<p>I have never seen a list ranking colleges along the quality of undergrad teaching quality. Criteria would be % of profs vs. teaching assistants, accessibility to profs, small class size, % of students happy with their teachers, etc. If such a list exists could someone please point me to it?</p>
<p>US News is full of flaws, but this is what you were asking for: [Best</a> Undergraduate Teaching | Rankings | Top National Universities | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching]Best”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching)</p>
<p>Note the tabs that allow you to move between “National Universities,” “Liberal Arts Colleges,” “Regional Universities,” and “Regional Colleges.”</p>
<p>The US News lists seem to be run along the same lines as the Princeton Review rankings. ~30-40% of the colleges are dropped or added each year, and the remaining schools are jumbled around.</p>
<p>Undergrad Teaching 2011
- Dartmouth
- Miami U
= Princeton - Notre Dame
- William & Mary
- Berkeley
= Brown - Michigan
= UVA - Stanford
= Yale - Clemson
= Purdue
= UMD-BC
= U Vermont
= Wake Forest</p>
<p>Undergraduate Teaching 2010
- Dartmouth
- Princeton
- Yale
- Stanford
= UMD-BC - Brown
= William & Mary - Duke
= Miami U
= Notre Dame - Berkeley
= Bowling Green State
= Chicago
= Howard
= Michigan
= Rice
= UNC</p>
<p>Miami U +6
Berkeley +5
Notre Dame +4
Michigan +3
William & Mary +1
Brown +0
Dartmouth +0
Princeton +0
Stanford -6
Yale -7</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies but these lists must be flawed if U of Mich is on the list - They use so many teaching assistants that you might not be taught by or interact with a prof for the first couple (or more!) years.</p>
<p>(1) I said that US News is flawed.</p>
<p>(2) Just because something doesn’t match up to your perceptions doesn’t make it wrong.</p>
<p>I think there was another big company that released its own undergraduate teaching list, I can’t recall who.</p>
<p>“Thanks for the replies but these lists must be flawed if U of Mich is on the list - They use so many teaching assistants that you might not be taught by or interact with a prof for the first couple (or more!) years.”</p>
<p>Please provide proof of this. It has been debunked countless times here on CC.</p>
<p>“Please provide proof of this. It has been debunked countless times here on CC.”</p>
<p>I was a Graduate Student Instructor at U of M in foreign language. All non-majors language courses were taught by GSI or adjunct instructors. In LSA (Literature, Science, & the Arts) there are 19,000 students, and 1,445 GSIs. (links below) I am really not trying to start an argument; I would like to see if there is a list that takes into account the prof/TA ratio in a bigger way than the US News listings.</p>
<p>[Information</a> About Graduate Student Instructors at the University of Michigan](<a href=“http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/gsi-sa/unit.html]Information”>http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/gsi-sa/unit.html)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.lsa.umich.edu/UMICH/lsa_alumni/Home/_TOPNAV_LSA%20Fact%20Sheet/LSA%20Fact%20Sheet%20Sept%2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.lsa.umich.edu/UMICH/lsa_alumni/Home/_TOPNAV_LSA%20Fact%20Sheet/LSA%20Fact%20Sheet%20Sept%2010.pdf</a></p>
<p>I think if you are looking for a list of schools that fit your criteria just look for small LACs and specialty schools as they generally don’t have TAs. Where I go to school the TA/Prof ratio is 0 and like most small schools the class sizes are small (Under 30). On top of this these numbers are not unique to the school I go to as most schools of similar size have similar numbers. Also most small schools have profs that have open door policies. That said it would be hard to differentiate smaller schools from one another based on the critera that you have given.</p>
<p>Good advice - It’s probably a given that large universities will use some or many TAs while LACs will not. My college didn’t have a single one.</p>
<p>snarlatron. So is it fair to assume that, according to you, TAs are not good instructors? Now that you are 47 years old and you were a TA at Michigan, did you feel your teaching ability was poor when you were younger? You never attended Michigan as an undergrad. Do you honestly believe that ANY student wouldn’t be taught or interact with a professor in his/her “first couple (or more!) years?” If you do, then I honestly believe you are completely mistaken.</p>
<p>
I was thinking the same thing. It’s too simplistic to generalize that TAs are bad teachers and professors are good. I know many a professor for whom teaching is a very secondary priority. </p>
<p>The bigger issue is it’s really hard to quantify the quality of teaching - eg. if you rely too heavily on feedback from the students, you get a situation such as in my HS D’s school - the most popular physics teacher in HS doesn’t really teach Physics but discusses sports and gives good grades.</p>