<p>Stanford moved up to 5!</p>
<p>Yeah yeah, Williams is #1, who cares? (Nevermind that Swarthmore doesn’t even make top 15… not that anyone takes the Forbes ranking seriously anyway.)</p>
<p>Come off it, Dad2. Those who know your posting history can see this is another one of your backhanded jabs at Stanford. Though kudos on the subtlety this time.</p>
<p>Burn, Dad2, you really know how to hand it to college kids!</p>
<p>Nothing wrong with a little humor…</p>
<p>Know what’s even more humorous? Never seeing Williams or Swarthmore on any ranking of significance that includes schools like Stanford. That’s because a credible methodology would necessarily put them so far behind Stanford, it just isn’t fair to combine them.</p>
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Why? Williams and Swarthmore are great schools from what I’ve heard.</p>
<p>^ of course they are. But for most of the metrics that rankings could possibly use, top universities with a lot of money just do better in them. The quality of teaching at LACs is supposed to be their main advantage, but that’s just a myth propagated by LACs with not many other claims to fame. Top universities also have high-quality teaching, small classes, etc. Williams touts its tutorial system, but top schools have their own equivalent: independent study with a professor. </p>
<p>LACs like WSA are definitely better than most universities in terms of the intimacy of their education, but for better or for worse, money talks. And the top universities, who have pocketbooks too large to be quantified even in terms of endowment, are able to replicate most of the benefits of LACs, while also giving many additional benefits that LACs can’t (like large communities in addition to small ones, more student groups and activities, more classes, more degree programs, more facilities, more research, more star faculty, more centers and institutes and programs, etc.)</p>
<p>^and yet, students still choose LACs over Ivy Leagues and Stanford, whether in cross-admit battles or in choosing to apply at all. There must be a set of metrics that account for that.</p>
<p>Actually, the top LAC’s have impressive per capita endowments, higher than many universities (Swarthmore, e.g. has a higher per capita endowment than a number of ivies, etc.). As an ivy league educator (and, BTW a Stanford family in addition to ivies and top LAC’s), I perceive that SWA, HYPS are on the same plane, but different institutions attract slightly different students (e.g. Swat students/grads in general more uniformly intellectually serious and driven than some of its “competitors”).</p>
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<p>Rarely - no LAC even makes even a blip on Stanford’s radar, in terms of the number of students who choose not to attend Stanford, according to Stanford’s data (most schools had less than 1% and no LAC was in the top 20). In general students will choose Ivies/MIT/Stanford over LACs, which is why even the top LACs have poor yields (in the 30-40% range). Part of it comes from them cannibalizing each other’s yields, but the rest comes from students choosing to go to more prestigious universities like the Ivies.</p>
<p>Of course there are many students who don’t bother applying to such universities, instead focusing on LACs. But that doesn’t prove any superiority - the UCs have mostly applicants who wouldn’t consider applying to Ivies, but that doesn’t say much of their quality. Self-selectivity is obviously more applicable at selective LACs, but it’s hard to say to what degree that actually happens.</p>
<p>Dad2,</p>
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<p>Metrics like that are largely useless, because colleges spend very little of their endowment. Swarthmore’s 2010-11 budget says that the endowment brought only $48 million. That’s chump change; given the costs of running a college, it won’t be enough to pay for new facilities for students and faculty, or facility renovation, or a new dorm, or competitive new faculty, or more study abroad programs. If it does, it’s extremely slow over several years, something that donations won’t help (Swarthmore reported $8 million in gifts in 2010-11). Consider an extreme example: a random unknown college has 25 students and a $25 million endowment. It therefore has $1m endowment per student. Will that college be able to offer anything near what larger schools with comparable per-capita endowment have? No, of course not. We’re tempted to assume that “smaller endowment + smaller student body = same opportunities” or even similar opportunities, but it just doesn’t scale like that.</p>
<p>Put another way, the types of benefits that a university like Stanford has are possible only when you achieve economies of scale, and a LAC with so few students/faculty can’t do that, even if it does have a higher endowment per student. That’s why endowment per student tells you little: it ignores the role of economies of scale, a hurdle that even the top LACs haven’t yet overcome. Of course, they’re better off than most LACs, but still can’t compare to HYPSM. </p>
<p>So I repeat: the top universities, who have pocketbooks too large to be quantified even in terms of endowment*, are able to replicate most of the benefits of LACs, while also giving many additional benefits that LACs can’t.</p>
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<li>their pocketbooks also include generous donations, federal research money, student income, and in some cases (like Stanford and MIT), significant yearly gross royalties from spin-out technologies. Factoring in this last one would give Stanford an additional endowment-equivalent of roughly $1.4 billion, the size of the top LACs’ endowments. </li>
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<p>Except one group has world-renowned faculty and the other doesn’t.</p>
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<p>Oh right, just like Swat students have to deal with grade deflation? </p>
<p>(For clarity, both are rumors propagated by Swat loyalists.)</p>
<p>FWIW, I think Swarthmore is excellent and I nearly applied there when I was in high school. It’s definitely my favorite LAC, as it’s the only LAC that had offerings in my interests. Regardless, most of the trumpeting that LAC supporters do is just plain hogwash that reeks of desperate attempts to cling to any metric that makes their alma maters seem competitive with the very top universities. I’m surprised you haven’t brought up PhD production or professional school feeders.</p>
<p>For a major research university, it is noteworthy that Stanford has fewer per capita nobel prize winners than Swarthmore among its undergraduate alumni (doesn’t appear that the privations of a LAC education hold in this case). Honestly (and I again stress that my nuclear family includes Stanford and Harvard alumni as well as SLAC’s), I think it is the ignorance of the masses that leads to some of the LAC “trumpeting” that you decry. 'Tis nice if your school is a household word.</p>
<p>Food for thought: $68 million of Swat’s $109 million went to salaries/benefits (62%), $38m to operating expenses (35%), and only $3m to capital expenditures (enough to maintain the plant). If you look at actual spending per student, Swat comes out at $71,000. Stanford has a $4.2 billion budget (which includes capital expenditures but excludes the hospitals) with similar spending proportions, 54% to salaries/benefits and 30% to operating expenses. Since it’s hard to separate grads from undergrads, I’ll include both in the denominator - so average spending per student at $275,000. I would add the caveat of the different costs of grads vs. undergrads, but most of the budget goes to items that apply to both, so it’s a moot point anyway.</p>
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<p>Considering that the Nobel Prize is such a rare award, any slight difference in absolute numbers can cause drastic fluctuations in the comparison on a per-capita basis - i.e. statistically unreliable. Why not look at more numerous items like Rhodes/Truman/Marshall winners? Or professor alumni in prestigious academies like the NAE? Or alumni who have held significant political offices?</p>
<p>Here’s why: it means little to nothing in absolute numbers. Looking at it in per-capita then is even less meaningful. In other words these kinds of metrics, whether you look at them in absolute or per-capita terms, are largely useless. So even if Stanford beat Swarthmore in both absolute and per-capita terms for a given metric like Rhodes winners, I’d still say it’s not a worthwhile metric to bring up.</p>
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in fisheye. :)</p>