<p>When we play stock markets, we usually look at the charts, millions of people look at the same charts. Do the charts mean anything? Will everything be reflected in the charts? Well, it depends on how well you can understand the charts. People make money in the markets for the wrong reasons, and lose money for the right reasons. If a monk in a remote mountain in China can count his toes and tell me which stock will make me rich, I will sell everything and buy that stocks. After all, the market is a brown noise, and human reacts in a pink noise fashion, together the market looks like a white noise. Everything we learned is useless in a sense that we can send people to the moon but unable to predict tomorrow’s markets. If the western math/science is a skeleton of the truth, you need the flesh and blood to make it complete. Okay, enough about index.</p>
<p>It’s quite simple. Selectivity means nothing if the student bodies and faculty are of equal caliber. Yield similarly means nothing. Thus neither should be used as criteria because they are at best shadows of other facts that can be measured with just as much accuracy and at least as precise a meaning. The fact that Yale had a 7.5 percent admissions rate and Penn had a 10+ percent admissions rate is itself useless; the fact that Yale has a stronger student body through various other specific measurements (scholarships e.g. Rhodes, etc. won by seniors, SAT scores, grad school placement) is what is relevant. </p>
<p>Yield is similarly a useless factor, per my previous posts. It would behoove you to use actual reasoning to discredit them, if that is how you feel.</p>
<p>Thank you for the…abstract post though.</p>
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<p>Baelor’s statement seems quite certainly true. </p>
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<p>I would also add that at times, one should look at the opportunities afforded by the school over the school’s percentage of success in various areas. For instance, perhaps a higher percentage of Harvey Mudd students attain physics Ph.D.'s than students at other schools, and yet there are plenty of schools which afford opportunities for physics students, and it may depend on the individual student which opportunities he/she would best utilize. Perhaps Caltech students have on average better grad school placement percentages – yet this all depends largely on who is applying, when, under what branch, etc, etc. I am a huge believer in going deep into the heart of why these percentages pan out the way they do.</p>
<p>^Exactly; mathboy’s addition is totally accurate; and show the danger of following rankings that use general criteria too much.</p>
<p>I believe Stanford is an interesting case. Its a relatively new school, and it should be judged that way. The fact that its undergraduate reputation is being included with other private institutions that have a 100 year advantage on it is nothing short of amazing. With that said, it is more important to consider future growth. Stanford has a few unmatchable qualities that make it unique and give it a distinct advantage (and disadvantage!) over other schools. I would argue that it is one of those institutions that have a tremendous upside to it.</p>
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I agree that its a better metric than simply counting Nobel Prizes. However, any science academic would argue that any metric that leaves out Caltech should be immediately discredited. The truth is that Caltechs density of high quality faculty is nearly unmatched by any other school. Now, is density the best way to measure overall science quality? I would argue no. Its inherently easier to run a small school than it is to run a big school. In this regard, there are so many factors to consider (philosophy, size, money, rankings, future prospects, etc.) that its silly to rank the schools. People cant just put arbitrary weights on each factor and sum them up like its some simple algebra equation.</p>
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I see a lot of number crunching to develop a metric to decide which undergraduate is better! and then extend this metric to the school as a whole which includes graduate school. How does this make any logical sense?</p>
<p>Elite graduate departments generally do not publish admission statistics for a reason they are cumbersome and they dont tell anything meaningful. If one particular department houses 200 academic giants in a field, it would be easy to see that that department would be willing to admit more students than another department that only has 1 giant and 10 total faculty members. For example, Yales selling point in its PhD admissions was that it only accepted ~5% of its applicants this year. The truth is that number isnt a reflection of the quality of Yales PhD programs as they generally lag behind other institutions with higher admittance rates.</p>
<p>I chose Stanford over MIT :-). It was a really hard decision, though.</p>
<p>Sorry for mistake on the timing of Andrew Fire’s recruitment. Here is the website for Stanford Nobel lists: [Faculty:</a> Stanford University Facts](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/about/facts/faculty.html]Faculty:”>http://www.stanford.edu/about/facts/faculty.html). If you remove those faculties who retired (Professor Emeritus, including Richard Taylor recently), move to somewhere else (Steven Chu, Joseph Stiglits, Michael Spence. The last two got their Nobel prize after leaving Stanford, and strictly speaking, should be only counted as Alumnus Nobel, just as Andrew Fire to Carnegie Institute of Washington and Johns Hopkins), and take away the adjunct faculties from other institutes (Hoover fellows), you will have 4 Nobels to work with if you attend Stanford right now. </p>
<p>If you want to include NAS, NAE and IOM member institute into the fold, many institutes do not have medical schools or Engineer schools, counting NAE and IOM may create unfair comparison. Furthermore, these agencies don’t have retirement system. Many of those members are not productive anymore. So, it has little relevance to the current academic strength of the institutes. </p>
<p>Most of the scientists evaluate the strength of a University through 2 criteria: publications (quantity and quality) and fundings. In this regard, Harvard is unmatched in the number of publications and highly cited papers ([Performance</a> Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities](<a href=“http://ranking.heeact.edu.tw/en-us/2008/TOP/100]Performance”>http://ranking.heeact.edu.tw/en-us/2008/TOP/100)). Harvard (plus all its affiliated hospitals and schools) is also on top of NIH fundings (<a href=“http://www.brimr.org/NIH_Awards/2008/SchoolOfMedicine2008.xls[/url]”>http://www.brimr.org/NIH_Awards/2008/SchoolOfMedicine2008.xls</a>, [Award</a> Summary Information: Top 50 Institutions](<a href=“http://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/Top50Inst2/default.asp]Award”>Award Summary Information: Top 50 Institutions)). Don’t get fooled by the table that Johns Hopkins is the first in NIH funding. Harvard has a peculiar accounting system that each school and hospital has a separate account in NIH budget. Harvard medical school system is way ahead of everybody.</p>
<pre><code> Publication Rank
</code></pre>
<p>Institute Agriculture Clin. med. Engineer Life sci. Nat. sci. Soc. sci.
Harvard 11 1 13 1 5 1
Stanford 29 13 4 4 7 8
UCB 4 N/A 1 20 1 9</p>
<p>It appears that UCB is in better position to catch Harvard. The score gaps between Stanford and Harvard are too big for Stanford to catch up, and all these data are hard and objective information. The reality is harsh.</p>
<p>By the way, I found out that Samual C.C. Ting is currently on the payroll of MIT. He is active. William Sharpe and Michael Spence had retired from Stanford.</p>
<p>Thanks. I was kidding you before, if you did not take it other way. Thanks for the info. And Samual C.C. Ting was a hero in China when I was in high school. Did not realize that he is still working.</p>
<p>Why would anybody choose the Stanford of the East</p>
<p>Harvardfan
You need to devide by the number of professors to equal out. If you look at number of “full” professors per total papers and grants, Stanford beats Harvard easily. Harvard Med School has about 3-4 hospitals (MGS, Brigham, Womens, etc) while Stanford has one. Looking at the Bio dept of Stanford and the Chem dept at Stanford, they beat Harvard easily.</p>
<p>Also the Hoover Inst is not included as “part” of Stanford by most even though it is on the campus and most hold a Stanford rank.</p>
<p>Do Harvard Nobels teach undergrad?? Stanford’s do. Do you have TAs for faculty at Harvard, you don’t at Stanford except in the Labs.</p>
<p>Also for number of admits. You need to look at full payment and eliminate scholorships. Harvard guarantees scholorship if income < $100,000; Stanford does not.</p>
<p>If you count papers or grants per faculty, no institute comes close to Caltech. Stanford biology is not better than Harvard’s, because undergraduates at Harvard are allowed to take advantage the pre-eminent labs in medical school and its hospitals (at least in paper). I also don’t see the major quality differences between Harvard’s MCB and OEB departments versus Stanford’s biology department. If anything, Harvard’s biology program appears to cover broader areas and have more layers of labs to choose from. Similarly, I do not see the point that “Stanford beats Harvard in chemistry easily”. You have to be specific. I hope that your argument is not based on USNWR ranking. </p>
<p>Those Hoover Nobels are not listed in any Stanford department. Instead, I found them in other institutes’ websites: Douglas North of Washington University at St. Louis ([Faculty</a> Listing](<a href=“http://economics.wustl.edu/faculty/]Faculty”>http://economics.wustl.edu/faculty/)), Gary Becker of University of Chicago ([University</a> of Chicago Law School > Gary S. Becker](<a href=“http://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/becker]University”>UChicago - Sign In)).</p>
<p>Since we only discuss the academic strength of these institutes, I will refrain from digressing into teaching quality argument. </p>
<p>Ewho, no problem. I am quite neutral. I may go to Stanford or Harvard or Caltech or UCB graduate school later, and I need to keep my mind open and be analytical, even though I am heading to MIT now. This will be my last comment on this thread. Thank you for providing some provoking and thoughtful comments.</p>
<p>“Also for number of admits. You need to look at full payment and eliminate scholorships. Harvard guarantees scholorship if income < $100,000; Stanford does not.”</p>
<p>Er, don’t they?</p>
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