LACs vs R1 for international students undergraduates

Applying to College Admission Stories
41

For his interests (CS and Math) he thought the LACs lacked both breadth and depth. He also thought they did not publish any research worth noting — he did not came across any when he was in HS. He was familiar with who from where was publishing what in the sub fields he was interested in. LACs had no presence in that space.

The advantage with a big department is that if your research interests change, you can switch to a different part of the department, and you’d find someone else doing research in that sub area.

When he was reviewing curriculum etc for my younger kid considering CS (not even research interested at that time), he discouraged him from applying to even the top LACs because they had a fairly limited curriculum, and CS courses were rationed etc. We didn’t think the younger kid would have gotten into a top LAC anyway. The non top LAC would have been even less resourced.

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42

That was my D’s experience as well, easy to get paid research spots during the academic year. Seems to be common for her friends at a variety of schools as well.

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43

Yes, at $15 an hour, a paid summer research job at Wesleyan will get you $5,000 by the end of July. So, figure 2summers@$5K=$10K:

Research Fellows, College of Integrative Sciences - Wesleyan University

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44

The main factor in deciding whether a student will be accepted to a PhD program, aside from funding and availability of advisors with matching research interests, is whether the applicant can successfully produce and defend a PhD thesis.

A PhD thesis is a body of research which is both original and important. PhD committees are deciding which applicants to take based on the committee’s best judgement as to whether the applicant will be capable of doing this. PhD committees are made up of faculty from the department to which the student is applying.

These committees tend to actually like graduates of LACs.

Faculty at R1s, the PIs of the labs where the research ar R1s and R2s is done, are the people who are deciding whether a students was well prepared by their undergraduate institution to engage in this type of research. Their judgement is, historically, that LACs are VERY good at preparing their students for PhD programs.

I mean, people here can argue that faculty at Research Universities, whose career revolves around research, who have seen and have advised PhD student in their research training, do not understand what it takes to do research. Everybody is, after all, entitled to their own opinion.

Bottom line, really, is that, when it comes to preparing undergraduates for a PhD program, it doesn’t matter much what research a faculty members produces on their own, it depends how well they will teach their students to do research. LAC faculty tend to do this pretty well.

So LACs are great choices for students who want to go on and do a PhD. Assuming, of course, that they otherwise are a good fit for a LAC - they’re not for everybody, which is why fewer than 5% of all four year undergraduate degrees are conferred by LACs.

Alternatively, my PhD-bound kid attended a LAC, and is highly qualified for any PhD program in the USA, including the most competitive, and this is the view of faculty at R1 universities who have seen her resume. She’s taking a year or two off, but will be working at a lab at a top R1. She’s getting paid to do so, so the PI must think that she is qualified, especially since he also thinks that she’s qualified for the program and has invited her to apply. Another PI at another top R1 actually actively wants her in his lab (as a PhD student).

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45

Sigh.

Why must this thread devolve into an “either/or” where one must be better than the other? Why do all of us then participate in the “LAC’s are better”, “R1’s are inferior” duality?

There are LAC’s that do a terrible job of preparing undergrads for competitive grad schools, and there are R1’s where a highly motivated kid is going to have to work hard to get what he or she needs-- but it’s there. And there are both LAC’s and R1’s which are terrific at virtually everything they do.

So I hate this dichotomy and this way of thinking. And parents who read these threads who have no experience with one or the other actually believe what’s posted here.

There are LAC’s which don’t teach evolution. We may all think of them as “Doctrinal Bible colleges” but guess what- they are classified as LAC’s. Gonna be a long slog for a kid who wants a PhD in genetics coming out of THAT environment. There are R1’s where a kid who is not at the top of the undergrads in the relevant department is going to be passed over and ignored- a lot- until he or she is a senior and has managed to survive.

And then everything in between. Just don’t play into this One is Great, One is Terrible narrative. These posts are usually started by a kid with an axe to grind, or by a parent experiencing buyer’s remorse/cognitive dissonance.

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46

Oh, I agree 100%

As people know, I am also a big fan of large public universities, which are, in my opinion, the epitome of research universities. My post was to point out that the arguments that LACs, as a rule, are not good at preparing students for research careers are baseless. I avoided claiming that LACs were, in any way, “better” than R1s, technical schools, or the dozen or so other categories of four year colleges. That is because that would not be true.

LACs, like any other colleges, have advantages and have disadvantages. However, preparation for research careers is not one of them.

More correctly, the basic factors by which a LAC is defined, i.e., small size and liberal arts focus, do not result in graduates who are not as prepared for a research career as their peers from R1s. Of course the flip side is that the basic characteristics of R1s - large sized classes and research labs that are dominated by grad students, also does not result in graduates who are not as prepared for a research career as their peers from LACs. It is lucky that the latter is true, since the majority of PhD students attend a research university for their undergraduate.

I have written before and will repeat: students should choose their college based on what’s best for them, not on whether there is some ranking systems by which some colleges are declared as “best”. This is also true for students who want to do a PhD after their undergraduate. They should choose a college which will do the best job in preparing them for PhD programs, not look for some measure by which some college is declared “the best” at preparing students for PhD programs.

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47

We talked to two experienced professors in R1s before finalizing. One from Mechanical Engineering and one from Biochemistry. Both of them recommended R1s over LACs.

Engineering one said she feels students from LACs may be used to more handholding than undergraduates from R1s and prof in Biochemistry said he thinks research opportunities if you can grab them are better at R1s.

So there is other side to this as well. I just feel undergraduate education for most people is about exploring and learning different subjects from teachers who are good at teaching. Research is an additional feather in the cap. For such a situation LACs are better than public R1s IMHO.

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Engineers don’t actually know much about LACs, since almost no LAC has an engineering undergraduate program. So the professor really had no personal experience, unless they had one of the very few Harvey Mudd graduates. I have heard that sentiment a lot from engineering professors, specifically because they have no experience of engineering graduates from LACs, so they are making assumptions, based on what they heard.

It is also very strong in engineering because, not only do they have no experience with LAC students professionally, a very large percent of engineering professors are international, and generally hear of LAC for the first time during grad school or even as faculty. So the likelihood that they will even have known anybody who attended a LAC is extremely small.

I saw a lot of this at the previous two colleges of engineering where my wife worked. In fact, my wife thought the same until she actually met a LAC graduate for the very first time in a professional setting. He was her first graduate student, and he was an absolute star. His career has been amazing, but not academic.

I have not seen that sentiment in Ecology, nor have I seen it in other life sciences with which I have experience.

As for the Biochem prof - that is his opinion. However, the question is whether they would not take a student from a LAC because that student attended a LAC.

All that being said, these are all based on anecdotes or, at best, a limited sample.

The existing data show that percent wise, students who attend LACs are more likely to end up with a PhD. There are many reason that they would want to do a PhD. However, what it also tells us is that LAC graduates are not facing any more obstacles or barriers in being accepted to PhD programs than their peers from other types of institution of higher education.

I mean, even with the common misconceptions of engineering, almost 1/3 of Harvey Mudd graduates end up with PhDs.

Bottom line though (yes, I love writing this), the differences in educational experience (for lack of better terminology) between research universities and LACs is large enough that any effect that attending these colleges has on admissions to PhD programs is washed out compared to how attending affects the success of the student.

Moreover, students can indeed “have it all”. My kid attended an excellent LAC, and also did summer internships at a lab in a top R1. Best of both worlds.

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49

100% agree with what you are saying. Statistics are of course the “truth” but they are the truth for an “average” person which doesn’t exist. Eventually individual decisions are done based on some initial filters which are statistics based (USN, QS Rankings are a type of statistics) and then personal preferences and experiences with school administrators and professors.

If these statistically filtered personal experiences are relevant to the reader of CC or not is that Reader’s prerogative to decide. Badmouthing the posters by passing judgments that this has to be someone who has an axe to grind or that person is having buyer’s remorse is kind of curious attitude!

BTW about professors you are very right. The engineering professor is an American person who did bachelors and PhD from R1s and Biochemistry professor is an Indian relocated to USA :slight_smile:

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Oh BTW the Biochemistry guy said that if he gets an applicants from say from UIUC and Oberlin with similar background, he will go for the one with UIUC. Again personal preference but there it is.

Regarding PhD production we need somewhat of reverse metric: How many PhD from a given R1 came from R1s vs LACs. That will control the productivity for a proxy for a quality of PhD as well. Say if 10% of PhDs from MIT come from origins at LACs when LACs are only 5% of overall student population then that is great etc.

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That takes a LOT of work. It would be very interesting, but is is a lot of busy work of tracking down the resume of each faculty member, controlling for having worked in multiple colleges, check the effects of having done masters or a postdoc, etc.

There was a paper that tried to do that, but the methodology sucked. Mainly because they created tiers in which Tier 1 included only the 40 or so most well-know private research universities, Tier 2 included every single one of the 200 or so LACs, including ones which are barely hanging on, while Tier 3 included all of the public R1s.

They were trying to “prove” something about something, and seemed to have kept changing the colleges in each of the tiers until they got the results that they wanted.

Things that need to be considered are the fact that some R1s are very insular, meaning that they prefer to hire their own. There is also the fact that LACs like hiring alumni of LACs, and PhDs who attended a LAC are more likely to want to work at a LAC.

Still, it’s very interesting, but we’re derailing your thread…

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52

One study which studies Nobel Prize winners and their origins and of course concluded that small undergraduate programs tend to hit above their paygrade is there in Nature. But similar study for little more normal folks would be good. May be database of NSF award winners etc.

It is OK to derail. I don’t have an agenda :slight_smile:

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Just like you have spent time figuring out what works best for your kid in terms of LAC vs R1, other parents/kids who have an interest in research spend time and energy figuring out what works best for them. I don’t think one size fits all. In many many fields and sub fields, you have needs for specialized equipment. Ideally you would also want to be in a lab where stuff is happening. For example a friend’s kid spent a couple of years in the lab of the person that discovered CRISPR. Another friend’s kid wanted to do work in quantum computing — he had exposure in UMD labs from high school, and subsequently went to UIUC. Or in more theoretical areas, you want to work with particular profs who themselves are well known in the field . All of research is not just some training in bench techniques etc. It could also be seminars that happen on campus regularly, a critical mass of community of kids with shared interests etc. People know what they want, and go and get it. A friend’s kid was making the case that they wanted to stay at UMD and not apply to MIT because some particular prof was at UMD. My son was making the case to them that MIT would have the best profs in that space not only in the current sub field of interest, but also in the 4-5 adjacent sub fields should your interests change. Both the kids have valid points of view. My kid had at least 4 semesters of one-on-one research with 4 different profs (well known people in the field), just to try out different areas to see where his interests are. Everyone has strong opinions on the matter. Incidentally we as parents are often less informed than kids in all these issues. It’s a complex landscape out there. They’ll figure it out. Often LACs don’t even come up in a lot of these conversations. Even with friends who are faculty.

Moreover kids interested in research may not stay interested in research through college. That college should also be capable of placing you into jobs directly should your interest in grad school go away. We need to plan for all contingencies. It is not as if we can plan the next 10 years of the kid’s life, which is undergrad + PhD + maybe even a postdoc in the field that you pick when the kid is in 12th grade. I have known kids who started out as pre med, then moved to Chem Engg, then to Evolutionary Biology, and then going for a job in graphic design. What to do?

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54

Yes I agree with all points.

My view is limited to my personal experience for an international average good kid. It is not necessarily applicable for kids who are great and have figured out UMD sub-area professor is better than MIT multi-area professor team. This is for kids where the teaching, instructions, administration support and small classes would make a difference in their college experience. This is for kids who may not be stand-out kids in UIUCs of the world and consequently may have less research opportunities there. I am only comparing with public R1s. I have done my PhD from public R1 and I know most of the labs in Mechanical and EECS departments with literally 100’s of professors did not cater to even 100 undergraduate students. Private R1s with great resources and student/professor ratio again a different matter.

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55

A word of caution about interpreting data on the percentages of students from different colleges pursuing PhDs. The fields they go into matter a great deal, much more so than college majors. Are they pursuing PhDs in humanities? In social sciences? In life sciences? In physical sciences? In math? In engineering? Or in computer science? It even matters depending on their particular subdiscipline.

Take the subfield of AI/ML, for example. It’s currently by far the most difficult field to get into (sub-1% admission rates for many top PhD programs). There’re very few successful applicants from LACs, even indirectly (with MS from another school) from LACs (my son has some visibility into this process because he was asked by his professors to help look at PhD applications to his department due to the sheer number of applicants). I don’t know for certain the reason, but I suspect it has something to do with the depth (including research), or the lack thereof, in the subject area. Few, if any, LACs offer anything beyond the most basic intro to AI/ML, let alone meaningful research opportunities in the area.

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Also, PhD admissions don’t just depend on whether the department admitting you thinks that you can finish a PhD. Admissions depend on a particular prof or a set of profs finding you compelling enough to take under their wing for the next 5 years. They need to raise about 500k in funding for each candidate they take.

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57

You’re right that funding is generally an issue. However, in the subfield of AI/ML, funding is plentiful, at least as of now, so the other issues become more important.

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58

Also if you told me that if my kid went to a LAC, the chances of going to a PhD are higher, that is reason enough to not send him to a LAC, if I had a choice :slight_smile:
I am just scared about PhDs. Five years of loneliness, locked into solving a narrow problem, leading a ( figuratively) monastic life. PhDs change your personality.

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Again a personal experience but if given a chance I would do PhD again so some people love the PhD and post-PhD life :slight_smile:

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61

I also have a PhD

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