job---waiting at the end of the rainbow. And if that's the case at Swarthmore, one of our most distinguished academic institutions, I shudder to think how many graduates of less distinguished schools--an Earlham (10%), Beloit (9.6%), or Lawrence (9.5%), say, very good schools all, but surely no Swarthmores---are being led down a primrose path to Ph.D.s that end in professional frustration. I guess at a minimum I'd need to see a whole lot more information about where these people end up before I was persuaded that an extremely high rate of Ph.D. production is an unalloyed blessing.</p>

33

<p>" interestedad mentioned this in passing, but it bears emphasis: these stats can be very misleading, especially for large, multidimensional universities."</p>

<p>But it's more than that. Ph.D. rates are only indirectly related to grad school attendance. True, you have to attend grad school to get a Ph.D. (at least in theory ;); but a very large portion of individuals who attend grad school, even in Ph.D. subjects don't go on for Ph.D.s, and there is a whole range of areas from engineering to social work where a Ph.D. isn't the working terminal degree except for academics.</p>

<p>"I shudder to think how many graduates of less distinguished schools--an Earlham (10%), Beloit (9.6%), or Lawrence (9.5%), say, very good schools all, but surely no Swarthmores---are being led down a primrose path to Ph.D.s that end in professional frustration."</p>

<p>There is no evidence that those who enter Ph.D. programs from Swarthmore end up in better post-Ph.D. careers than those from Earlham, Beloit, or Lawrence.
.</p>

34

<p>Wow mini just because your world in Spokane doesn't recognize the value of a top degree does not mean the universe thinks that way. I encourage you to attend your Williams class reunion. My guess is 95% of your classmates would have a different view.</p>

35

<p>"There is no evidence that those who enter Ph.D. programs from Swarthmore end up in better post-Ph.D. careers than those from Earlham, Beloit, or Lawrence." </p>

<p>I think the real question is, do Swarthmore grads end up in better Ph.D. programs than do grads from Earlham, Beloit, or Lawrence? I see no reason why the Swarthmore B.A., Harvard Ph.D. would have any advantage over the Beloit B.A., Harvard Ph.D.</p>

<p>On the other hand, there is lots of room for individual differences. The already-driven high school student who goes to Swarthmore might have ended up just fine no matter what school she attended, whereas for the still-finding-herself high school student, Swarthmore might be a disaster while a lower-key but still intellectually stimulating Earlham or Beloit might give her the space to blossom.</p>

36

<p>Actually such a study was conducted at least for PhDs in the sciences for the 1990-1995 period. </p>

<p>The study found that while 37% of students with a baccalaureate degree from a highly selective college (by Barron’s selectivity index) earned a PhD form a top 25 PhD institution, 56% of students with a baccalaureate degree from a most selective college earned a PhD from a top 25 PhD institution, a full 50% increase. The proportion of students earning PhDs from top institutions dropped precipitously for the next category of very selective colleges. </p>

<p>So, baccalaureate origin seem to matter a great deal. Two students with equivalent GPAs simply do not have the same probability of enrolling in a top PhD program. </p>

<p>Even among elite colleges there were significant differences as to where the students earned their PhDs.</p>

<p>The proportion of students earning a PhD from a top PhD institution ranged from 62% at Harvard to around 25% at Amherst. </p>

<p>Harvard 62%
MIT 57%
Princeton 52 %
Yale 52 %
Berkeley 48 %
Swarthmore 44 %
Michigan 39 %
Williams 39%
Carleton 28 %
Amherst 25 %</p>

<p>This would seem to indicate that SAT scores of students also do not fully explain the differences in the proportion of students enrolling in top PhD programs. Top PhD institutions including Harvard, MIT, Berkeley and Michigan admit a disproportionate amount of students from their own undergraduates. They also appear to favor undergraduate applicants from other schools with strong PhD programs. </p>

<p>Despite the seeming disadvantage, Swarthmore at 44% and Williams at 39% perform surprisingly well at getting their students into top PhD programs. For whatever reason, Carleton and Amherst not so well. (less of a science focus?)</p>

<p>So, it can safely be concluded that Swarthmore grads are more likely to ean a PhD from Harvard or any top phD program than grads from other LACs, especially second tier LACs. But if you really want to earn a PhD from Harvard, nothing beats going to Harvard as an undergrad! </p>

<p>For the complete study
<a href="http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/conf/chericonf2003/chericonf2003_03.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/conf/chericonf2003/chericonf2003_03.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>^ thanks, this is really interesting</p>

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<p>^^ . . . except that as I read this study, it was for science and engineering Ph.D.s only. I wonder whether Carleton and Amherst's percentages would be higher if you included humanities and social sciences.</p>

<p>Also, while it's true that Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, and Michigan "disproportionately favored" Ph.D. program applicants who were their own undergraduates, that still meant something under 10% of their Ph.D.s went to their own undergraduate alums. Since their own institution's undergrads are likely overrepresented in their own grad school applicant pool, we actually don't know whether it's statistically advantageous to have gone there as an undergrad. Also note that for each of these Ph.D.-granting institutions, the percentage of Ph.D.s awarded to their own undergrad alums had declined sharply since the 1970s when closer to 20% of all their Ph.Ds went to their own undergraduate alums.</p>

<p>In any event, this study does suggest that nearly half of all Swarthmore grads going on to earn Ph.D.s in the sciences and engineering do so at "top" Ph.D.-granting institutions (defined in the study as those "with 10 or more top programs"). I wonder of those are the same half of Swarthmore alum/Ph.D.s who end up with the academic jobs?</p>

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<p>I would be very careful about mixing and matching the 9% number (from the alumni office's database of 18,000 alums) and the 21% PhD rate from the National Science Foundation PhD completion records. For example, most of Swarthmore's living female PhDs were not allowed to teach college on the basis of their gender. However, one was head of Astronomy at NASA and oversaw the development of the Hubble Telescope.</p>

<p>Here are the fields for Swarthmore PhDs as a percentage of all Swarthmore PhDs over the most recent ten year period. I've only included those at 1% or more:</p>

<p>19.6% Biological Sciences
9.2% Psychology
8.3% English and Literature
7.4% Economics
6.4% Engineering
5.2% Arts and Music
4.5% Political Science and Public Administration
4.4% History
3.5% Physics
3.5% Sociology
2.9% Chemistry
2.9% Other Humanities
2.9% Non-Science Education
2.2% Foreign Languages
2.1% Mathematics and Statistics
1.7% Other Social Sciences
1.7% Religion and Theology
1.6% Business and Management
1.4% Computer Science
1.4% Anthropology</p>

40

<p>
[quote]
Since their own institution's undergrads are likely overrepresented in their own grad school applicant pool, we actually don't know whether it's statistically advantageous to have gone there as an undergrad.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Harvard alums do well across the board at other top PhD institutions, same with MIT grads, not just at their own institutions. </p>

<p>There is certainly some referral bias, i.e. applicants from the most selective colleges apply in greater numbers to the most selective PhD programs, which is to be expected. Logically, students will apply to PhD institutions where they have a reasonable likelihood of acceptance. </p>

<p>As far as the declining share represented by the top institutions, according to the study it is mostly attributable to the vastly increased number of foreign students as well as the overall reduction of students at elite colleges seeking PhDs. </p>

<p>It is not as if students from the most selective colleges are being displaced by students from less elective colleges. Actually, the spread is increasing not increasing. The study showed a drop from 62% to 56% of students at the most selective colleges earning a PhD from the top institutions a 9.6% decline. At the same time the proportion of students in the next category of highly selective colleges dropped from 44% to 37%, a 15% decline. </p>

<p>So while it is getting harder for a student at an elite college to get into a top PhD institution (because of the foreign influx), it is getting even harder for students from less selective colleges. The authors explanation is that the quality dispersion at elite colleges had narrowed dramatically since 1970, much more so than at second tier colleges. SAT scores across the board have been rising much faster at elite colleges. Many students who would have been admitted a decade or two ago are simply not making it today. </p>

<p>As selectivity at elite colleges has accelerated in the past decade, I am willing to bet that the share of students earning PhD at top institutions from second tier colleges is continuing to decline faster than at first tier colleges. The average Harvard, MIT or Swarthmore student is a higher performance student today than a decade ago.</p>

<p>As far as post-docs getting tenure track positions in academia, the overwhelming majority earned their PhDs at top programs.</p>