<p>can anyone give me some basis for comparison? I just visited bmc and loved it.
what I'm most interested in is how the schools compare in terms of graduate placement- who gets into the best graduate and professional programs? which has the best academic reputation?</p>
<p>Courtesy of interesteddad:</p>
<p>Here are the top-50 undergrad schools in per capita PhD and Doctoral production (total) from 1994-2003. Rank, followed by name, followed by number of PhDs per 1000 undergrads. This covers all PhDs and doctoral degrees included in the NSF data base.</p>
<p>Per Capita Undergrad Production of PhDs and Doctoral Degrees</p>
<p>Academic field: ALL</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: 1994 to 2003 from NSF database </p>
<p>Enrollment from 2004 USNews </p>
<p>Formula: PhDs divided by undergrad enrollment times 1000 </p>
<p>1 California Institute of Technology 828
2 Swarthmore College 513
3 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 505
4 Harvey Mudd College 467
5 Reed College 394
6 Carleton College 394
7 Harvard University 386
8 Oberlin College 384
9 Yale University 351
10 Bryn Mawr College 342
11 Haverford College 330
12 Princeton University 328
13 Amherst College 320
14 Pomona College 316
15 Williams College 315
16 Grinnell College 298
17 University of Chicago 290
18 Rice University 288
19 Wesleyan University 286
20 Stanford University 269
21 Brown University 263
22 Wellesley College 263
23 Smith College 236
24 Kalamazoo College 227
25 Cornell University, All Campuses 222
26 University of Rochester 215
27 Duke University 210
28 Juilliard School 206
29 Earlham College 206
30 Vassar College 206
31 Mount Holyoke College 205
32 Bowdoin College 203
33 Barnard College 201
34 St Olaf College 200
35 Dartmouth College 199
36 Macalester College 195
37 University of California-Berkeley 193
38 Bates College 176
39 College of William and Mary 175
40 Lawrence University 175
41 Occidental College 174
42 University of Pennsylvania 174
43 College of Wooster 170
44 Trinity University 169
45 Brandeis University 169
46 Hendrix College 169
47 Beloit College 167
48 Knox College 166
49 Davidson College 164
50 Case Western Reserve University 164</p>
<p>Note 1: Some have complained that these lists don't provide useful data. Proposed Solution: ignore the lists.</p>
<p>Note 2: Some have complained that these lists don't include Law, MBA, MD, or Masters degrees. Proposed Solution: find the data and make your own list.</p>
<p>Note 3: Some have complained that I should go school by school and selectively remove engineering from one school or music from another, but leave them for still others. Proposed Solution: Be my guest.</p>
<hr>
<p>For professional placement, see the WSJ "ranking." Beware of the current raging debate on CC about it, though. ;)</p>
<p>thanks for replying. i've kind of gotten the feeling that bmc has alittle more stress on the academia side of things than the other schools.
could anyone tell me about political science/govt at each of the schools?
that's my major interest along with french, in which i think its safe to say bryn mawr would provide the best education.
i know there are rankings of udergrad programs, but i've heard they really favor state schools- so do you have any idea of how poli sci at bryn mawr is?
both wellesley and smith advertise internships in washington, and i haven't seen an internship program for washington listed specifically, though i have seen that there are internships to congress.</p>
<p>bump please someone help</p>
<p>My favorite in terms of feeling was BMC, I also loved Mount Holyoke. Wellesley and Smith felt a little less nurturing. But in terms of grad school placement, Wellesley or Bryn Mawr are higher ranked, but Smith and MHC are good too. In terms of those sisters, I think it's just a matter of opinion.</p>
<p>My daughter#1 looked closely at Bryn Mawr, almost went to Wellesley, didn't look that closely at Smith.</p>
<p>These were impressions from her college hunt a couple years ago:</p>
<p>Both Bryn Mawr and Wellesley students seemed highly stressed with academics, and the students we met did not seem to us to be having a good time socially, on the whole.</p>
<p>Wellesley students seemed more oriented towards professional and business careers, overall. I saw no reason to suspect that those Wellesley students who wanted to pursue PhDs were in any way disadvantaged in doing so vs. Bryn Mawr, just that a higher proportion of them want to get jobs. Maybe because they can? I say that because my former investment bank interviewed at Wellesley,but not at Bryn Mawr.</p>
<p>Wellesley seemed more selective admissions-wise than Bryn Mawr at the time.</p>
<p>Wellesley has an outstanding political science department. A prof at the college my daughter actually selected said it's among the very top LAc-based departments.</p>
<p>She ultimately did not apply to Bryn Mawr, in part because a friend of my wife's, who was an alum, said don't expect a social life. In the end, apparent social life prospects played a role in her decision against Wellesley too. There also seemed to be kind of a competitive edge to the Wellesley environment that she didn't find appealing. From all these pre-law, pre-med, pre-whatever? Possibly a wrong impression there.</p>
<p>I don't recall much discussion about poli sci at Bryn Mawr, which is a notable omission since it was one of my daughter's main interests. I have a feeling this maybe was one of the departments that was kind of stronger at Haverford? Not sure.</p>
<p>bump bump
btw, which would be better for poli sci and french?</p>