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Yale probably wins because it is more humanities based (not very many engineers discuss The Divine Comedy for jollies) and because, as you mentioned, it's more liberal.
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</p>
<p>Well, I'm sorry to be the one to say this, but Harvard and Princeton aren't exactly outstanding in terms of engineering either. Princeton is a bit more conservative though, so yeah I can imagine that as a factor.</p>
<p>Okay, you win on that one, but it was only an example. There is still a higher percentage of english or philosophy majors at yale. I mean, harvard and princeton are still probably in the 99th percentile of intellectualism, but i still say yale is higher.</p>
<p>What kind of books do students read for fun at the colleges you recommend?</p>
<p>Oberlin does not have "the most PhD's (sic) of any four year college," nor pro rata the most.</p>
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This is because at a difficult school such as MIT, students are working night and day just to survive, and there is little time to engage in frivolous banter.
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Haha, I can assure you that nobody's working "night and day" every day to survive at MIT, and I participated in plenty of frivolous banter during my four years there. I mean, MIT's difficult, but there are plenty of hours in the day.</p>
<p>There's definitely quite a bit of independent non-school-related work done at MIT. I think the dorm culture fosters this -- you live with your friends, so you sit in the hallway and banter and throw ideas around with them until all hours of the night. (I spent more late nights and almost-all-nighters having pointless debates with friends than I did on schoolwork. Pointless debates are way more fun!)</p>
<p>Since 1920, more Oberlin grads have gone on to get PhDs than graduates of any other baccalaureat college. Not a matter of dispute but of fact.
That said, there are many "intellectual colleges" and getting a PhD is not the sole measure of intellectuality.</p>
<p>That is simply untrue. One wonders where you could possibly have gotten such an absurd idea.</p>
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Since 1920, more Oberlin grads have gone on to get PhDs than graduates of any other baccalaureat college.
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</p>
<p>Source, please?</p>
<p>university of chicago, swathmore, MIT, Cal tech - every school u woudltn want to go to...</p>
<p>re Oberlin rate of PhDs see US Interagency 2003 report of earned doctorates. You can also check the Oberlin website. Why be skeptical?
Reed also has a very high number of students going on to PhDs.</p>
<p>I looked for this kind of atmosphere, too. It's always a good question to ask on tours: some students jump to tell you "DEFINITELY" and some laugh in your face. </p>
<p>I've seen Harvey Mudd live up to this more than any other school that I've ever been around. In the dining hall, in the classrooms, in the dorm hallways at 2am on a weekend...students are goin' at it, and not in a stressful, cutthroat, or erudite way, but in a genuinely curious, entertaining, borderline inspirational way. Granted, the range of topics is narrower than usual...not always a very fun discussion if you're not the math or science type...but I've always been blown away by the way that Mudders express their passions outside the classroom.</p>
<p>According to the recent (October 2006) National Science Foundation report, Oberlin's rank for Ph.D.s granted to its graduates from 1920-1999 is 35th. </p>
<p>The top 7, in order: </p>
<p>UC-Berkeley
U Illinois
U Michigan
U Wisconsin
Cornell
Harvard
UCLA</p>
<p>Asking again, what kind of books do students read for fun at the college you recommend?</p>
<p>Bard College and Hampshire are very intellectual. Thats why I applied there. I've heard that Tufts is also.</p>
<p>By the way, Oberlin's rate declines as the century advances. Berkeley leads in both non-science/engineering and in science/engineering degrees. Cornell is second in science/engineering and Michigan is second in non-science/engineering Ph.D.'s. </p>
<p>I think, however, that the poster may have meant that Oberlin did better than any school that did not itself offer a Ph.D. (In somewhat curious orthography, what the poster further misspells as "baccalaureat" schools) That statement is also not true, but among that subset, in raw numbers, Oberlin stacks up well.</p>
<p>Columbia on the intellectual front:
Pros -- Core curriculum is idea-based. Everyone reads the same books in first and second year, and they are great books in all senses of the word. So, those students who are there BECAUSE of the core would be those attracted by an intellectual atmosphere.
Cons -- Once they get there and discover the joys/expenses of NYC, and the salaries on Wall Street, they tend to stampede into finance jobs. And, because those jobs are heavily gpa dependent (as are law school and med school admissions), students tend to get wrapped up in grades.</p>
<p>Still, the world has more investment bankers who can discuss Plato and Dante and Wagner than it would have had without Columbia.</p>
<p>As for what books students there read for fun, I get the impression there is not a lot of time for extra-curricular reading, except on breaks. They work hard and tend to load themselves up on classes. They do go to museums, plays, concerts, for fun -- as well as clubs and bars.</p>
<p>redcrimblue:</p>
<p>Is that ranking for the total number, or percentage of students?</p>
<p>According to interesteddad (the guru of such things), Oberlin comes in a respectable #8 in per capita PhD production.</p>
<p>It's raw numbers. That is what the poster was claiming, that Oberlin had more of its graduates obtain Ph.D.'s than from any other school. I appreciate the currently penultimate poster, whose reference reflects Oberlin's per capita position which, by the way, is behind other lacs, despite the Oberlin poster's back-up position.</p>
<p>The 2000-2004 HEDS data says the latest percentage ranking is:</p>
<p>CalTech
Harvey Mudd
Reed
Swarthmore
Carleton
MIT
Bryn Mawr
Oberlin
Grinnell
U Chicago</p>
<p>This is for BA/BS graduates of the above schools who later earned a PhD in all disciplines. Weighted Baccalaureate Origins Study, Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium, 2006.</p>