<p>lf: I just wonder if we all see less than 50% American PhD students in American graduate programs in STEM fields as a problem? </p>
<p>If we don’t see it as a problem, we don’t need to worry about how to “fix” it. right? Based on other threads, I wouldn’t be surprised if many posters don’t find this problematic at all.</p>
<p>I thought QM, in post 349, gave some very compelling reasons why it is a problem.</p>
<p>Is the fix that a handful of US bright lights get into MIT, Stanford or Ivies based solely on their quantitative? What about the other great schools, to borrow PG’s line of thinking? It’s fine that QM gave some compelling reasons, but what is the fix? In fact, what is the true nature of the problem? What’s not happening during the hs years?</p>
<p>Holistic or non-holistic admissions will not solve the problem of Americans in STEM PhD programs. You would need to go back further, to the preparation kids are getting in school starting at an early age.</p>
<p>Some of the issues pointed out in QM’s post have more to do with the substance of the PhD training or requirements for foreign students, not students’ background per se. (Caring about the Bill of Rights…really?) We are a nation of immigrants.</p>
<p>sally: I can’t tell if you think it is a problem or not. I wonder whether it matters if the foreign PhDs stay in the US to work or go back home?</p>
<p>Since I now have a couple of significant-other-in-law children who are or have been foreign PhD students, I’m not exactly impartial on this topic.</p>
<p>I’m off the thread for the rest of the day. really.</p>
<p>I don’t have a strong opinion one way or another. I have worked at a university in which several programs were absolutely dominated by foreign students. Some went back to their home countries and some stayed in the U.S. The ones who stayed were generally the ones who had adapted better to American life and learned better English skills.</p>
<p>I do think it’s ironic that people here are decrying the dominance of foreign students in STEM PhD programs, when a move to non-holistic admissions would produce a similar dominance of certain types of students in undergraduate programs.</p>
<p>I’m agnostic on whether it’s good or bad that only 50% of STEM PhD’s are American. </p>
<p>If you said to me - only 50% of med school students in America are American – or law school students – or business school students – I think that would concern me since they’re going to be going out and interacting with the real world. </p>
<p>But STEM PhD’s who are going to be in labs all day and interacting mostly with each other? I don’t know, is it all that important or all that concerning if they wind up being mostly of one gender / ethnic background, if that is who is attracted to the field? I guess it doesn’t concern me greatly, any more than it doesn’t concern me that there aren’t enough people of Swedish descent in the NBA.</p>
<p>Those who argue against the use of race in holistic admissions say – the fix for not enough black students qualified to get into a top school is not to lower the bar and let in less-qualified, but to raise the quality of the learning environment from K-12 so that those who can naturally excel have the opportunity to do so. </p>
<p>Therefore, it seems logical that following the same line of thinking, the fix for enough American students qualified to get (or interested in getting) PhD’s in STEM isn’t to lower the bar and let in less-qualified Americans, but to raise the quality of the learning environment in undergrad so that they have a chance to shine.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the problem of the uber-bright kid who didn’t get into MIT and “should have” has to do with any of this, though. After all, it’s hardly as though not getting into MIT means one can’t go on and get a PhD. </p>
<p>Or maybe PhD’s just aren’t important enough that it’s important to build up a big stock of them. I don’t know. From my vantage point in the business world, I certainly am not impressed by PhD’s nor would I pay a premium for them. But it may be very different in other fields.</p>
<p>The other important roles that STEM PhDs have are 1) teaching the next generation and 2) helping explain science and technology to the public in order to set policy. The policy-setting aspect comes into play in both public funding (for the public good) and regulation. It’s very important to have leaders in the STEM community who at a gut level understand how politics works in this country. STEM PhDs DO interact in the world, and perhaps should be interacting more, since the policy issues are vital. (Think about global warming, and environmental regulation, for example.)</p>
<p>Now, I am not asserting that immigrants couldn’t do as good a job as US born scientists, but there’s a compelling argument for more US born STEM PhD students (and NSF graduate fellowships are crafted to support that – aren’t they still only for US citizens?)</p>
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<p>STEM PhD’s will not be spending their days “locked up in a lab”. A PhD means you are expected to lead others and direct research, whether in industry or as a professor at a university.</p>
<p>In the life sciences, almost all of the very talented, creative foreign born PhDs end up as faculty at US universities and most also become US citizens. As a group, they tend to “cherish” their rights and freedoms here more than American born scientists. Many make sacrifices to ensure their own kids receive an American education, such as splitting up families and accepting positions far below what they could attain in their homeland. Perhaps the situation is different in the engineering fields. I do recall a flap about missing computer discs at Los Alamos and the involvement of a Chinese national.</p>
<p>However at a time when Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden are in the news daily it is clear we have more to worry about than foreign born graduate students.</p>
<p>I think part of the question is how admissions philosophy at the top places tends to play into students’ choices. lookingforward makes the point that many of the students are “just taking AP physics or AP calc” when they apply, “so you can’t check their accomplishment.” I think this puts them at the same stage as students in the equivalent of 9th grade in many Asian countries.</p>
<p>Many students could go well beyond this before they reach college. In a few private schools, magnet schools, and other selected locales, they do. But my impression based on CC is that there is little return, specifically in terms of “elite” admissions, for classroom-based academic advancement. Perhaps this is an incorrect impression. There seems to be much greater return for getting out there and doing something.</p>
<p>If I could design a system that would permit American students to flourish as theoretical physicists, if they had that interest, I don’t think this is what I would design. </p>
<p>Now I understand that the approach in pre-college education is a very complicated issue, with many effects that can follow from a change–and some of the effects are likely to be unintended and some unpredictable. It may be that under-preparation of American physics students in general is a price we pay for educational effects that are much more valuable–e.g., broader education of the citizenry, something closer to educational equality, other social benefits (and also less stressed students, less exam pressure).</p>
<p>But I think that the first college physics/engineering class is really too late to “catch” the future PhD students. Essentially 100% of the science faculty I know caught the science bug well ahead of that–in my case, when I was about 9.</p>
<p>PG, my thinking at this point suggests that the admissions philosophies of the “top flight” schools tends to have an impact on educational/social choices available to and made by excellent students, whether they go to a “top” school or not (and even whether they wind up applying to one, or not).</p>
<p>The problem as I see it is that American citizens need to be competitive with international physicists at the point that they finish a post-doctoral fellowship (or possibly their second). If they are in a top-flight Ph.D. program, actually, they need to be competitive, with a bit of accommodation, at the time they are selecting research preceptors–rarely later than the end of the first year of grad work. The ponderously-slow-through-high-school-then-faster model makes it a bit hard for them to get there.</p>
<p>My point vis a vis the Bill of Rights is that foreign students probably do cherish those rights, but I am much less certain that they expect them to the point of insisting on them. (Of course, this concern also applies to part of the native-born citizenry.)</p>
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<p>You’re right. There is little return for classroom-based academic advancement. </p>
<p>Going above and beyond the typical top track, or even attempting to be a star in the classroom rather than getting A’s, is about as beneficial to elite undergrad admissions as a small drug habit. Maybe worse–you might get a good essay out of the drug habit.</p>
<p>It would help for STEM grad school, however. So it forces people to make a choice–either
<p>And continuing in the category of “summam ad nauseam,” I do not idolize MIT, actually. I don’t think it’s the best place for a future theoretical physicist to go (MIT afficionados may complain about this view). I used MIT in a long set of comments primarily because I think that they have much more reason to admit students who have qualified for the USAMO than do HYP or S.</p>
<p>In retrospect, maybe the comparison to having a drug habit was a bad analogy. A better one would be putting on a wizard costume and playing dungeons and dragons for several hours a day.</p>
<p>@QM</p>
<p>" lookingforward makes the point that many of the students are “just taking AP physics or AP calc” when they apply, “so you can’t check their accomplishment.” I think this puts them at the same stage as students in the equivalent of 9th grade in many Asian countries."</p>
<p>It is a myth that Asian students typically learn far more math than American students in high school. For example, the notorious Chinese Gaokao only requires derivative for STEM students, nowhere near AP Calc level. </p>
<p>Of course for countries who follow UK A-Level curriculum, students would have finished much of US college math/physics in K-13 before moving on to universities (typically 3-year BS/BA degrees).</p>
<p>Well, one of my Chinese grad students (at a large public research university, not at the top of the list) said that she had learned the material in the typical senior-college-level E&M course in high school–and proved it, with her performance in two grad level courses in physics despite no intervening physics in college. This seems more typical to me.</p>
<p>The IIT entrance exams look pretty demanding to me. </p>
<p>I can’t say about the Gaokao.</p>
<p>I do know where my Asian-born colleagues think their children’s cousins (who are still in Asia) are in math. It’s way beyond derivatives–so I don’t know?</p>
<p>“Holistic or non-holistic admissions will not solve the problem of Americans in STEM PhD programs. You would need to go back further, to the preparation kids are getting in school starting at an early age.”</p>
<p>IMHO American HS students are the best in the world. The education level is amazing! However, these kids are not cherished, not supported, not celebrated in colleges. The mantra is “there are too many kids like this. We need diversity”.</p>
<p>Imagine, at the NFL draft “ya, you know how to play. Ya … yawn … too many kids know how to play footfall, we see them all the time. Anyway, we need diversity, holistic leadership, god-knows-what-else … BTW, you are accepted as well”. Does this sound encouraging? No.</p>
<p>American HS kids are prepared to learn science, in fact they are over-prepared. The total lack of enthusiasm about science in AO is amazing. It looks like AO make everything possible to 1) select kids that are NOT prepared to learn science 2) to discourage kids from science majors. </p>
<p>Look at the number of kids, that want to major in STEM. Look at the drop-out rate. Mismatch to begin with … no effort to admit geeks. </p>
<p>Ph.D. program is a step-daughter. Adcoms don’t care about needs of Ph.D. programs when they “build a class” of freshmen. They de-select kids that may flourish at Ph.D. programs (self-sufficient geeks) in favor of well-rounded leaders (more suited for politics and law schools). In the end, USA has overproduction of lawyers, and … not enough American STEM Profs. </p>
<p>BTW, Prof. salary is not that bad. In STEM, it’s at least $80,000 + tenure + benefits. I think many Americans would accept such compensation. Unfortunately, most kids, who may choose such career, don’t get a chance. </p>
<p>BTW, Ph.D. in STEM gives (on average) better pay than BS in Arts, Anthropology, and Ethnic Studies. Yet, when AO select kids for freshman class, they make sure that they have enough kids for H … they specifically look for kids that want to major in H … but they don’t admit enough geeks.</p>
<p>Re: #617</p>
<p>Remember that international PhD students are not exactly typical representatives of their countries’ populations or university students, in terms of academic ability and motivation.</p>
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<p>I think general arguments for MIT admissions do have applicability to HYPS as you assume that HYPS does need <em>some</em> fraction of the number of people in each major to be hardcore scholars. However, it is easier to discuss MIT because people get distracted by the other qualities which a broad liberal arts university may want to recruit. </p>
<p>I think many of society’s problems today are caused by the mentality of spitting back what people tell you in class enough to get an “A”–not thinking deeply enough or caring enough to challenge the status quo intelligently. I think deep, critical thinking is valuable in most careers, not just in STEM and not even just in scholarship.</p>
<p>That is one reason why I’d like to see it more valued at the undergrad level.</p>