<p>Those faculty/student ratios are wildly at odds with the numbers reported in USNews, so that I wonder if you are comparing apples and apples here.</p>
<p>USNew reports Harvard at 8:1, Williams at 8:1, Amherst at 8:1, Swarthmore at 8:1, Carleton at 9:1, Pomona at 9:1, Bowdoin at 10:1, and Middlebury at 11:1.</p>
<p>I used the number of undergraduates and of faculty reported on the Swarthmore and Williams websites (under quick facts). For Harvard, I used the number of undergraduates and GSAS students reported in the Harvard factbook (as of Oct. 15, 2004) and the number of FAS faculty reported in the latest Dean's letter to the faculty. These are, in my opinion, the only numbers that matter in terms of undergraduate education since FAS faculty are not teaching HBS or HMS students, nor are undergrads, save for a very few exceptions, likely to take courses outside of FAS.</p>
<p>The numbers are as follow:</p>
<p>Swarthmore: 1500 students, 163 faculty.
Williams: 2000 students, 286 faculty.
Harvard: 6,562 undergraduates, 3,638 in GSAS, 672 faculty .</p>
<p>well, i'm a proud harvard reject :) haha for the record</p>
<p>Just thought I'd point out that this is ON the Harvard board so those who haven't made up their minds yet should take some of the more vehement arguments with a grain of salt.</p>
<p>In the end, almost everyone seems satisfied with their choice of college and wouldn't change it. people will tend to like whatever they have, so if you go to an LAC and you have a great time, then LACs are better. If you go to an Ivy and have a great time, then ivies are better. if you get there and it really sucks, then transfer.</p>
<p>if prestige matters to you, then go to harvard. If you'd rather have a more integrated (i don't know about nurturing because that sounds more immature) supportive environment, go for an LAC. If you don't know, visit both and do more research or go with your gut instinct. if you don't know that, then draw names out of a hat and if you feel sad about what you drew then cross that school off.</p>
<p>and know that cc can sway your opinion, because i think i'm falling victim to that a little bit.</p>
<p>of course, i'm giving all this advice and i don't know where I'm planning to go at all so cheers! if you are choosing between harvard and williams or swarthmore or whatever, then congratulations on getting into to multiple awesome schools!</p>
<p>It's very hard for me to believe and understand how the faculty at a school like Harvard is going to take/have the time to interact with, advise, and in general be there for the typical undergraduate student. Note the word 'undergraduate'. And what about the issue of TAs at Harvard being 'academic advisors' for undergrads? You've got to be kidding! If I send my kid to Harvard I'm expecting her advisor to be a faculty member in her discipline. Not a graduate student just a few years older with limited experience. Harvard has so many 'big name' profs--famous people who have come there to teach from gov't, industry, and other areas that is naive to say that these profs are going to be there day in and day out to teach, help, and advise undergraduates. That's why there are so many TA's (or TFs as Harvard prefers to call them). If all of Harvard's 700 profs actively taught UGs, there would be no need for TFs and no question about just how involved the faculty is with its UGs. Maybe the faculty at many LACs doesn't have the 'big names' and haven't published as many books, but their primary and sometimes sole job is to teach, advise, mentor, and generally help educate undergraduate students. And that they are very good at. You guys can cite all the stats you want to make your own narrow points, but get real and use some common sense. Harvard is certainly a great school in many ways, but in terms of the faculty teaching, advising, and being accessible to undergraduate students, it cannot compare to most of the top LACs.</p>
<p>If you don't want to believe it, then don't believe it. I had lots of contact with "big name profs" at Harvard, as have many others I know, but maybe our experience was atypical.</p>
<p>I have no desire to convince anyone to go to Harvard who doesn't want to be there. Indeed, I would prefer that my son's classmates be people who do want to be there. And Harvard will have no trouble filling its class with people who meet the latter description. </p>
<p>But I do think that anyone who is admitted to Harvard and who decides not to go based on myths or stereotypes without checking the place out directly is doing himself or herself a disservice. Similarly, I think anyone who decides to go there based solely on name or prestige is doing himself or herself a disservice. If you're smart enough to get into Harvard, you're smart enough to make an intelligent and informed decision about whether to attend.</p>
<p>I guess basically the people on the other side refuse to believe that Harvard faculty has time for undergrads, simply because they are world class. </p>
<p>Yes, go to a LAC if you want less distinguished faculty that apparently have nothing better to do than serve milk and cookies to their students.</p>
<p>"I would prefer that my son's classmates be people who do want to be there. And Harvard will have no trouble filling its class with people who meet the latter description."</p>
<p>You're missing the point! Article after article seems to demonstrate otherwise. There is discontentment at the student level (see Yahoo article, Student Review survey, etc. and at the faculty level (vote of no cofidence, Brown article above, etc). Why isn't Harvard filling its seats with people who want to be there. Or is it disappointing them once they get there?</p>
<p>I also have no desire to reengage in debate with a serial Harvard-basher. Maybe Byerly will take you up on it. :)</p>
<p>I am not about to take sides in this silly slap fight over Harvard vs LAC's. Just to keep the hyperbole going, here is the "Weighted Baccalaureate Origins" study.</p>
<p>Of the 25 institutions whose graduates are most likely to get doctoral degrees, 13 were colleges, 4 were music conservatories, 8 were universities. One, Caltech, is a small university with a small undergrad population. Harvard was 25th, behind Caltech, MIT, Chicago, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and a bunch of LAC's, including Kalamazoo.</p>
<p>Play ball.</p>
<p>The proportion of students headed for Ph.D.s is a flawed index of the quality of education, since it does not take into account the proportion of students going into law, medicine, business. Unless one is willing to argue that students headed to law, medicine or business school are less good than students who will be going into Ph.D. programs, I don't see how that study proves anything (disclaimer: I hold a Harvard Ph.D.)</p>
<p>As for advising, here is the deal. It's widely acknowledged that freshman advising is lousy; some of the advisors are members of the faculty, some are administrators, some are graduate students and some have only a tenuous connection with the academic life of the college. I think the curricular review is supposed to address the issue of freshman advising, but I have read nothing concrete. According to the Crimson, students are not convinced that going to a Yale-style 4-year college is a good idea, even though they acknowledge that many freshmen get a lot of advice from upperclassmen. I'm not holding my breath about improvements in freshman advising in time to benefit my S. </p>
<p>Once they have declared a major (currently at the end of freshman year) students are advised within their majors by members of the faculty. Profs hold regular office hours; however, many students prefer to deal with TFs, perhaps because the TFs are closer to them in age. But Nobel prize winner Dudley Hershbach was for a long time Master of one of the Houses. How much more accessible can a prof get? My S's own experience so far has been positive; it was one reason why he felt comfortable applying EA to Harvard as opposed to other colleges. </p>
<p>I'm getting to agree with Byerly and Cosar. If someone doesn't think that their child will be getting a great education at Harvard, there is ABSOLUTELY NO reason for the kid to bother even applying there, let alone attending. What's the point of arguing?</p>
<p>@daddo09: </p>
<p>You can believe what you please; it's a free country. But if you would like me to believe as you do, please show me some specific facts about contact with specific professors at specific schools, as I have done (ahem) regarding Harvard earlier in this thread. For top students in certain subjects, NOWHERE other than Harvard offers a better opportunity for a first-year student to have regular contact with a knowledgeable, experienced professor from the first week of class. Try to find me another first-year math course like Math 55 (MIT, another research university, and Caltech would be the likely places to look, but neither of those schools is an LAC). Or show me IN DETAIL information about what the students do in their first year in some school you like in some subject your child likes.</p>
<p>A standard teeny-tiny ploy.</p>
<p>All PhDs are not equal, and many a PhD degree is less impressive than an MBA, a JD, or an MD degree. </p>
<p>Oddly, you consider professional degrees of no consequence. I wonder why. Maybe because the teeny-tinies don't stack up so well if you count ALL post-graduate degrees, eh? </p>
<p>Not that being a high school teacher isn't a noble calling in life.</p>
<p>Byerly, as I said, I am not choosing sides. But I was expecting the ad hominen.</p>
<p>I made no claims about the importance of PhD's vs other degrees, or ending formal education with a bachelors degree. I made no claims about the "impressiveness" of any particular PhD or PhD's vs other graduate degrees. </p>
<p>I was just citing facts. Interesting that you felt the need to attack in response. How's that hostility working for you? How many people run away and hide?</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>I make no claim that the proportion of students who get research doctoral degrees is an index of quality. It is an index of the career choices of the students at the school, and it MAY be an indicator of the intellectual climate on campus. PhD's do not appeal to everyone, and the financial payoff is less than the professional degrees. PhD students are not better than professional degree students, just different. </p>
<p>The main goal of bringing this up was to point out how meaningless putative measures of quality are. What is the right proportion of students who get advanced degrees? Is higher better? Of course not. Serious economists have tried, and failed, to find evidence that, given the academic background of the students, it matters where they go to college. The students who go to Harvard would do great, on average, if they went to Michigan State, or Grambling.</p>
<p>I have to admit I also could not resist Harvard was 25th and I expected someone to rise to the bait. I knew I could count on Byerly, you were just a bonus.</p>
<p>That is horse manure. "Intellectual climate" my eye. There are many useful "measures of quality" but this is not one of them. Teeny-tiny propagandists have been touting it for years, because they have nothing else, and must, in desperation, try to turn a negative into a positive.</p>
<p>And don't think you are so clever, "afan". I've seen this particular cliche trotted out hundreds of times over the years. Then, of course maybe that was you the other 299 times, posting under a different alias.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Serious economists have tried, and failed, to find evidence that, given the academic background of the students, it matters where they go to college. The students who go to Harvard would do great, on average, if they went to Michigan State, or Grambling.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Could you please clarify this ambiguous statement? When you say excellent students "would do great" at a state school, are you referring to financially? Level of personal satisfaction? Life span of students?</p>
<p>Afan:</p>
<p>Thanks for clarifying that you made no claim as to quality of education.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>The students who go to Harvard would do great, on average, if they went to Michigan State, or Grambling.>> Totally agree. Schools like HYPSM are great schools in large part because of the quality of their students.</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Raven,</p>
<p>Actually on all three measures, as well as conventional indicators of professional success. It is an interesting literature.</p>
<p>Marite,</p>
<p>This is entertainment. I made no claims at all, I just reported the figures. And I see I have Byerly's blood pressure up. Having fun.</p>
<p>Byerly,</p>
<p>The cleverness was in getting you dancing on the puppet strings. I gather you feel obliged to respond each time, so others have had the same fun.</p>
<p>For more fun: Many of the places above Harvard are not small LAC. So what does size have to do with it? </p>
<p>What would be a measure of educational quality? SAT scores are an index of who attends, not how well they are eduated once they get there. Subsequent accomplishments are determined by whom enrolls, not how well they were taught. Faculty prominence is based on their publications, and tells you nothing about how well they teach. Some great scholars are good teachers, others are not.</p>
<p>Byerly, </p>
<p>What cliche? I cited a report. What negative? Is having lots of students get research doctoral degrees a "negative"? Why?</p>
<p>On the other hand, isn't paying 40k a year to be taught by a student exactly what you're doing when you enroll in a student-discussion-based seminar? You can't have it both ways--either you have a small class, led by a professor but largely composed of student discussion, or you have a larger lecture class in which the professor is the one who speaks and that is supplemented by section with student discussion and interactions with TFs.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, one of the worst sections I ever had at Harvard was led by a professor. I've taken four faculty-led seminars here. One I loved and three I thought were okay--they were not, on the whole, any better than lecture classes.</p>