<p>
[quote]
Also, is this IPEDs data for the entering class in Fall, 2006 or Fall, 2007? When does IPEDs update its data?
[/quote]
</p>
<p><a href="http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/%5B/url%5D">http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/</a></p>
<p>hawkette-
I thought about your request. I can group colleges by small, medium, large, very large or something like that but I don't think that is the same as grouping by overlap apps. I could group by SAT score ranges but students apply to reaches, matches, safeties so SAT wouldn't do it either. How would you like to see them grouped?</p>
<p>I think the data was 2006 IPEDS, whatever was the most recent available.</p>
<p>collegehelp,
I see your point re the reach/match/safety issue, but putting in groups might help some students decide what types of schools in each range are worth a closer look for them. I'm not sure what the best grouping would be without making it too large, but maybe something with a 25th percentile SAT of 1200 or 1250 or better? As for size, I think your groups are probably about right. </p>
<p>Do you know when IPEDs will have the data uploaded for the students that arrived in Fall, 2007? I couldn't find the answer to that question in xiggi's link.</p>
<p>It will be there in time to compare with the data made available by The College Board or US News. IPEDS is helpful because one can look up historical data for a number of past years. See the tables for available years.</p>
<p>However, finding the numbers for the Fall of 2007 (Class of 2011) in February 2008 still requires looking up individual schools. After all, there is a reason why the US News will use the data of 2007 in its 2009 Best Colleges Edition to be published in August 2008. A wonderful to cover three years. :)</p>
<p>All respect to IPEDS, that data isn't correct. Northwestern definitely does not have 9k undergrads, nor does it have 9k grad students.</p>
<p>They count all part-timers the same as full-time (which is a flaw). NU has lots of evening students both grad and undergrad.</p>
<p>That's what I thought it might be, but that just means these numbers are useless.</p>
<p>I'd agree...................................</p>
<p>Including graduate students is very tricky. Large publics that include schools of education enroll many part-time students in master's programs. I have several relatives who earned masters in education who never set foot on the home campus of the uni that awarded the degree; all class meetings were off-campus somewhere 'convenient' for students and instructors.</p>
<p>Like many of the lists that make an appearance on cc, this one has way too many qualifications to be useful.</p>
<p>Taken on its own, making a judgment about a school based on grad/undergrad percentages might not be too helpful, but these can serve as good prompts. If something looks a bit over or under a certain expectation, then this warrants a further investigation. This is like any data point that gets talked about. It is only has value in the context of an overall consideration of many aspects of a college and how these might relate to another college (peer or not). Personally, I think that the information about the numbers of graduate students would be a red flag if it were a high number for ABC university. As a prospective undergrad, I'd want to understand better what these numbers mean for undergraduate education and resources. It is the follow-through step that really counts, but the lists can sometimes provide the initial illumination needed to get the ball rolling.</p>
<p>I think there are several important questions that should occur to prospective undergraduates:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>How many classes are taught by graduate students? Are they just leading discussion sections or are they teaching the course?</p></li>
<li><p>How many professors are doing real, externally-funded, publishable research?</p></li>
<li><p>How easy is it for undergraduates to get involved in that research?</p></li>
<li><p>If an undergraduate does get involved in research, it is under the tutelage of a graduate student or a professor?</p></li>
<li><p>Can undergraduates enroll in graduate-level courses at some point?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I don't think the answers to those questions can be discerned from a list such as that under discussion in this thread. I don't even think it is a good starting point.</p>
<p>I would point out that just because a school is high in %age grad students doesn't mean that the classes will be taught by TAs instead of professors. MIT is very high in %age grad students, and I didn't have a single class that was taught by a TA rather than a prof (though there are a few, generally in highly specialized subjects in which the particular grad student is an expert). There were lots of TAs teaching recitations, of course.</p>
<p>midmo-
How would you suggest finding the answers to your questions before actually attending the school?</p>
<p>Every one of those questions can be answered by the director of undergraduate studies of every department of interest to a student. In most cases, the director of undergraduate studies is a professor, often a senior tenured one, while in others it is an adjunct faculty member, perhaps occasionally a non-academic professional employee.</p>
<p>Those are the questions my son asked when he made visits to campuses about which he was serious. He made appointments. He got answers.</p>
<p>The answer to the second question can be obtained by simply looking at the web sites maintained by faculty members.</p>
<p>Granted, some students are not sure what they want to study, in which case it is harder to get a feel for how your plans mesh with the school. Nonetheless, it is not difficult to determine if there is a UROPS program or something similar.</p>
<p>sorted first by size category, then by percent undergrad
full-time only</p>
<p>school, SAT 75th percentile, size category, total fulltime, undergrad fulltime, percent undergrad</p>
<p>Brigham Young University 1350 5 29132 27724 95.2%
University of Colorado at Boulder 1280 5 25762 23816 92.4%
Auburn University Main Campus 1230 5 20120 17810 88.5%
Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Main Campus 1300 5 38442 33364 86.8%
Iowa State University 1350 5 22180 19157 86.4%
Rutgers University-New Brunswick/Piscataway 1310 5 28342 24468 86.3%
University of California-Santa Barbara 1320 5 20700 17800 86.0%
University of Delaware 1290 5 17546 15006 85.5%
University of California-Irvine 1300 5 23883 20251 84.8%
University of Missouri-Columbia 1300 5 24110 20225 83.9%
Purdue University-Main Campus 1250 5 35981 30180 83.9%
Indiana University-Bloomington 1240 5 33707 28238 83.8%
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 1290 5 25677 21478 83.6%
Texas A & M University 1290 5 40654 33569 82.6%
University of California-San Diego 1370 5 24063 19698 81.9%
Michigan State University 1290 5 39825 32588 81.8%
University of Iowa 1320 5 23125 18370 79.4%
University of Georgia 1330 5 29341 23287 79.4%
University of California-Davis 1300 5 29730 23490 79.0%
University of Connecticut 1290 5 19759 15602 79.0%
University of Maryland-College Park 1390 5 29832 23124 77.5%
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1400 5 39232 30375 77.4%
Ohio State University-Main Campus 1310 5 45187 34982 77.4%
The University of Tennessee 1270 5 24967 19164 76.8%
The University of Texas at Austin 1350 5 45726 34227 74.9%
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 1360 5 36049 26925 74.7%
University of Florida 1360 5 44374 32472 73.2%
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1390 5 22907 16319 71.2%
University of Washington-Seattle Campus 1320 5 33148 23511 70.9%
University of California-Berkeley 1450 5 32330 22570 69.8%
University of Pittsburgh-Main Campus 1330 5 22123 15422 69.7%
University of Wisconsin-Madison 1370 5 38706 26942 69.6%
University of Virginia-Main Campus 1430 5 20068 13932 69.4%
University of California-Los Angeles 1410 5 35179 24391 69.3%
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 1420 5 35600 24600 69.1%
Boston University 1370 5 25427 17091 67.2%
New York University 1410 5 28923 18378 63.5%
George Washington University 1390 5 15641 9778 62.5%
University of Southern California 1460 5 29206 16001 54.8%
University of Pennsylvania 1490 5 19501 10278 52.7%
Harvard University 1590 5 19300 7100 36.8%
Columbia University in the City of New York 1540 5 19499 6658 34.1%</p>
<p>Miami University-Oxford 1300 4 15063 14042 93.2%
University of California-Santa Cruz 1270 4 15019 13578 90.4%
University of California-Riverside 1200 4 16581 14508 87.5%
SUNY at Binghamton 1350 4 12660 10998 86.9%
Baylor University 1310 4 13405 11535 86.0%
Clemson University 1310 4 15818 13349 84.4%
Boston College 1420 4 11716 9333 79.7%
Marquette University 1300 4 9710 7569 78.0%
Syracuse University 1330 4 15652 11751 75.1%
Southern Methodist University 1320 4 8019 5959 74.3%
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 1400 4 16006 11539 72.1%
Cornell University 1490 4 19603 13548 69.1%
University of Miami 1360 4 14324 9818 68.5%
Fordham University 1290 4 10390 6996 67.3%
University of Notre Dame 1500 4 9390 6301 67.1%
Saint Louis University-Main Campus 1300 4 7357 4561 62.0%
American University 1370 4 7156 4309 60.2%
University of Denver 1290 4 7830 4676 59.7%
Tulane University of Louisiana 1425 4 8802 5218 59.3%
Vanderbilt University 1460 4 10893 6304 57.9%
Emory University 1470 4 11415 6538 57.3%
Washington University in St Louis 1530 4 11123 6365 57.2%
Northwestern University 1500 4 15368 8133 52.9%
Georgetown University 1490 4 12572 6630 52.7%
Stanford University 1540 4 12993 6515 50.1%
Duke University 1560 4 12829 6217 48.5%
Yale University 1580 4 11270 5350 47.5%
Johns Hopkins University 1490 4 11196 5287 47.2%
University of Chicago 1560 4 11676 4802 41.1%
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1560 4 9992 4068 40.7%</p>
<p>Lehigh University 1390 3 5625 4697 83.5%
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 1420 3 6273 5142 82.0%
College of William and Mary 1440 3 7060 5553 78.7%
Brown University 1530 3 7754 5762 74.3%
Dartmouth College 1550 3 5617 4036 71.9%
Brandeis University 1440 3 4728 3283 69.4%
Princeton University 1590 3 7065 4790 67.8%
Wake Forest University 1400 3 6555 4226 64.5%
University of Rochester 1420 3 7283 4546 62.4%
Carnegie Mellon University 1490 3 8639 5365 62.1%
Rice University 1530 3 4907 2977 60.7%
Tufts University 1480 3 8808 4937 56.1%
Pepperdine University 1350 3 4888 2621 53.6%
Yeshiva University 1340 3 5552 2889 52.0%
Case Western Reserve University 1430 3 7479 3858 51.6%</p>
<p>Worcester Polytechnic Institute 1390 2 3309 2817 85.1%
Clark University 1310 2 2690 2115 78.6%
Stevens Institute of Technology 1360 2 2492 1849 74.2%
California Institute of Technology 1570 2 2086 864 41.4%</p>
<p>Some of midmo's questions are easy to answer, others will vary by the details of the situation</p>
<p>
[quote]
1. How many classes are taught by graduate students?
[/quote]
The admissions office should be able to answer. This is also reported on the Princeton Review. Not sure about the accuracy there.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Are they just leading discussion sections or are they teaching the course?
[/quote]
Ask admissions, undergrads, and faculty in the departments where you are considering taking a lot of courses. The answer can very widely from one department to another, unless there are firm institution-wide policies.</p>
<p>
[quote]
2. How many professors are doing real, externally-funded, publishable research?
[/quote]
The NRC report will cover this in detail. While waiting, the faculty productivity index published in the Chronicle of Higher Education gives results, but only for the departments that came it tops in their ranking. The ISI by Thompson also calculates publication and citation statistics, but you have to know quite a bit about a field to interpret them. High school students on their own might not get much out of these figures.</p>
<p>
[quote]
3. How easy is it for undergraduates to get involved in that research?
[/quote]
will vary widely by department. Best to ask faculty and students in the departments that interest you.</p>
<p>
[quote]
4. If an undergraduate does get involved in research, it is under the tutelage of a graduate student or a professor?
[/quote]
Will vary by professor. Really depends on how the professor runs the research group. Also depends on the particular project, and on the graduate student. In general, it is not that efficient to have graduate students trying to supervise undergrads. The undergrads don't know very much, and do not contribute that much. The grad students are under too much pressure to produce, and don't have much experience in supervising people. Again, this can vary, a lot, by field, group, professor, and grad student.</p>
<p>
[quote]
5. Can undergraduates enroll in graduate-level courses at some point?
[/quote]
Almost always a matter of university policy. Admissions should be able to tell you. I have not heard of universities where undergrads were not permitted to take graduate courses. It would be pretty strange. The more difficult questions would be: are there spaces in the courses for undergrads? Do they need to wait for an open slot, or can they just register assuming they have prerequisites? Are the grad courses are broad enough to be useful to an undergrad? Some graduate courses are narrowly focussed on topics of interest to the professor, but not of the general interest that make them appropriate for undergrads. The teaching style is also different, with students much more on their own, more open ended assignments, faster pace, much greater assumed knowledge and skills...</p>
<p>collegehelp,
Thanks for the additional lists and sorting. I apologize for not being clearer earlier, but I am interested in size BY UNDERGRAD population and not overall. Some schools, like Columbia, have small undergrad and huge grad and, if I were a prospective undergraduate student, I would first be concerned about the undergraduate environment and then want to understand what impact the graduate programs have on the campus.</p>
<p>I wouldn't trust the admissions office. </p>
<p>Regarding faculty research, that's pretty easy to verify if you check websites...true.</p>
<p>Normally, I would be surprised if any graduate students would be the primary instructor for any course anywhere. However, I was primary instructor for a summer course as a grad student. I did a good job but I made the final too hard. Students were mad, but they all passed. Graduate students have to learn how to teach somehow. Teaching is way different from being a TA.</p>
<p>I've always found admissions office to point to authoritative sources, institutional research, university policies, or other official references. Never just their word.</p>
<p>collegehelp -- thank you for posting this. I had not looked at these colleges from that perspective before, and it is a really significant feature of a campus.</p>