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Harvard is frequently bashed for its attention to undergraduates, or lack thereof, and it fared poorly in the COFHE student satisfaction survey. Whether this is entirely accurate or not (I suspect it is greatly exaggerated), I can’t say, but in any case Harvard has a reputation for having some of the unhappiest students in the Ivy League, whereas Brown has a reputation for having (some of) the happiest. </p>
<p>Brown has only 8400 students on campus, almost 3/4 of which are undergraduates. Harvard has 21,000 students, of which less than 1/3 are undergraduates. Arts & sciences undergraduates outnumber grad students at Brown by a ratio nearly double that of Harvard. They are by no means interchangeable institutions. </p>
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I am happy that you had a small class…no doubt it was highly memorable.</p>
<p>Perhaps we should compare the sizes of the undergraduate classes at Berkeley and Brown this semester before citing anecdotal evidence, however.</p>
<p>Berkeley intro to poli sci: 333
Brown intro to poli sci: 109</p>
<p>Berkeley average PS class size: 115
Brown average PS class size: 39</p>
<p>Berkeley median PS class size: 55
Brown median PS class size: 29</p>
<p>There are some stark differences between the two. Brown’s upper-level political science courses range from 3 students to 155, with only 3 courses having over 50 students. </p>
<p>At Berkeley, all except 2 courses have more than 50 students, and more than 1/3 have 100+ students. </p>
<p>The number of undergraduate courses offered at Berkeley this semester (21) is virtually identical to that of Brown (19) – in fact, Brown would take the lead if you factored in the separately administered IR courses. Given that Berkeley has twice as many political scientists on staff as Brown, one can draw one’s own conclusions about the dedication to undergraduate teaching. </p>
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I’m sure you’re right. I’ve always said that a go-getter can do perfectly well at a large university (public or private). Heck, I’ve often noted that I got quite close to several professors at my large in-state public as an undergrad.</p>
<p>I was thinking more of career and professional advising rather than academic. Berkeley’s embarrassingly weak performance in things like postgraduate fellowship production are largely due to inadequate advising, not a lack of good students. (For example, Brown has produced more Rhodes Scholars in the last couple of years than Berkeley has since the 1960s.) Premed advising is notoriously poor, though not relevant to the OP.</p>