<p>The Nobel is probably the world's most prestigious award. Looking at this list, the performance of LAC's is very disappointment. Only four have multiple alumni who received it: Amherst (surprisingly, given their rep as a preppie haven), Swarthmore, Haverford and Oberlin. Then with one there are Grinnell and two lower-ranked schools: Juniata and Ohio Wesleyan. And that's it for liberal arts colleges. Williams, Middlebury, the massively overrated Wesleyan, Wellesley, etc. are nowhere to be found. Why such dismal performance from LACs, I really expected better.</p>
<p>In general, LACs do poorly in some criteria needed to become a world-class academic institution. For example, Amherst is quite a good school. But it is only good in some portions and weak in some that's why it's reputation would not equal to those schools that are more balanced.</p>
<p>Academic institutions are basically measured on the ff:</p>
<p>academic reputation
school facilities
faculty calibre/faculty resources
student quality
school products (graduate destination)
school contribution to society</p>
<p>Research-oriented schools do very well on these criteria.</p>
<p>I wouldn't assume that the Wikipedia list is completely accurate or comprehensive (in fact, I wouldn't make this assumption about anything at Wikipedia). For example, Robert Engle (a 2003 Nobel winner in Economics) is shown as affiliated with MIT and UCSD. He is also a Williams graduate (as you can verify by clicking on the link to his bio), but this fact goes completely unmentioned on the Wikipedia page. </p>
<p>Wikipedia pages are, of course, maintained by the user community. Nobel prize affiliations are more a point of pride at research universities than at LACs, and so it wouldn't surprise me if Wikipedia users associated with research universities work harder at maintaining this particular page.</p>
<p>dwincho,</p>
<p>It seems this list favors schools with large graduate programs. I clicked on a few of the winners, and even in column 1 "Graduate", this list does not distinguish between undergraduate, masters, Ph.D. or post doc.</p>
<p>A better indication would be a column showing winners by undergraduate degree. Then normalize by size of each school's graduating class. Looks like Stanford is a lot better at hiring Nobel quality faculty than actually producing them from undergraduate or masters work!</p>
<p>Gary Yohe, professor of economics at Wesleyan, served on the U.N. Panel on Climate Change as a principal investigator. The U.N. Panel shared the Peace Prize last year along with former Vice President Gore.</p>
<p>I agree with Corbett, NESCAC colleges, in general, stack up pretty highly when measured against "research-oriented schools".</p>
<p>LACs of high caliber tend to be equally strong as major research universities. Though, it is to be admitted that UChicago is the best school for interacting with the Nobel winners...</p>
<p>LACs are smaller than universities, and therefore have fewer alumni, so it makes sense that they'd produce numerically fewer Nobel laureates.</p>
<p>A more accurate way of looking at it would be to examine the number of Nobel laureates per 100,000 alumni, based on undergraduate degree origin.</p>
<p>That's a solid point, especially in light of how PhD productivity is examined (in the same manner).</p>
<p>Honestly, Nobels probably aren't a very good measure of quality of schooling. Only a tiny percentage of the population aspires to the kind of pure scientific research that yields a prize. You'd learn more by studying the winners' countries of origin or family backgrounds (a fair number of families have had repeat winners.) </p>
<p>I do think it might be interesting to round up the undergrad stats on a broader group of prize-winners and honorees -- say combining Pulitzer prizes, MacArthur grants, music awards, a bunch of major science honors, writing fellowships, CEOs, Academy Awards, etc. Could be a good academic thesis for somebody.</p>
<p>Beyond the statistical limitations of the very small Nobel numbers - looking at other parameters of "success" in a career (at least as generally accepted by society) LACs do exceptionally well:</p>
<p>"Though small in number when compared to Americas large public universities, liberal arts college graduates are represented disproportionately among leaders in the arts, education, science and medicine, public service and business. A 1998 study found that even though only 3 percent of American college graduates were educated at a residential liberal arts college, alumni of these colleges accounted for:</p>
<p>8 percent of Forbes magazines listing of the nations wealthiest CEOs in 1998
8 percent of former Peace Corps volunteers
19 percent of U.S. presidents
23 percent of Pulitzer Prize winners in drama, 19 percent of the winners in history, 18 percent in poetry, 8 percent in biography, and 6 percent in fiction from 1960 to 1998
9 percent of all Fulbright scholarship recipients and 24 percent of all Mellon fellowships in the humanities
20 percent of Phi Beta Kappa inductions made between 1995 and 1997
On a per capita basis, liberal arts colleges produce nearly twice as many students who earn a Ph.D. in science as other institutions. Liberal arts graduates also are disproportionately represented in the leadership of the nations scientific community. In a recent two-year period, nearly 20 percent of the scientists elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences received their undergraduate education at a liberal arts college."</p>
<p>What about individuals who've gotten the John Bates Clark Medal?</p>
<p>And, remember, Bates Clark did teach at an LAC...</p>
<p>Ohio Wesleyan has two, not one.</p>
<p>More people in general graduate from big universities, so the comparison is not fair.</p>
<p>Somebody should adjust the Nobel winners by size of school and see what the ranking will be.</p>