Penn among top contributors of graduates to Teach For America

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
1

<p>To those who think that Penn is all about preprofessionalism and Wharton: think again. :)</p>

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[quote]
Penn Is Among Top Medium-Sized Universities Contributing Graduates to Teach For America</p>

<p>July 20, 2010</p>

<p>PHILADELPHIA -- The University of Pennsylvania ranks fourth in medium-sized colleges and universities in the number of 2010 graduates who are joining Teach For America. </p>

<p>The 43 recent Penn graduates are committing the next two years to teach in underserved urban and rural public schools and will begin teaching in schools across the country in the fall. </p>

<p>Teach for America recruited the students from all academic majors and backgrounds who demonstrated outstanding achievement, perseverance and leadership. </p>

<p>Since Teach for America began ranking its top contributors in 2008, Penn has ranked in the top 20. Penn was 11th in 2008 and sixth in 2009.</p>

<p>Additional information is available at Teach</a> For America - Help Ensure Educational Opportunity for All.

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<p>Penn</a> Is Among Top Medium-Sized Universities Contributing Graduates to Teach For America | Penn News</p>

2

<p>45 percenter:</p>

<p>This is an interesting article, but there are a few problems I see with this analysis. First, especially of late, Teach for America itself has become something of a launchingpad for recent graduates intent on spending a couple years in the workforce, and then going on to a professional graduate school (TFA now places gradautes extremely well at top law schools, business schools, medical schools, etc.). As TFA has become increasingly selective and appeals to the recent ivy league grads more and more, the corps itself has started to take on a pre-professional flavor. </p>

<p>(Also, in terms of specific %s, do you know what % of Penn’s class applies for TFA? According to this article:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/education/12winerip.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/12/education/12winerip.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Nearly 20% of the class at Yale and Harvard apply to TFA. Given that 20% apply, I’d imagine maybe 5-6% of the class is accepted, meaning probably 3% of the class actually join the TFA corps. According to the Penn News article, 43 upenn grads joined TFA, which is about 1.5% of the graduating class. Please note, I don’t mean to besmirch Penn’s performance here - students are obviously interested in TFA, but I just don’t know if it matches the interest at some other ivies.) </p>

<p>On another note, perhaps we need to better define what we mean by “pre-professionalism.” Traditionally - and this very well could be based upon my own background as a Univ of Chicago graduate - I see the opposite of “pre-professional” as “a budding academic.” So, for me, grad schools of engineering, business, law, education etc. are all “pre-professional” graduate schools because they train students to enter a particular profession. PhD programs, on the other hand, stand as a training ground for future academics (which, for me, is the opposite of “pre-professional”).</p>

<p>With all of this in mind, I’ve always found UPenn to be pre-professional because it sends significantly lower proportions of its classes toward academic pursuits (i.e. PhD programs). I’ve lost the link, but I believe Chicago, Yale, Swarthmore, and the like send something like 15% of its class to doctoral programs. Penn, as I remember, sends closer to 3-4% down the path toward academia. For me, this is the key reason why Penn would be more pre-professional than, say, Yale or Chicago or Swarthmore.</p>

3

<p>Just to conclude - as many view Penn as a “pre-professional” sort of school, I always thought this was because the numbers UPenn sent on to doctoral programs was so low, in comparison to its peers.</p>

4

<p>^ Remember, though, that Penn’s undergraduate student body is significantly larger than those of the other schools you cite, and it also includes explicitly preprofessional components (Wharton, SEAS, Nursing) that the other schools don’t. My point is that even with a lower percentage of its total number of undergraduates headed for “academic” careers, Penn still can–and DOES–have a significant contingent of undergrads headed for “academic” careers; in fact, in absolute numbers, as many as or more than the other schools you cite.</p>

<p>Also, I think that 15% figure you cite is a bit high for the likes of Yale, etc. As I recall, the percentages of undergrads at most of Penn’s peers who go on to pursue Ph.D.'s is in the single digits, and not that far from the percentage of Penn College of Arts and Sciences undergrads who do the same. The point is that the vast majority of undergrads at virtually ALL of these schools end up in business or a profession (at least 85% by your reckoning), and the differences in the so-called “preprofessional” vs. “academic” characters of these schools are greatly exaggerated, especially when measured in statistical terms.</p>

5

<p>45 percenter:</p>

<p>Here’s the list I cited from above:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/BaccOrSum1997-2006.pdf[/url]”>http://www.swarthmore.edu/Documents/administration/ir/BaccOrSum1997-2006.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Unfortunately, I can’t find the full ranking. This list indicates that about 15% of Chicago graduates, and around 14% of graduates from Yale, Harvard, Princeton, go on to attain PhDs. From what I recall from seeing the full list a while back, Penn had around 4% or so of its graduates go down this path.</p>

<p>I certainly agree that that the vast majority of graduates from any top college (from Penn to Reed to Brown) will have the bulk of its students enter generally lucrative, professional fields. During my time at Chicago, however, where 15% of students go on to get PhDs, and probably another 10-15% consider this path quit seriously, I do believe such a culture significantly changes the feel of an undergraduate experience. </p>

<p>Additionally, the mere fact that Penn indeed has undergraduate pre-professional schools (nursing, Wharton, etc.), changes the feel of the school. Yale, Chicago, Swat etc. only have liberal arts colleges, whereas literally 40%the undergrad student body at Penn is ostensibly invested in pursuing some sort of profession after graduation. </p>

<p>All these factors I think can add up to creating different feels at different schools. Of course, every top school nowadays is going to have a lot of overlap. In that vein, probably 10-15% of the student body at Chicago or Swat go into law or get an MBA or whatever, which probably is similar to the % at Penn doing the same.</p>

<p>What I found, however, at Chicago, is that for 4 years a looot of students have a career in academia in their minds, and then toward the end of their college career, they decide to go for more practicality and apply to law school or apply to a consulting firm. At Penn, I’d think that a significantly lower % of the student body goes through their 4 years actively thinking about devoting themselves to academia. So, at the end of the day, the percentages in different fields may be (roughly) similar, but the experience during the college years for a particular student can be quite different.</p>

<p>To me, Penn still stands as one of the more “pre-professional” schools precisely because of the points I’ve delineated above. First off, about 40% of the student body are literally in pre-professional undergraduate schools. Then, in CAS, you have another big chunk actively considering pre-med, the business track, etc. This just makes for a different undergrad atmosphere than what you might find at Chicago or Yale, where there are no nursing undergrads or undergrad b school students walking around campus.</p>

<p>Again, please note that I don’t mean to use the term “pre-professional” pejoratively. I certainly think that students can enjoy intellectual pursuits while attaining practical training. I also think, however, that a feel of the school can be different when maybe 25-30% of the student body is actively thinking of devoting themselves to a life in academia. Each path offers plenty of benefits for the right sorts of students. Finally, though, I do think that schools have retained certain “feels” (be it more pre-professional, more academic) given their structure and history. Ultimately, I think this makes Penn stand as a more pre-professional sort of school, whereas a Chicago or Swarthmore would be on the more academic end of elite colleges in the US.</p>

6

<p>You may have a point with Chicago and Swarthmore, specifically (although I suspect that Chicago’s undergrad “feel” may be changing a bit with its move from a more self-selected applicant pool to a larger, more broad-based one). However, I think that Penn’s academic “feel” is much more similar to its peers (especially the other Ivies) than is often acknowledged around here. Penn’s College has 6400 students, larger than the liberal arts components of most of its peers, and quite a few of those undergrads experience an evolution in post-graduate plans similar to what you describe at places like Chicago. You may not be exposed to many of those undergrads–and the evolution of their career plans over the course of their undergraduate years–in your personal experience as a grad student at Penn, but believe me, they’re there in significant numbers.</p>

7

<p>45 percenter:</p>

<p>I think to start, the ivies function as vehicles to reinforce and perpetuate wealth and power. Accordingly, all of the ivies - from Penn to Brown - maintain strong ties to the “establishment” and the traditional avenues to success/power (law, business, etc.). So, all of the ivy colleges feature a strong pre-professional feel. In terms of the liberal arts colleges, I don’t think Penn CAS is any more or less pre-professional than Princeton or Columbia or whatever. </p>

<p>At the same time, the very structure of Penn probably makes it more pre-professional than most of its ivy brethren. Unlike Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, and Columbia, Penn has a very, very high percentage of its undergrads enrolled at pre-professional schools. Consequently, while CAS may very well resemble Harvard undergrad in its orientation and feel, I don’t know if you can just look at that portion of Penn in isolation from all the other schools that give Penn a very distinctive (and, on aggregate, pre-professional) flavor. I think this structural distinction lies at the heart of why people distinguish places like Penn and Brown. If Penn didn’t have Wharton undergrad and the engineering school as big influences on undergrad life, Penn and Brown might not be seen as so dissimilar at the undergrad level. </p>

<p>As an aside, I agree, Chicago used to be quite removed from its ivy peers in terms of its mission and goals. Traditionally, Chicago looked to serve as an incubator of superb scholars, rather than as a training ground for future captains of industry. Of late, Chicago has indeed been changing. While it still is significantly more of an academic training ground than a place like Penn (and probably will continue to be this way for another decade at least), there is now a lottttt more overlap between Chicago and its ivy peers than ever before. Despite this trend, I definitely agree with you that places like Chicago and Swarthmore are different in their feel than the ivies, which see much more overlap (i.e. a student at Harvard or Princeton would be perfectly suited at Penn). As a personal note, I’m observing Chicago’s changes with considerable curiosity. Generally, if in 5 years Chicago all of a sudden has a 10% accept rate and a higher yield, I’d probably hail these changes. At the same time, the school will probably look markedly different than how I remember it. On the other hand, Penn now just looks like a significantly better - but not wildly different - version of itself in 2000.</p>

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<p>What are you studying at Penn, by the way? If you prefer not to say publicly, feel free to PM me.</p>

9

<p>45%er</p>

<p>Northwestern tops the list. ;)</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.teachforamerica.org/assets/documents/Top.Contributors_2010.pdf[/url]”>http://www.teachforamerica.org/assets/documents/Top.Contributors_2010.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

10

<p>Excellent! Thanks for the link, Sam. :)</p>

11

<p>It’s kinda interesting how this thread turns into a discussion about “preprofessionalism” when Teach for America really got nothing to do with it. As the list shows, many of the top producing schools have significant preprofessional programs. Teach for America is more about philanthropy and being active in the community. Many great philanthropists have been businessmen; on the other hand, many in the academia tend to the independent/solo or even anti-social types and may actually be less likely to get involved in volunteering events or community services.</p>

12

<p>sorry to hijack but out of curiosity, </p>

<p>@ cue7 - what’s the criteria on that list? iirc there are phds outside of traditional disciplines in areas such as finance nowadays, are those included as well?</p>