Harvey Mudd medical school preparation

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvey Mudd College
41

<p>Yes, I know about the overhead. Cf. "research funds do help to support faculty salaries and administration"--so I'm sure that Caltech undergrads do benefit from that.</p>

<p>LabRat, I've got to point out that your opinion has really evolved in this thread... you've gone from insisting that Caltech undergrads don't even benefit from the endowment money (much of which is specifically earmarked for them!) to suggesting that the reseach overhead is being diverted to help undergrads.</p>

<p>You're quite possibly right, indirectly, but the biggest financial benefit to undergrads is surely directly from the endowment.</p>

<p>Still, I think the main benefits of the research money to students are 1) Its presence helps to attract top faculty members; and 2) It funds projects that quite often give undergrads excellent research experience.</p>

<p>I'll agree that Harvey Mudd and Caltech finances are different from one another, but it's more like "apples to apples + a really big orange" than "apples to oranges". It's not as if Caltech students don't need to be taught, fed, and housed, too!</p>

42

<p>Woah there, Joe.
Either I'm sniffing glue or so sleep deprived I don't even understand what I previously wrote.</p>

<p>Skimming NIH/NSF/whatever funding agency money off the top is not the same--in my mind--as endowment.
("Endowment" = stocks, bonds, hedge funds, real estate investment, good lordy knows what other financial means, anything but taking 60% overhead from research money earned by professors' grant writings.)
Thus, I haven't really 'evolved' just shared different sides of my financial perspective.</p>

<p>Anyway, I'm pretty tired of this thread not being about Harvey Mudd, which it should be, since we are on the HMC forum and all. Perhaps an attempt at subliminal domination?</p>

43

<p>Lol. You should have seen my declarations regarding the dominance issue on another thread....except the whole thread got deleted...</p>

44

<p>"Skimming NIH/NSF/whatever funding agency money off the top is not the same--in my mind--as endowment."</p>

<p>No, obviously it's not the same at all, not just in your mind. And NO student financial aid (which is the most obvious form of direct cash assistance to undergrads, clearly), comes from this source! Where's it come from? The endowment. A pretty substantial chunk of the endowment, as a matter of fact, is dedicated to only this.</p>

<p>If you take a look at my post #27, where I go over actual numbers from a real Caltech budget, it explains this quite clearly.</p>

<p>P.S. It's a Harvey Mudd forum, but for some reason demonstrably inaccurate statements about Caltech like "undergraduates don't benefit from the large endowment" seem to crop up here.</p>

45

<p>


I really don't think you want to be the one to bring up that thread.</p>

46

<p>"I really don't think you want to be the one to bring up that thread."</p>

<p>Are you kidding me? While bringing up Joe's old posts and such from another website may be dirty, my declarations were great. I still stand by them. You cannot induce shame on opinion that has ammo behind it. </p>

<p>I would like my declarations posted here but they were deleted with the thread. You act like I should be ashamed... <em>shakes head</em> Nope. One of my friends, after reading that particular post, said I should consider applying for the Rhodes Scholarship... I don't think I will; judging on the previous selections I am not the type of person they go for.</p>

47

<p>Can I get a price check on Impedance Mismatch, aisle 5:</p>

<p>"No, obviously it's not the same at all, not just in your mind."</p>

<p>Right, except that it [research overhead] was apparently the same [as endowment] in <em>your</em> mind when you wrote:
"LabRat, I've got to point out that your opinion has really evolved in this thread... you've gone from insisting that Caltech undergrads don't even benefit from the endowment money (much of which is specifically earmarked for them!) to suggesting that the reseach overhead is being diverted to help undergrads."</p>

<p>==><==</p>

<p>Never said a word about endowment not helping undergrads. </p>

<p>The only claim I ever made in this thread was that Mudd's undergrad teaching profs are uniformly excellent, superior--on average--to classroom experience I've had at Caltech.</p>

<p>the end.</p>

48

<p>LOL, LabRat, I'm obviously on your side but I just find it funny that you've been so cool and now it appears you are getting steamed up.</p>

<p>That's awesome.
Welcome to CC: The only forum devoted to pi$sing people off.</p>

49

<p>Actually I think Auto Admit might also qualify for that.</p>

50

<p>
[quote]
Right, except that it [research overhead] was apparently the same [as endowment] in <em>your</em> mind when you wrote:
"LabRat, I've got to point out that your opinion has really evolved in this thread... you've gone from insisting that Caltech undergrads don't even benefit from the endowment money (much of which is specifically earmarked for them!) to suggesting that the reseach overhead is being diverted to help undergrads."

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Wrong. (How could anyone even think that in the first place?) Read carefully. Your opinion "evolved", in my judgment, because it's clearly a greater leap to assume (as you do) that research overheard charges (which are supposed to pay for administration) are being diverted to directly help undergraduates than to believe that endowment income--much of which is specifically earmarked for students--is more than "loosely correlated" with student benefits.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Never said a word about endowment not helping undergrads.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You're largely right on this, actually--I just went back to look and it was rocketDA who made the most ridiculous statement on that earlier in the thread, not you. But you did say:</p>

<p>
[quote]
I haven't really attempted to figure out finances at either (any) school, but endowments seem to be these black box money machines which are loosely correlated to the pricetag.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>...which isn't quite correct either, although I will of course give you credit for acknowledging that you haven't really looked into it. In fact, a school with a substantial endowment can make the choice (as Caltech has) to substantially lower the price tag... or not. A school without a substantial endowment doesn't have the choice.</p>

<p>
[quote]
The only claim I ever made in this thread was that Mudd's undergrad teaching profs are uniformly excellent, superior--on average--to classroom experience I've had at Caltech.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm surprised you've been taking many undergraduate classes at Caltech! Is this your first year?</p>

51

<p>You really enjoy flamebaiting don't you Joe?</p>

52

<p>To everyone on this forum:
I've known tiyusufaly since we were prefrosh. He is probably one of the most sincere and down-to-Earth people I know. (Even more so than me, if you can believe it! :P )</p>

<p>I couldn't care less if you don't listen to me because I throw myself out there a lot and do some "sketchy" activities. But when tiyusufaly says something like, "You really enjoy flamebaiting don't you Joe?" you better listen to what he has to say. Look at all of tiyusufaly's posts. They are reasonable and level-headed.</p>

<p>So yes, Joe, tiyusufaly says let it rest. Let it rest. No arguments with tiyusufaly...</p>

53

<p>"You're largely right on this, actually--I just went back to look and it was rocketDA who made the most ridiculous statement on that earlier in the thread, not you. But you did say:" -Joe</p>

<p>Which statement was this? I just went back and looked through this thread. I didn't see anything that truly met this description. Are you making this up?</p>

<p>And I think I speak for many of us on this thread when I say that your flamebaiting is the most ridiculous thing on this thread.</p>

54

<p>Considering that Caltech has 1275 Grads amd 896 undergrads (according to Wikipedia), I'd say a substantial % of the endowment returns go to the grad. This leaves a hefty chunk for the undergrads but it isn't like science-related grad research at Caltech isn't REALLY expensive.</p>

<p>Some of this does cross-over to benefit the undergrads. You get to help in grad's research labs, have cool/fancy facilities, say you go to Caltech where all the break-through research is done...</p>

55

<p>Which statement was this? I just went back and looked through this thread. I didn't see anything that truly met this description. Are you making this up?</p>

<p>I am not sure if it is on this thread or another, but he was referring to something a long the line of "undergrads at caltech see none of the endowment and all of the money goes to grad students."</p>

56

<p>
[quote]
Let it rest. No arguments with tiyusufaly...

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Right, "appeal to [dubious] authority" ends all arguments. Let's just ignore the numbers.</p>

<p>
[quote]
You, however, are not going to tell me that the returns from a $2.5 billion endowment is going to be used mostly on undergrads. It is mostly used on research. Research that grads do and undergrads, if they are lucky, can get their feet wet with.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This is the statement, btw, RocketDA. Well, we've numerically shown (repeatedly!) that more of the Caltech endowment is used just on undergraduate financial aid alone<a href="even%20leaving%20aside%20the%20other%20myriad%20benefits%20to%20undergrads,%20like%20better%20facilities%20and%20more%20professors">/i</a> than the *entire Harvey Mudd endowment in sum total. In fact, the income required for that item alone is produced from a piece of the endowment roughly 3x the size of Harvey Mudd's total. If that's not "enough" then I hate to think of what your opinion of Harvey Mudd's endowment must be.</p>

<p>
[quote]
it isn't like science-related grad research at Caltech isn't REALLY expensive.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I think you are exhibiting a fundamental misunderstanding of how scientific research is funded. At a real university, scientific research is funded from government (and sometimes industry) grants, not from the endowment. Caltech's endowment produces maybe $100 million in income each year. They receive upwards of $200 million in research grants. The research grants fund the research, not the endowment (and in fact due to the overhead also go towards funding the administration and other things that at a non-research university would have to be paid for out of the endowment or, heaven forbid, by charging yet-higher tuition to the students).</p>

<p>
[quote]
Considering that Caltech has 1275 Grads amd 896 undergrads (according to Wikipedia), I'd say a substantial % of the endowment returns go to the grad.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Harvey Mudd endowment per student: $307,000. Caltech endowment per student (counting all the grads, of course): $800,000. 'Nuff said. No one's suggesting that grad students at Caltech aren't well taken care of as well.</p>

57

<p>Far as I can tell, all RocketDA said was that in his opinion, most of the money is not spent on undergrads. It may be that Caltech is so rich that the amount they do spend is enough to give loads of financial aid and what not. And I don't think RocketDA ever denied that undergrads do receive this benefit. All he said was that most of the endowment is not used on undergrads. Would you care to show me what percentage of the total endowment is actually used on undergrads? I don't care about raw total numbers, it is pretty much indisiputable that Caltech gives a lot to its undergrads because it is so rich, indeed more than HMC could ever hope for at this moment.</p>

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<p>And btw RocketDA, thank you very much for those kind words. I am extremeley honored.</p>

59

<p>I don't have a direct breakdown of the endowment spending. It's easy to separate out financial aid and see that it's a substantial chunk of the endowment, since figures for that are given separately. On the rest, we just can't say.</p>

<p>Far as I can tell, all RocketDA said was that in his opinion, most of the money is not spent on undergrads.</p>

<p>What he said was "It is mostly used on research." Which is absolutely not correct. Research grants are mostly used on research. The endowment is mostly used for other things (which makes perfect sense: you can get a federal grant to do many research projects, but you can't get a federal grant to directly do things like improve the buildings or grounds or fund student programs).</p>

<p>Furthermore, most grad students are funded either on fellowships from the government or outside sources (NSF, DoD, Hertz, etc.) or research grants. That is what a federal grant in, say, math mostly pays for: the grad student's time and tuition; and what a substantial portion of the grant in more materiel-intensive fields pays for as well. When a prof writes a grant, he includes the grad student labor required to carry out the work as part of the cost that he is applying for support (unless, of course, he is lucky enough to have grad students on outside fellowships).</p>

<p>So grad students by and large don't *need<a href="or%20get">/I</a> direct support off of the endowment in the way that undergraduates do, with the exception of a few Caltech-funded fellowships.</p>

<p>I'm perfectly willing to believe that the endowment--other than that--benefits most students pretty equally other than that (given that many things that the endowment is spent on benefit everyone), but that has not been accepted as the general conclusion on this thread.</p>

60

<p>"I don't have a direct breakdown of the endowment spending. It's easy to separate out financial aid and see that it's a substantial chunk of the endowment, since figures for that are given separately. On the rest, we just can't say."
THIS is the primary thing i am arguing. you've already unnecessarily compared caltech to harvey mudd a million times on this thread. i want to know how grad compares to undergrad in terms of funding. after all, the reported values of ~$800k average a student does not tell you anything about how much undergrads are actually getting.</p>

<p>how much does it take to run jpl as well? while federal funding pays for a lot of what goes on, all of it is done through caltech. caltech must be flipping some bills here as jpl is noted as a caltech-run facility.</p>