My son is interested in a number of top LACs but regularly gets mail and email from Ivy League schools. I’ve read that some of them have not only graduate students teaching classes, but it some cases, upper classmen undergraduate teaching assistants as well.
Which Ivy Leaugue schools actually focus on undergraduate teaching more like the top LACs?
MJCdad, it is unusual for upper classmen undergraduate students to serve as TAs, or for graduate students to actually teach a class at Ivy League schools. Perhaps intro-level Calculus and Foreign Language classes, but those classes do not require tenured faculty given the very basic course content. Besides, PhD students at schools like Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Penn, Princeton and Yale are exceptionally brilliant, and just as capable of teaching undergraduate students as tenured faculty, so I do not think it really matters.
That being said, I would say that Brown and Dartmouth probably have the most undergraduate-friendly faculties among the Ivies.
Snail mail and email from colleges is just marketing. If you S is interested in LACs, no reason for marketing fliers to dissuade him.
Cornell uses grad students to teach the freshmen writing seminars. They are generally across the board great courses with very engaged PhD students. That was the only time I had a grad student teaching a course. PhD students often were TAs for the larger lectures, but never the ones lecturing.
IMO, sometimes the TAs are better than the profs for explaining material and it would have been an upgrade to have gotten a PhD student teaching rather than the tenured prof!
For what it is worth US News has a best Undergraduate Teaching ranking. Ivies in the top 10 as follows…
- Princeton
- Dartmouth
- Brown
& USNWR High School Counselor’s ranking based on answers to; “The school that provides the best undergraduate education?”
- Harvard
- Princeton
- Yale
- Brown
- Columbia
- Cornell
- Dartmouth
- Penn
& Niche has “Colleges with Best Profesors”
- Brown
- Yale
- Columbia
- Dartmouth
Sometimes star faculty are rotten teachers. They are too involved in their research to be concerned about undergrads.
That’s one of my concerns.
While doctoral students conducing introductory classes can be great teachers.
^^conducting
Your typo was perfect, @TomSrOfBoston !
heyitsjoshco and hannahlikesscience are both Youtubers and current Dartmouth freshmen who’ve talked about this in videos. From what I’ve heard, Dartmouth and Princeton are known to be the most undergrad-focused, but like mentioned above, there are probably pros and cons to both.
@Nocreativity1 I just wonder how many of the guidance counselors polled actually went to any of the ivy leagues schools. Few. And how many went to all ? Zero. How would they know - it’s all conjecture and based on the same rankings and brand consciousness of everyone else.
That being said op. Schools with less emphasis on grad schools is probably the only measure I can see that would be meaningful. Also any student ratings that weren’t ads for the home team. If these exist.
@Privatebanker your point is fair but it is the counselors profession to be informed and knowledgeable. I would certainly think their perspective more relevant and opinions real experience based then those of CC parents who have inherent biases such as you and me.
Keep in mind the counselors sit at the nexus of the students experience. They don’t just recommend school’s but they gather information, share it among one another and receive direct and indirect feedback from former students.
Agreed that no perfect point of comparison exists but kind of a silly suggestion that no one has a valid opinion because no one has attended every school. In fact that suggests the need to listen to professionals like guidance counselors. These professionals are the most well qualified, informed and unbiased voices available. Seems like a fair starting point to respond to the OPs question rather then a non quantifiable blanket generalizion about “less emphasis on grad school”.
The OPs question called for conjecture…“Which Ivy Leaugue schools actually focus on undergraduate teaching more like the top LACs?”
I just tried to offer professional conjecture based on large sample sizes (thousands of college counselors, with thousands of direct student experiences over years of professional service) as opposed to what moms and dads think, wish or have heard based on individual experiences sending DS or DD off to school and extrapolating universal truths or general wisdom. I think college counselors views are a resource worth using.
Agree 100 percent, you are right of course that no perfect comparison exists.
When stats are brought out it does tend to give it the veneer of authenticity. Harvard, Yale and Princeton tied for undergrad teaching? Maybe. Sounds like the most prestigious and oldest schools in America. Same old list, stated a different way.
And yes, some counselors take an active role as the nexus of these data points. Some are also the part-time truant officers and the family liaison for 600 students. They can vote too.
I think they do wonderful and hard work. This isn’t that discussion.
It’s whether their ranking has any more merit than a biased parent. Depends on the parent and the range of said parent’s experiences.
Lastly, I just can’t think of many students who spend a lot of time after high school going back to their gc with feedback on the quality of teaching. And if these students did, what’s the comparison against exactly?
I think guidance counselors send their best students to these schools. And these students do remarkably well. Whichever ivy it is. And that becomes the basis for their vote. Correlation not causation.
But it’s a big nothing burger in any case. All are great, and dissecting the Ivy League is of no interest.
But I do find the data and ranking to be extremely interesting. And why so much time and energy is spent on them.
Quality of teaching overall is not the easiest thing to measure, since there is some subjectivity involved, it varies by course and instructor, and different students respond better to different teaching methods.
Hence people will try to use proxy measures like class size and type of instructor, or make assumptions.
Exactly. The difficulty in measuring and the reliance on proxy measures are why I sought to rely on this wisdom of this forum.
Thanks to everyone who’s replied so far.