Is Emory Really That Bad?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Emory University
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<p>This Emory section of CC is giving me a really bad impression of Emory. I've been reading through the comments and I feel like the administration and general student body of Emory aren't that good, or at least not "top 20 good."</p>

<p>I've been reading posts from several Emory alums and they are making Emory seem like a less desirable place to me. </p>

<p>Plus the whole scandal with Emory falsely reporting test scores and stuff really makes me question the integrity of the school.</p>

<p><em>Sad face</em></p>

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<p>I don’t think you should be deterred. I, for one, am a bit more blunt than normal and will not just simply present you positive stuff. Emory is like a majority of the elites/top 20s, and that’s actually the part I don’t care for. It could set itself further apart from many of them (not necessarily in rankings, but in character), yet the students and the administration act the same as those at the other schools. If you were actually there, living/learning in the moment, you don’t really feel these problems, especially if you do give yourself the best experience. However, when you look back, you kind of go, “wow, a lot more can be done so that more people get/or at least pursue this experience.”</p>

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<p>Emory isn’t bad. A lot of the problems it faces are very similar to the ones you’d find at many top schools (compare UVA’s controversy about firing their president to our department cuts, for example).</p>

<p>The only difference is that Emory students have become much more outspoken about these problems recently. You should take that as a good sign. In most top schools, the problems are just allowed to benignly exist.</p>

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<p>Everything that’s happened in the past year that has really sparked a lot of tough, heated discussion without really negatively impacting many people’s day-to-day experience at the school.</p>

<p>125 of Harvard’s undergrads have been charged with cheating in an undergraduate government course.
NYU faculty recently voted “no confidence” in their president.
UVA had their huge president/board of trustees fiasco.
The faculty at Duke and Yale are extremely upset at the new Duke-NUS and Yale-NUS that their respect administrations seem determined to implement with no faculty input/approval.
UNC recently had a huge scandal with student athletes and invented courses.
Penn State had their abuse scandal.
George Washington and Claremont McKenna also came out as reporting false data.</p>

<p>Then, of course, bystanders occasionally walk-in on the whole empirically-challenged discussion of Oxford.</p>

<p>While my primary concerns with the administration lie with the processes through which they adopted the recent cuts (far more than the cuts themselves), I think the admissions office needs to do a far better job at admitting students who are going to contribute to the school as students and alumni, rather than just having high test scores or grades. If you are a grade-obsessed, pre-professional student who has no concern for Emory as a community and views it entirely as a stepping stone to money, professional school admissions, or some other similar end, I respectfully urge you to go elsewhere. </p>

<p>I am hopeful, however, because a number of new administrators we’ve hired. Our new admissions director from JHU dealt appropriately with the data issue and is implementing largely positive changes to the admissions review process (except the non-need-blind trend, which is likely beyond his control). Oxford also made an exceptional hire in its upper administration this past year.</p>

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<p>You took the words right out of my mouth.
The “real information you’re looking for thread…” is especially discouraging. Everything from the incompetent career counselors at A&S to the admission data scandal just doesnt make me wanna go to Emory.</p>

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<p>You say about “incompetent career counselors”. How about the placement rate after graduation in Emory?</p>

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<p>Yeah this is really bumming me out. I thought I’d apply as a transfer, but I don’t want a repeat of my fratty, non-intellectual current school.</p>

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<p>No school is perfect, not even Harvard. The only way to truly assess a school is if you could clone yourself and simultaneously attend two colleges. D’s experience hasn’t been that great, but she still speaks proudly about “employers love Emory students”.</p>

<p>Check out today’s NYT. Angelica’s experience with financial aid mirrors my own, when I was told the reason we didn’t get fin aid was because “We assume the family has other assets”. This poor girl is leaving Emory with $60k in debt. Her mom makes $35k/year. Too bad – she sounds like exactly the kind of bright, motivated person Emory should want to keep.</p>

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<p>Remember that the alumni, and to a lesser extent the students themselves, that post on college confidential who had either extremely positive or extremely negative experiences with the school. </p>

<p>Though I’m only a freshman at Oxford, I’ve always been able to debate political happenings with my peers, discuss the coursework outside of class, and find some true intellectuals. That being said, we’re no Reed or UChicago. There isn’t this pervasive culture of intellectualism, but I wouldn’t say we don’t care about the world. At a school like Emory, plenty of students participated in those so called intellectual activities in high school and carried it over to college. I’ve worked at a university where students, at least those I talked to, just did not care one way or the other, and Emory is certainly not like that.</p>

<p>I can’t comment on the career counseling situation, since again, I’m a freshman at Oxford, and one with decidedly different academic/career goals than almost everyone else at Emory.</p>

<p>But students need to remember just how extensive the resources Emory provides students truly are. The aforementioned university was over two and a half times the size of Emory (undergrad only), and offered far less in the way of guest lectures, scientific presentation, or general intellectual stimulation. This university by the way, is also a member of the AAUP, and quite selective.</p>

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<p>My son just finished his first semester at Emory. He really likes the school and is enjoying his classes so far. He is not a fratty type, although I have encouraged him to try RUSH (to join a frat) next semester because he has not yet found his niche. He is an intellectual type and doesn’t party. Emory has all types and I would encourage you all to visit the campus and decide for yourselves. My son’s dorm seems to have many more international students than other freshman dorms and they have tended to be not as social but my son is fine with it. You really can find most types here. </p>

<p>Yes, I have not been thrilled with the freshman advising so far but I do know of a few Emory grads who did very well with job placement and they credit the business school with that.</p>

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<p>Here is the article that the above poster Classof2015 was talking about:
<a href=“Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - The New York Times”>Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - The New York Times;
The university is not bad, but the administrative staff is awful in many respects and has gotten even worse from what I am told. The school focuses on way too many non-academic pursuits and has let the academic quality of the school slip. This is especially shocking since the school doesn’t have competitive sports to the point where some students are known only for their athletic ability. They have also done a lot more to try and improve the school’s image than to actually improve the final product. They have basically spread themselves too thin in an attempt to compete with other top schools in every area. Also, the school tries very hard to keep everything that could hurt its reputation from becoming public. The bad press it is getting now will probably continue, since people are no longer afraid to speak out. One of the main problems with Emory is that the university tries to focus on diversity to the extent that it is divisive. A lot of people in the administration spend too much time feeling sorry for themselves, and too little time doing their job. A lot of these problems are probably the result of former president William Chace’s time in office. He was ultra-liberal and tried to make the university basically apologize for being in the south.</p>

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<p>WhenWhen: While Oxford is of course no Reed or Chicago, due to its smaller environment and its curriculum, you must admit that it probably tries harder to foster intellectual curiousity than main campus. Main campus provides the outlets to do it, but I find this form of encouragement somewhat passive. Seems as if graduate students, faculty members, and those in the Atlanta community are more likely to attend lecture series than UG’s that should find the series relevant to what they are doing. It often takes a pretty famous individual to attract them. I think that main campus does believe that it does try hard to do so by the events and happenings you mention, but it doesn’t take into account the size of main campus and how difficult it is to “spread the word” and hype them up. A posting on the emory.edu website’s event calendar is not sufficient. There should be fliers and more professors encouraging students to attend these sorts of things or to engage the material outside of the syllabus. </p>

<p>Maybe it can begin as extra credit, or can be used as an oppurtunity to form a scholarly community in the classroom (especially for the smaller social science/humanities courses) if the prof. is attending and offers the students a dinner or some outlet to discuss what happened at the event. Even when there isn’t an event, I’ve found that professors (like my religion class) that have merely done things like treat us to Maggiano’s for dinner have fostered a community of scholarship and spurred discussion of various issues (related to and irrelevant to the course) in a less formal environment. I also enjoyed “surprises” in the classroom that make us think a little deeper. My Russian history, organic chem (surprising that a science prof. did this), and American Intellectual history prof. practiced these. The two history profs., for example, would hold us accountable for readings/and general preparedness by unexpectedly staging a debate on a controversial theory or issue in the class. These were very stimulating and would indeed bleed outside of the classroom environment (where, say, two opponents would continue to question each others point of view). My ochem prof. had team building assignments (either for a grade or EC) that happened on the spot that were usually pretty challenging (if it was for a grade, he would not lecture and would simply tell us to go with the team and complete it and turn it in to him at some time. Usually, unlike in most science courses, at least one or 2 problems were open-ended or had multiple answers so would open up debate between team members, assuming most people had kept up w/the material). </p>

<p>The bottomline is that my experiences tell me that Emory does have the spark of a developing a more scholarly oriented community and profs. who do encourage and foster it well, but it needs to happen at a larger scale. There are clearly approaches to aid it that spur from the classroom itself or from efforts outside that promote attendance at lecture series. For example, Tedx is a hit at Emory officially (I also appreciate efforts of the admissions team, marketing, and the library to promote MARBLE, the rare books library, which is frickin’ awesome. More prospective and current students should know about it no matter the major/career interest). If other series could be promoted even half as well as that, I’m sure it would help. </p>

<p>BTW, I think faculty members recognize the need to improve this area, and do indeed believe it’s possible regardless of most students’ future career plans (Me too. The potential is there. I no longer buy the “pre-professionalism=less intellectual curiousity”. Look at some of the top Ivies, Chicago, Stanford, etc. Full of pre-profs., but great intellectual environments). See this video:</p>

<p>[Freshman</a> Tips: How to Grow from Student to Scholar - YouTube](<a href=“Freshman Tips: How to Grow from Student to Scholar - YouTube”>Freshman Tips: How to Grow from Student to Scholar - YouTube)</p>

<p>I think there will be concerted efforts to promote the idea of scholarship/intellectualism at Emory in the near future. The faculty, admissions office, and even student organizations (I don’t think Tedx was organized by a student organization for “fun”) seem to recognize the need for it, so we’re moving in the right direction (despite the cuts), but it’ll take some time.</p>

<p>trex: Chase was the one who ushered Emory into the research university realm. However, guess what entity at Emory became famous/extremely well ranked first; The theology school. The way Emory is doing strange things to its liberal arts core, I’m sure he is likely not happy about. I saw this movie called leading out that featured his leadership (he seemed much tougher and more willing to take on tough issues than Wagner), and the times at which he was president were very interesting for Emory, and it certainly appears that Emory was more “liberal artsy”/“intellectual” (despite a huge pre-prof. student body then) before it became all, big, reputable, and famous. Again, I call Emory’s current state as “growing pains”. It maybe grew a bit too fast. I think it’ll learn from these current turmoils.</p>

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<p>I guess the problem isn’t pre-professionalism per se. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with wanting to join a profession–in fact, it ought to be celebrated in many cases. Rather, I guess it comes down to students’ motivation for being pre-professional and the external pressures they face. If you’re only chasing money and prestige, it’s not likely that you’re going to be intellectually oriented and pre-professional. And the GPA obsession that medical and law school admissions creates isn’t conducive to curricular and intellectual exploration.</p>

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<p>I feel pre-law students seem more open to intellectual exploration simply because there are not stringent pre-req. requirements other than keep solid GPA and doing well on the LSAT. It’s pre-med that largely needs to be fixed (at nearly every university). I think the AAMC even knows this as it has been advocating, for quite a while, a more “competency” (as opposed to course based) based approach to prepping for med. school with the idea that students should really just try to learn about some core scientific theories, ideas, and applications through any means possible. They also seem to be encouraging more engagement w/the humanities and social sciences (the 2015 MCAT will be integrating such passages). However, the question is, when will schools like Emory encourage students (or better yet, the pre-health office, which many students listen to in almost sheepish manners) to get in line w/these recommendations? Another question is, will any of the science curriculum change to meet these recommendations (which will ultimately provide a richer experience for both non-premed and pre-med STEM majors)? Supposedly, such changes in a curriculum meeting these recommendations often result in more cross-disciplinary/integrated science courses. For example, Princeton has been successful w/implementing an “integrated science” option. </p>

<p>I think some models of what this could look like are exemplified by some courses in the college, but it needs to be explored how such models can perhaps be applied to introductory courses. I feel these intro. courses set the tone for whether or not many pre-health STEM majors will simply try to “get through” Emory or whether or not they will become truly excited about science and their future in health professions (currently, these are simply medium sized, “soft-weeding” courses with great lecturers, but little in the way of provocative or inspiring material. General chemistry is a classic example of this, as it is at even the other elite schools, though I’m willing to bet that Emory has better lecturers for it than most peers; the fact that we have such good teachers for it means much more can be done w/it. I think they are working on altering the curriculum some to do just that starting perhaps next year). If some aspects of successful upperlevel courses could be integrated at this level, we’d be on to something. One option could be to bring back the “honors” chemistry and biology sections that existed before the recession.</p>

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<p>I wasn’t pre-med at Emory, but I don’t think the University should be taking on too many new initiatives. And they shouldn’t try to copy Princeton. The school has good professors for the most part. The pre-med program is fine. There is no point in trying to fix something that isn’t broken. Also, I personally don’t think that a college or University can make you a better person. The school needs to be realistic and get rid of some bad people in the administration and replace them. I’d say that one of the main reasons that people from up North don’t want to go to school in the South, is that they have a stereotype of Southerners being lazy and stupid. Emory seems to do everything it can to not seem Southern, but they have a bunch of people who are quite frankly lazy and stupid in the school’s administration (and a lot of them aren’t from the South). I don’t care if they have a masters degree in something that I’ve never heard of, a lot of them are inept and disliked by students. Most of the same problems from when I went to the school have not been fixed and are now getting the school bad press. I understand that a lot of brilliant professors aren’t good at managing practical matters, but with school administrators that is their primary job. It is not an issue of better management, it is an issue of needing competent employees. If someone has gotten away with screwing around for ten years, their work habits probably can’t be changed. Professors are a lot more expensive than administrative staff. There is no excuse for a lot of the incompetence that goes on, especially in a private institution (where employees aren’t civil servants). The school may be a work in progress, but unless they make dramatic changes it is dishonest to keep marketing the school to people across the country as a southern Ivy or whatever.</p>

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<p>I didn’t say we should copy Princeton (I presented a model that Princeton has employed to meet the recommendations of the AAMC), but I do disagree about the courses that most pre-meds take (the system is sketch, if after setting up the “phmo”, the success rate is does not appear to have a steady upward trend and is not even getting to 60%). Many of them need improvement (I’ve taken a few of the so called “harder” ones). Having good professors will not off-set this fact (even good professors buckle to pressure. They simply, continue to lecture well, water down the coursework, and everyone is happy…but them of course). Many of the courses are not at a level that will inspire interest by non-premed STEM majors nor are they at a level that ultimately optimizes the premed students’ chances of doing well on the MCAT. Our pre-med med. school admit success rate indicates that there is a weakness somewhere. In addition, you don’t really see too many students pursuing Ph.D’s in the sciences like you do at other schools w/large science scenes which kind of suggests that a lot of the coursework here or the science environment here does not provoke the level of interest or excitement that would encourage one to pursue a Ph.D in some science discipline (I had to cherrypick very wisely to become excited about the sciences. The traditional track taken by most STEM and pre-med majors just doesn’t cut it. I think that research “and” coursework should play a role). Sometimes “new initiatives” are not required. All you have to do is change the topics in the syllabus or things like the exam style and it makes a world of difference. Nothing revolutionary/difficult needs to occur. For example, it shouldn’t be that difficult for a school as small as Emory to simply not have most intro. biology profs. give multiple choice only exams (they didn’t do this before like 2008). </p>

<p>Peer institutions w/intro. biology sections 3 times the size don’t even do this. Some of the problems require very simple solutions. If you compared the science coursework rigor /options (especially in biology, math, and physics) to many/most top 20 peers, we’re kind of “slipping” (again, there are some very bright spots) there, yet students simply like this reality because that makes it easier for them to earn higher grades (hurts them in the longrun, but provides a nice, temporary, but superficial reality for them). I feel only the chemistry dept. somewhat holds its own vs. many of the other places. If you saw the caliber of say Dr. Kelly’s biochemistry in the biology dept., or human phys., you would be embarrassed that such watered down courses even exist at Emory. Fixing the administration will not necessarily fix issues of academic quality and rigor. That has to be a concerted effort by students and various faculty members. I will admit that it has been suggested by some faculty members themselves that parts of the admin. (maybe deans) have perhaps pressured the biology dept., over the past 4-5 years into making many courses easier or grading softer for the sake of helping the med. school admit %. If true, the tactic has failed miserably). This requires faculty and students to merely toughen up and encourage what is actually best overall as opposed to quick fixes or what makes people (particular students) feel good in the short run.</p>

<p>I didn’t notice as many administrative issues (to be honest, I don’t really understand it as much as I should), but I did notice what happens in science classrooms (as I majored in them) and could observe what some would consider subtle changes in professor’s attitudes, teaching, rigor, etc that made me begin to wonder (for example, Dr. Spell of biology becoming significantly easier. I really doubt she does this on her own accord). I also noticed things like science profs. becoming more responsive to student unrest over grades after giving a difficult exam (even some of the most hardcore profs. adjust their exam difficulty, or even slow down presentation of coursework after some whining or unexpectedly poor performance on an exam). I didn’t see this sort of behavior as much my freshman year, and it’s kind of concerning as it implies that profs. believes that students are getting weaker (not necessarily stats. wise, but perhaps in academic intensity or what they are willing to handle) or that there may be “external pressure” to keep grades at a certain level. Maybe even both.</p>

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<p>I have no problem addressing some of Emory’s problems soberly, but I can honestly say that my experience at Emory was positive. </p>

<p>I came out a totally different person than when I came in – I participated in sports, which was something I never did before, I studied a language I always wanted to learn, I was exposed to some great people, and had some great opportunities. </p>

<p>We talk about the problems in such detail because, deep down, we actually care about the university improving.</p>

<p>That’s all.</p>

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<p>This. Exactly. I’m largely on this forum and debating these issues because the Emory community is so important to me. The fact that it’s willing to invest so much money in me through financial aid and other opportunities. If Emory was merely a stepping stone to another end, I really wouldn’t care. Emory has been such an amazing opportunity for me personally, academically, and professionally. </p>

<p>This is making me think of the application process… I remember mentioning how I wanted to be involved with Emory even past joining the Corpus Cordis Aureum, the 50-year graduates who come back to commencement.</p>

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<p>You two just summed up the way I feel. Just because I had a very positive experience does not mean I have to say it or the school is perfect. Again, there are things that could be adjusted to ensure more positive experiences for EVERYONE. People should not be slipping through the cracks (barring some personal circumstances). I have hope that Emory is trying to do that, but it is always worth recognizing what some of the issues are in the eyes of both faculty and students as opposed to being a college or university that sometimes acts as if it “had it all together” (as it kind of did during the recession). At least now they know, they need to get it together. A lot of the issues addressed or revealed after the cuts were announced should probably have been very openly discussed near perhaps in 2009-2010.</p>

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<p>I thought the pre-med program was fine because most of my pre-med friends got into medical school. I remember some students getting into good law schools, but not many. But it doesn’t surprise me that the university pushed the professors to make the coursework in the sciences easier. I had some very positive experiences at Emory, as well as some negative ones. I am just upset that the University went on this spending binge to boost its prestige and instead came out with a worse reputation (because of all the bad press it has deservedly gotten). I actually think there are serious problems with the US News and World Report rankings, but I think there is also a big issue of non-transparency in higher education. If there was no independent third party source to judge schools, everyone would want to go to schools that had the best reputation from 100 years ago or the school with the best marketing department. A lot of the marketing that Emory (and probably other Universities) put out is border line deceptive. Students applying to college should ask tough questions before choosing. They should want to know what percent of graduates got into different types of grad schools and what their average scores were. They should be more concerned with how much they will learn at college, than how much fun they can have while still getting good grades. I think that the concept of diversity in higher education has been taken too far. While it is not good to just go to school with like minded people, at a top school there should not be as much diversity in intellectual ability and work-ethic as there is at Emory. In asian countries people are more likely to look at high achievers and think they worked really hard to get where they are. This encourages everyone to work hard, at least when there is competition involved. In the US, there is way too much emphasis on talent, well-roundedness and just plain gaming the system. The people who are really discriminated against in many ways are introverts. Being a good doctor, scientist, engineer, lawyer or even businessman involves working hard but also managing increasingly complex tasks without making too many mistakes. I think that American undergraduate education has failed to prepare people for this reality.</p>