<p>That's funny, idler, we brought up precisely the same stuff.</p>
<p>SB, your post hit while I was typing mine, making it redundant. Obviously I agree.</p>
<p>I am not convinced that the contrast between a LAC and a major research university applies here. Yes, Brown has a more "undergrad focus" in the sense that it doesn't have a lot of professional schools. However, it has a lot less money per undergrad student than Harvard. There are tons of opportunities on the Harvard campus for an undergrad to get research or summer travel funding. To cite another example, the amount of research and summer funding available at Princeton, where I am regularly hearing about kids' being sent to Peru or London on a grant or doing research in labs or getting money to work in a nonprofit, is far greater than what appears to be available at many of the LACs I also hear about. I do think these questions need to be taken on a case-by-case basis.</p>
<p>aparent5</p>
<p>I think princeton is precisely the example that demonstrates the difference between Harvard, as a research/PhD/Professional school, and undergrad friendly LAC's.
Within the awkward fit this is the Ivy league Princeton and Dartmouth are most commonly known for their undergrad emphasis. Harvard far less so, because of its nature...probably the best grad school on earth
Still, Harvard undergrad is nothing to sneeze at!</p>
<p>By chance, an article appeared in the Harvard Crimson yesterday on the issue of TFs.</p>
<p>quoting from the article:</p>
<p>CUE May Revise TF Evaluations </p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Director of the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning James D. Wilkinson 65 estimated that the College currently employs about 1,400 TFs and Course Assistants. Of those, 454 TFs received CUE Certificates of Distinction in the spring of 2004, an award given to TFs who score a 4.5 or above on the five-point CUE evaluation scale.>></p>
<p>Even Wilkinson, who hands out the awards to high-scoring TFs, said he was surprised that nearly a third of TFs received the distinction last spring.>></p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Just like the facultys concern over student grades, responded Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross 71, referring to the oft-debated phenomenon of grade inflation.</p>
<p>His comment elicited laughter from the faculty in attendance.>></p>
<p>My S has been extremely happy with the TFs and (undergraduate) course assistants he has had. His classes in the College have ranged from 70+ to 10 (the 10 person class had two course assistants). He has also had great access to the profs in the classes he's taken.
Personally, I do not think that focusing on TFs provides a good gauge of educational quality. I also don't see that the presence of graduate students is a detriment to undergraduate education. Many of these graduate students are not close enough to the College physically to make a difference: Med School, B-School, School of Public Health, School of Dentistry are on the other side of the river. Other professional schools are enclaves unto themselves and their students do not mingle with undergraduates.
Graduate students in Ph.D. programs, however, are very visible in the Yard and other places where undergraduates can be found. But blaming graduate students for the deficiencies of a Harvard undergraduate education is misguided. The number of freshmen or sophomores who will find themselves in the same class as graduate students can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. As for juniors and seniors, they are only a couple of years younger than first and second year grads--these are the ones taking classes. By the same reasoning, we should divide undergraduates into freshmen and sophomore on the one hand, and juniors and senior on the other. There is as much of an age gap between them as between the latter group and graduate students.
As my S has found, it is great for undergraduates to have access to graduate classes. The lack of such classes struck off otherwise excellent LACs from his list of schools to be considered.
Do some profs care more about research than teaching? I'm sure some do. Do some care more about their graduate students than undergraduates? Yes, too. But they are in a minority in a faculty that is large enough to address the needs of the undergraduates. In a smaller school, having a few profs who are inaccessible for whatever reason can have a far greater impact on undergraduate education.
LACs provide generous leaves to their profs to compensate for their heavy teaching load. A small department can thus be devastated by leaves of absence. My older S decided not to apply to a top 10 LAC that had 3 profs in one department he was interested in, one of whom was about to go on leave.</p>
<p>I agree with Marite on the TF issue. Though my son turned down Harvard last year for Columbia (and there were people who couldn't believe we "let him" make this decision) he's had a wonderful experience with the Teaching Fellow who leads his core class. Few professors would take the time -- or have the time -- to lavish on 22 first years who write a combined 88 essays a semester. This is someone a year or so away from being a professor somewhere, possibly at an LAC. The graduate programs at some of these universities are intensely competitive, and the graduate students incredibly smart. Unlike many professors, Teaching Fellows also receive guidance and instruction in how to teach. </p>
<p>I, too, didn't interpret the Brown article as a reflection on Harvard. Each place represents a different experience and, if the students are really thinking it through, attracts a different student body. I don't get why people can't just live with the idea that the whole trick is to help your child find a school where he or she in particular will thrive.</p>
<p>The late Jack Smith, long-time columnist for the LA Times used to have fun with a hobby of cheerfully collecting all the many articles and quotes trashing SoCal in general and LA in particular. I think I'm start collecting all the articles, threads, and posts trashing Harvard. It might give SoCal a run for its money.</p>
<p>Forget Brown, Harvard or any other school for that matter. My hope was to spur a discussion on the topic of undergraduate focus. This is an issue that many high schoolers fail to focus on, but yet, feel the lack of it almost immediately at the college level. The articles reveal something quite striking. That there are infact schools that place little/less emphasis on undergrads.
For my 2 cents, the best description of the value of undergraduate focus appears in the Yale article (post #17). Is the described environment (forget the school) best for your child?</p>
<p>My comments echo those of Marite's. I have a S who is a senior at Harvard. Harvard has been a wonderful experience for him and he has taken advantage of all it has to offer -- grad classes at the Law school, interaction with Business and Law school professors on projects, research projects that have won awards, and intense involvement in extracurriculars (including new ones) that have resulted in business opportunities. Harvard has been a wonderful fit for him although we feel he would have shined at most colleges that accepted him.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>My hope was to spur a discussion on the topic of undergraduate focus.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>If that was simply your hope , why didn't you just ask about undergraduate focus in general? It's you a framed this as a Harvard vs. Brown debate, not us. Also you spammed this same topic on several other forums and plus spammed other threads with titles like:</p>
<p>Will Harvard President Survive No Confidence Vote<br>
Harvard's Achilles' heel, Yale's Strength </p>
<p>Looks more like like simple Harvard-bashing spam than any balanced discussion of undergraduate focus.</p>
<p>Those articles (1) came from 2 very credible sources and, (2) were chosen to spur debate on a topic I think deserves much review. Both articles strike at the heart of how important Undergrad focus is, both at the student and faculty level.</p>
<p>Lack of Undergraduate focus at Harvard has had to take a back seat to a variety of other contrversies surrounding Harvard's president. It has gotten to the point where, with regard to Harvard's President Summers, a faculty vote of no confidence, is scheduled to take place this week.</p>
<p>The Summers controversy has surely taken the focus away from undergraduate education. It has delayed the (undergraduate) curricular review by at least two months if not more.</p>