Non-HYP Ivies

College Search & Selection
101

<p>

</p>

<p>And ultimately it will fail in trying to be 2 things at once. It will have to pick one, and I would not hesitate to doubt it will move towards aping the research universities. The general trend is for smaller colleges to become larger universities, never the other way around. The pull of money and prestige are just too great (just ask UChicago and Dartmouth “College”)</p>

<p>Brown will still have its greatest strength–the spectacular and unique student body. So I wouldn’t worry too much ;)</p>

102

<p>Why does Brown have a more spectacular and unique student body than the rest of the top schools? Surely something like this would vary from year to year…</p>

103

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<p>Same could be said of Dartmouth.</p>

104

<p>

I disagree with the failing part, but agree with the moving part. I actually think for the last 10-15 years Brown has been sitting in the sweet spot, personally. I don’t think Brown is failing at either but rather succeeding at being something else entirely. Here is where you and I disagree all the time, but I actually think there is an achievable balance where the undergraduate experience has solely been enriched by the presence of the graduate school. That’s where Brown is right now-- the focus is still strongly on undergraduates and it’s still basically 90-95% an LAC from the view of most undergraduates, except that that 5-10% that isn’t LAC like is the opportunity to do research on a higher level and access resources that wouldn’t be available at other LACs.</p>

<p>I feel this way not just from my experience and comparing it to others, but from the anecdotes of people around me. We had a girl three or four years back transfer to Harvard after a year at Brown because she had been convinced, from the moment she was first rejected at Harvard, that she needed to be at a school with that kind of money and that “level” of research to accomplish what she wanted. In one semester she was back at Brown because she found that not only did she have access to the same quality education and research opportunities (more was not better), but that, in fact, she had access to more of Brown’s resources and attention than she did at Harvard. All that money and all those “opportunities” were locked out from undergrads whereas at Brown she felt like she was met with open doors at every turn.</p>

<p>Now, that’s just one story, but I think it’s an example that’s rather indicative of the point I’m trying to make-- from the perspective of the undergraduates, research and the graduate school existing can be tremendously beneficial, however, the law of diminishing returns certainly applies here, and that’s in the ideal case. In the non-ideal case, expanding beyond a certain point actually harms the undergraduate side. I happen to think that with the Plan for Academic Enrichment, Brown has pushed itself up against the line where we’re at the cusp of diminishing returns. I’ve been working with the administration the last 3 years to try and let them know that students don’t want them to cross that line.</p>

<p>But I probably wasted my breath-- you still won’t accept the fact that Penn’s student body is more pre-professional and think that’s true simply because of the number of students not studying business ;).</p>

<p>

Actually, there’s very little variation in these things from year to year, just look at the history of selectivity in USNews and other sources and you’ll see that without a drastic change in admission policy, selectivity simply creeps upwards for pretty much everyone as more students apply to more colleges.</p>

<p>The main reason Brown can attract such a strong student body is because it does offer a unique educational experience. The university-college model (which was a term coined by Henry Fowler when discussing Brown and has been our rallying call for quite sometime before Harvard tried to use it as a PR term) has Brown at that unique cusp of full on research university and LAC, where the focus in undergraduates and the graduate school serves to bring in top faculty and provide undergraduates with top research opportunities. Of course, the Brown Curriculum is unique amongst its peers and particularly attractive to a set of quite a few top scoring students nationwide. These things allow us to continue to be a top-10 selective university despite USNews’ opinion on the school overall. Having a unique identity that is attractive is a wonderful thing when it comes to bringing in top students.</p>

<p>

Yes and no. DMouth has traditionally stuck closer to the LAC model. They’re in a similar position, and basically the only reason why we don’t have this discussion about DMouth was that they handled money better in the mid-20th century, didn’t have the expense of operating in an urban space, and stuck a bit closer to the LAC model. These things have allowed DMouth to excel in a few USNews areas and garner a higher ranking. Most people on CC who are critical of Brown stop short of critiquing DMouth because they’re willing to dismiss it as an LAC, and therefore, view it as not really comparable on the same sphere. For some reason, unbeknowst to me, people feel that Brown has crossed the line to research university and DMouth has not. We do have far greater research output, but I’m not sure where the line is drawn.</p>

105

<p>

I’ll give you an ancedotal example:
In my field of chemical engineering, little Brown and Dartmouth offer completely different breadth and depth.</p>

<p>Brown offers a chemical engineering degree program:
[Division</a> of Engineering](<a href=“http://www.engin.brown.edu/undergrad/chemengin/degree.htm]Division”>http://www.engin.brown.edu/undergrad/chemengin/degree.htm)</p>

<p>Dartmouth offers a chemical engineering *course<a href=“#36%20in%20the%20link%20below”>/i</a>:
[Engineering</a> Sciences](<a href=“This page has moved”>This page has moved)</p>

<p>You tell me which one is more LAC-like vs. research university in their offerings to undergrads.</p>

106

<p>UCB-- I agree that Brown is far further down the continuum toward research university than DMouth. But in my view, it’s still pretty distant from big research 1 university. I’m just not sure where the line is that we crossed and whether I think it makes sense to think of us as having crossed that line.</p>

<p>It looks something like this in my brain:</p>

<p>LAC-------------------------------DMouth-----------------Brown-------------------------------------------Typical Research 1</p>

107

<p>Stanford, MIT, UChicago, CalTech beat most of the Ivy Schools according to more objective standard. </p>

<p>US News 2010 World’s Best Universities</p>

<p>Rank Overall Score
1 Harvard University
United States 100.0
Academic Peer Review Score
100 Employer Review Score
100 Student to Faculty Score
96 International Faculty Score
87 International Students Score
81 Citations per Faculty Score
100 </p>

<p>2 Yale University
United States 99.8
Academic Peer Review Score
100 Employer Review Score
100 Student to Faculty Score
100 International Faculty Score
89 International Students Score
71 Citations per Faculty Score
98 </p>

<p>3 University of Cambridge
United Kingdom 99.5
Academic Peer Review Score
100 Employer Review Score
100 Student to Faculty Score
99 International Faculty Score
98 International Students Score
95 Citations per Faculty Score
89 </p>

<p>4 University of Oxford
United Kingdom 98.9
Academic Peer Review Score
100 Employer Review Score
100 Student to Faculty Score
100 International Faculty Score
96 International Students Score
96 Citations per Faculty Score
85 </p>

<p>5 California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
United States 98.6
Academic Peer Review Score
100 Employer Review Score
74 Student to Faculty Score
98 International Faculty Score
100 International Students Score
93 Citations per Faculty Score
100 </p>

<p>6 Imperial College London
United Kingdom 98.4
Academic Peer Review Score
99 Employer Review Score
100 Student to Faculty Score
100 International Faculty Score
98 International Students Score
100 Citations per Faculty Score
83 </p>

<p>7 UCL (University College London)
United Kingdom 98.1
Academic Peer Review Score
96 Employer Review Score
99 Student to Faculty Score
100 International Faculty Score
96 International Students Score
100 Citations per Faculty Score
89 </p>

<p>8 University of Chicago
United States 98.0
Academic Peer Review Score
100 Employer Review Score
99 Student to Faculty Score
98 International Faculty Score
78 International Students Score
83 Citations per Faculty Score
91 </p>

<p>9 Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
United States 96.7
Academic Peer Review Score
100 Employer Review Score
100 Student to Faculty Score
90 International Faculty Score
33 International Students Score
94 Citations per Faculty Score
100 </p>

<p>10 Columbia University
United States 96.3
Academic Peer Review Score
100 Employer Review Score
99 Student to Faculty Score
98 International Faculty Score
29 International Students Score
89 Citations per Faculty Score
94 </p>

<p>11 University of Pennsylvania
United States 96.1
Academic Peer Review Score
97 Employer Review Score
98 Student to Faculty Score
88 International Faculty Score
83 International Students Score
79 Citations per Faculty Score
99 </p>

<p>12 Princeton University
United States 95.7
Academic Peer Review Score
100 Employer Review Score
98 Student to Faculty Score
75 International Faculty Score
91 International Students Score
82 Citations per Faculty Score
100 </p>

<p>13 Duke University
United States 94.4
Academic Peer Review Score
97 Employer Review Score
98 Student to Faculty Score
100 International Faculty Score
30 International Students Score
66 Citations per Faculty Score
94 </p>

<p>13 Johns Hopkins University
United States 94.4
Academic Peer Review Score
99 Employer Review Score
78 Student to Faculty Score
100 International Faculty Score
30 International Students Score
68 Citations per Faculty Score
100 </p>

<p>15 Cornell University
United States 94.3
Academic Peer Review Score
100 Employer Review Score
99 Student to Faculty Score
90 International Faculty Score
28 International Students Score
76 Citations per Faculty Score
96 </p>

<p>Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic ranking of worl Universities:</p>

<p>World Rank Institution* Region Regional Rank Country National Rank Score on Alumni Score on Award Score on HiCi Score on N&S Score on PUB Score on PCP Total
Score </p>

<p>1 Harvard Univ Americas 1 USA 1 100 100 100 100 100 74.1 100 </p>

<p>2 Stanford Univ Americas 2 USA 2 40 78.7 86.6 68.9 71.6 66.9 73.7 </p>

<p>3 Univ California - Berkeley Americas 3 USA 3 69 77.1 68.8 70.6 70 53 71.4 </p>

<p>4 Univ Cambridge Europe 1 UK 1 90.3 91.5 53.6 56 64.1 65 70.4 </p>

<p>5 Massachusetts Inst Tech (MIT) Americas 4 USA 4 71 80.6 65.6 68.7 61.6 53.9 69.6 </p>

<p>6 California Inst Tech Americas 5 USA 5 52.8 69.1 57.4 66.1 49.7 100 65.4 </p>

<p>7 Columbia Univ Americas 6 USA 6 72.4 65.7 56.5 52.3 70.5 46.6 62.5 </p>

<p>8 Princeton Univ Americas 7 USA 7 59.3 80.4 61.9 40.5 44.8 59.3 58.9 </p>

<p>9 Univ Chicago Americas 8 USA 8 67.4 81.9 50.5 39.5 51.9 41.3 57.1 </p>

<p>10 Univ Oxford Europe 2 UK 2 59 57.9 48.4 52 66 45.7 56.8 </p>

<p>11 Yale Univ Americas 9 USA 9 48.5 43.6 57 55.7 62.4 48.7 54.9 </p>

<p>12 Cornell Univ Americas 10 USA 10 41.5 51.3 54.1 52.3 64.7 40.4 54. </p>

<p>13 Univ California - Los Angeles Americas 11 USA 11 24.4 42.8 57.4 48.9 75.7 36 52.4 </p>

<p>14 Univ California - San Diego Americas 12 USA 12 15.8 34 59.7 53 66.7 47.4 50.3 </p>

<p>15 Univ Pennsylvania Americas 13 USA 13 31.7 34.4 58.3 41.3 69 39.2 49.0</p>

108

<p>

This is where it needs to be pointed out that, regardless of size, Brown is a research university – and its hiring practices are arranged accordingly. Research experience is what’s important, with teaching ability being an afterthought (if considered at all).</p>

109

<p>

Actually, as someone who has sat on decision-making bodies at Brown, I can tell you that only since the start of the most recent fundraising campaign which involved increasing the size of the faculty, has this really been true. Throughout most of the last 50 years teaching was a huge part of everything at Brown and most of the faculty right now has cried foul, internally, on the administration’s actions which they feel have served to severely tipped the scales toward research in recent years. I say that Brown is on the cusp right now because I feel in the last 4 years have demonstrably changed Brown and moved us more to the path to typical research university, however, the last two years has seen considerable push back and many are calling for a restore to balance (which they hope will come now that the faculty expansion has essentially completed its goal of 100 new faculty members).</p>

<p>In some departments, teaching is still considered 40% of the tenure process like it traditionally was. The sciences have moved more towards a research model at this point, but they were the closest to one anyway for most of Brown. The humanities and social sciences still have quite a few professors fighting to shift Brown back to teaching focuses and I think they’re winning.</p>

110

<p>Dartmouth! It’s my dream.
Then Brown, then Penn.</p>

111

<p>

That may be. I posted that with the Egyptology department in mind. The newly hired chair of the department has had a career almost entirely in museum work, not teaching. While he’s an expert in Egyptian language, the man is quite frankly boring and deaf as a post to boot. I know of two excellent and engaging professors, one from Columbia and another from Swansea, who were rejected from the position. As another example, the department just hired a new Assyriology professor. The current lecturer in the subject, who’s quite competent and well-liked by Brown students, was booted out and passed over for a brand new PhD from Penn (no teaching experience) simply because they thought the latter’s research background was more appealing.</p>

112

<p>Not surprised that happened in Egyptology-- the politics of a small department like that are way different. I am quite sure they find themselves justifying their existence more than they want to and are attempting to be financially solvent for the university since the momentum to continue the program may be low considering how few concentrators there are in Egyptology each year.</p>

<p>Recently, the College Curriculum Council (which I am on) at the recommendation of the concentrations subcommittee (which I was on last year), decided that concentrations with a 5 year rolling average of 2 or fewer concentrators may be removed from the books as officially being offered. Egyptology runs dangerously close to these numbers and therefore, they probably see their few FTEs being dedicated to teaching faculty as money not well-spent-- they’re already not attracting students and probably costing the U considerable money because they’re not bringing in big research dollars.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t extrapolate that situation, which is inextricably linked to the struggles of a small, dwindling department in a rough economic climate to the trends of Brown as a whole.</p>

113

<p>Since someone hadn’t posted an updated count yet</p>

<p>Penn - 15
Brown - 14
Dartmouth - 12
Columbia - 9
Cornell - 8</p>

114

<p>

</p>

<p>They don’t have money. They may win battles (witness the hullabaloo over the Watson Institute trying to add some vaguely law-school-ish courses), but they will lose the war.
By the time you and I are both old enough to finally stop posting on these boards, Brown University will be less Brown and more University.</p>

115

<p>I don’t think that’s really true. There’s a lot of momentum on campus right now amongst students and faculty to push back. Note the recent battle which almost killed the new COE concentration (which took something like two years to work out such that the faculty felt it was academic enough and not pre-professional), a battle which got into details as small as objecting to the name CEO as a concentration.</p>

<p>As a former member of the Task Force on Undergraduate Education, current member of the College Curriculum Council (I’ll resume this year as the graduate student representative), and good friend of both of the former University Resources Committee and the two current members, I can say that I’ve got a voice with pretty much every important decision-maker at Brown except the president and the Corporation. </p>

<p>While I think we’re still pushing towards university, the economic crisis and the completion of many aspects of the Plan for Academic Enrichment, alongside a very active student body and many professors who are on the cusp of retirement who want to leave Brown with a bit of a legacy has led to a perfect storm for reflection. There’s a lot of, “Let’s pause and look at what worked and what didn’t and where we are, where we are going, and where we want to be,” all around campus.</p>

<p>I think Brown will always be creeping more towards what Harvard looked like a few decades earlier than Brown, however, I think that we are attempting to be very careful and deliberate about what we do and how and I know that the administration, faculty, and most of all, students are all aware of precisely what it is we do well and special that we need to preserve.</p>

116

<p>CORNELL- no doubt, even if you had included HYP i would’ve taken it over any of them!!! i love it, the campus, the peopel, the place, the size, the academics, its ****ing sick!!! BEST SCHOOL IN THE WORLD- for me, at least, i don’t deny that other schools ahve superior reputation and may ahve better job opportunities, but i’ve spent time at cornell, i love it.</p>

117

<p><a href=“agoodfella:”>quote</a></p>

<ul>
<li>The Revealed Preferences study ranked Brown no. 7 nationally and the most desirable Ivy after HYP.

[/quote]
</li>
</ul>

<p>Not exactly. The Revealed Preference results were HYPSM(C) as the unambiguous top six, and a clear separation between that group and the less sharply delineated second tier (trailing off into an even less sharp third tier, and on down the list). Within the tiers, the RP model had trouble producing a linear ranking. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/767204-long-asked-question-better-harvard-yale-2.html#post1063129079[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/767204-long-asked-question-better-harvard-yale-2.html#post1063129079&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>With that said, I think Brown came out at #7 under several different versions of the ranking procedure, and thus has the strongest claim to be “head of the second tier”. But the fraction of simulations where it was beaten out for that spot by other schools was fairly high.</p>

<p>(Added: ) Actually, from the table in the paper summarizing the simulation results, it looks like Brown came out below #7 in a majority of the trials. Probably it was at that rank more often than any of the other claimants. But the implication is that had the ranking been re-run on the next year’s data, Brown would more likely than not have been in a different place on the list. So the Revealed Preference ranking doesn’t support the idea of Brown being rated above Columbia, Amherst and the others in the second group; it supports the idea of Brown being “somewhere” at or near the top of that group.</p>