<p>Right-- Cognitive psychology and physiological psychology are probably more “hard science” by your terminology. Vassar also has both a neuroscience and a cognitive science program (we had “biopsychology” when I was there-- an interdisciplinary major). Not sure how you extrapolated the numbers in post # 35, and from what you said in posts 28/29, its not clear if the percentage you post for Vassar includes psychology or not. Regardless, Vassar is known for strength in the fine arts and humanities, but that doesn’t mean their science programs are weak. Popular majors (per Fiske) are English, Poli Sci, Psych, Biology, History, Econ, Film/Theater and Art History. </p>
<p>Being in the sciences, many of my friends were int he sciences, and many are now physicians (GP, cardiologist, neurologist, radiologist, to name a few) and several (4, I believe) from my class alone are neuropsychologists. </p>
<p>And as an aside-- remember andison, who was planning to be a music major? Edned up at MIT. Just sayin’</p>
<p>interesteddad–I saw your discussion on the Amherst forum about the possible effects of the open curriculum on science and math offerings. Would you mind adding Vassar to your percents of different science majors at the schools you looked at? I started looking at the database you mentioned, but haven’t mastered it yet.</p>
<p>IPEDS is the Department of Education’s mandatory reporting database of higher education data. It includes all the data submitted to the Common Data Set multiplied by a factor of ten. Every possible permuation of enrollment, graduation, gender, race, majors, budget catetories, size, location, type of college, SAT scores, and on and on and on. It’s all publicly available through custom database searches downloadable to Excel. It’s also integrated with the National Science Foundation database on PhD completions:</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it’s a pain to figure out how to use it. For the percentage of science majors, I first defined a universe of schools. Then, had the data base give me total majors (1st and 2nd) for a five year period – looking at one year for a small LAC is a statistical faux-paux. Then, I had it total first and second majors for the same five year period for Engineering, Biology and Heath Sciences, Physical Sciences (Chem, Physics, Geology, etc.), Math and Statistics, and Computer Science.</p>
<p>The breakdowns in the other thread were done by someone looking at each school’s data. Here’s the breakdown for Vassar based on the IPEDs data I had downloaded:</p>
<p>Vassar
3.7% Bio and Bio-Heath Sciences
3.5% Physical Sciences
2.1% Math and Statistics
1.5% Computer Science
0.0% Engineering</p>
<p>Here’s the percentages of psych majors (1st and 2nd) at selected schools over the most recent five year period available in IPEDS (2003-07)</p>
<p>
18.2% Spelman College
15.9% Wheaton College
14.2% Rollins College
13.8% Yeshiva University
13.4% Agnes Scott College
12.3% Pitzer College
11.6% Wesleyan University
11.4% College of the Holy Cross
10.7% Bates College
10.6% Mount Holyoke College
10.1% Scripps College
10.0% Claremont McKenna College
10.0% Williams College
9.8% Union College
9.7% Washington University in St Louis
9.6% Amherst College
9.4% Wellesley College
9.1% Centre College
9.0% Smith College
8.9% Emory University
8.8% Beloit College
8.8% Duke University
8.7% Davidson College
8.6% Vassar College
8.6% Reed College
8.6% Dartmouth College
8.3% Kenyon College
8.3% Earlham College
8.3% Brandeis University
8.2% Northwestern University
8.2% Denison University
8.0% Skidmore College
7.9% Pomona College
7.8% Wake Forest University
7.8% Case Western Reserve University
7.7% Dickinson College
7.6% Connecticut College
7.3% Willamette University
7.3% St. Olaf College
7.3% The College of Wooster
7.2% Lawrence University
7.2% Sewanee: The University of the South
7.2% Macalester College
7.1% Vanderbilt University
7.1% Rhodes College
7.1% Haverford College
7.1% Tufts University
7.0% Trinity College
6.9% Middlebury College
6.7% Lafayette College
6.6% Swarthmore College
6.5% Harvard University
6.4% University of Chicago
6.3% Bryn Mawr College
6.3% Carleton College
6.3% Colorado College
6.2% Lehigh University
6.1% Hamilton College
6.1% Yale University
6.0% Rice University
5.9% University of Notre Dame
5.7% Berea College
5.3% Princeton University
5.2% University of Southern California
5.2% Franklin and Marshall College
5.2% Stanford University
5.2% University of Tulsa
5.1% Grinnell College
5.1% Colgate University
5.0% Boston College
4.9% Brown University
4.8% University of Richmond
4.7% Washington and Lee University
4.4% Colby College
4.3% Johns Hopkins University
4.2% Bowdoin College
4.1% Columbia University in the City of New York
4.0% University of Pennsylvania
4.0% Trinity University
3.3% Oberlin College
2.3% Cornell University
0.8% Massachusetts Institute of Technology
<p>Be really careful of one-year data like the Astronomy majors. The small sample sizes at LACs lead to wild year-to-year swings. As soon as you start looking at fine detail, you have to go to multiple years or you can get misled.</p>
<p>For exmple, here are Swarthmore’s majors awarded:</p>
<p>2008
0 Astronomy
0 AstroPhysics</p>
<p>2007
2 Astronomy
3 AstroPhysics</p>
<p>2006
2 Astronomy
3 AstroPhysics</p>
<p>2005
3 Astronomy
4 AstroPhysics</p>
<p>In reality, Swarthmore has pretty decent interest in the field, considering that there are only 360 (or so) majors. There are both historic telescopes on campus plus a brand new 24 inch telescope with spectograph installed in the new Science Center late last year. </p>
<p>However, if you only looked at 2008, you would miss it. Those kinds of annual swings happen all the time when you are taking about just handfuls of students.</p>
<p>Thanks, interesteddad. I think I’m making progress on IPEDS. I now see where you got the information on majors.</p>
<p>I cross-posted with you. My comment was about IPEDS, but I also take your point about averaging across years and that will be easier to do with the IPEDS data.</p>
<p>11% of 2800 students at Vassar = 308 science majors.
24% of 1500 students at Swarthmore = 375 science majors. </p>
<p>A difference of 67 students. </p>
<p>Both of these schools are obviously wonderful places and offer incredible opportunities.
A prospective student should not think of a college as their one and only soul mate, most will thrive at a number of colleges. There is usually more than one school that would “fit” any student. It is great that the OPs daughter is considering Vassar because it sounds like Vassar would offer her the academic and extracurricular experience she is looking for. Please let us know how her visit goes.</p>
<p>It’s 29% at Swarthmore. You left out the Engineering majors, who are a signficant presence in the science and math courses at the College.</p>
<p>It’s not just total numbers. It’s percentage of science types in each dorm, talking in the dining hall, hanging out in the clubs and groups. One of the real benefits of a small liberal arts college is that you have humanities, social studies, and science students hanging out together. </p>
<p>Astromom:</p>
<p>Good luck with IPEDS. I’d offer some advice, but it’s been my experience that IPEDS can only be discovered through trial and error! It’s maddening. I will say that, if you define a group of schools you like, save it to your computer! I think it’s easiest to get all the data you could want and then spit it out into an Excel spreadsheet for totalling and sorting.</p>
<p>There is cultural, religious, ethnic and now college major diversity? Whether there are 10% or 20% science majors should not matter any more than the percent of other of these groups. With the inclusion of engineering, of course a school that offers it as a major in the sciences will have a higher percent of science majors. </p>
<p>As a science major, many, if not most of my friends were science majors. Sure I had friends who were English, math, history, religion, computer science and Art Hx majors. I even dated someone in the “theater crowd” for a while. The percent of majors doesnt really affect who you hang with or play bridge with. Plenty of opportunity to self select like-minded people and to befriend those with totally different interests. I had to wait til my DS was in college to “hang” with an engineering major. Worked for me. Just sayin’</p>
<p>If you are interested in a large school, say UCLA or Ohio State, then the exact percentage of majors in your particular department probably doesn’t matter. You know the department will be big and comprehensive regardless.</p>
<p>But LACs are small schools, and they tend to have small departments. The number of majors (and non-majors who take intro courses) can be an important consideration, because it affects the number of faculty positions allotted to that dept., as well as the department’s funding for lab and research equipment. The differences from one LAC to another can be significant.</p>
<p>So for example, Vassar’s Physics & Astronomy Dept. currently appears to have 6 tenure-track positions (not including lecturers, visiting profs, or emeritus profs). For comparison, Williams and Swarthmore – smaller but arguably more science-oriented LACs – have 11 and 9 tenure-track positions respectively. </p>
<p>Could there be additional class or research opportunities in physics/astronomy at W or S, relative to Vassar? Yes.
Is a difference of this kind worth considering in a college decision? Yes.</p>
<p>Does this factor automatically make W or S a better choice for a prospective physics or astronomy major? No.
Could other factors make Vassar a better choice overall? Of course.</p>
<p>Interesteddad: I used the statistic you gave in post #35. I believe Vassar has a 3/2 program with Dartmouth for engineering, so those students would not be included either.</p>
<p>If you or your daughter either attended or graduated from Vassar, then I think your opinion is valuable. If not, why are you so interested in promoting other schools on this thread? The OP asked about physical sciences at VASSAR. Yikes!</p>
<p>OP: Be sure to check out the Undergraduate Research Summer Institute at Vassar College. I’m not sure how many other LACs have a program like this.</p>
<p>In 2008 astronomy abstracts alone included the following:</p>
<p>Astronomy
A Study of Star Formation Regions of Galaxies at Intermediate Redshifts
Michael Petersen, Colgate University �10 and Prof. Debra Elmegreen</p>
<p>Thick Disks of Galaxies at Intermediate Redshift
Andrew Yau, Vassar College ’10 and Prof. Debra Elmegreen</p>
<p>A Spectroscopic Study of the Structure of the Milky Way
Marshall Johnson, Wesleyan University ’11, Evan Kaplan, Vassar College ’11, Jacob Miller, Vassar College ’09 and Prof. Allyson Sheffield</p>
<p>I jumped in with post #4 when AstroMom had failed to get a single reply. I jumped in because I had some relevant data that had bubbled up in a discussion of open curriculum and its impact on science math studies. I had selected what I consider to be 30 of the top universities, LACs, and publics to look at the percentage of science majors. I included Vassar because I view it as a top school. I had no idea what the percentages would look like when I ran the IPEDS data. I knew that Swarthmore and Williams both had strong science repuations and I knew that Carleton was a math powerhouse, but no clue about many of the other schools</p>
<p>I, personally, was surprised to see how few science and math majors Vassar has. As it turns out, most of the old seven sisters have relatively little interest in the sciences – the glaring exception being Bryn Mawr and, with their new engineering program, Smith.</p>
<p>Vassar is of some interest to me because a college classmate of my wife’s and mine is the President there. It was on my daughter’s college list, she had visited. And, she had very close friends who attended and she spent several weekends there.</p>
<p>Swarthmore came “this” close to offering a PhD program in Physics/Astronomy. For 50 years, Swarthmore was home to the Bartol Research Foundation that did singificant work on the development of radar, of nuclear weapons, and conducting cosmic ray research in Antartica – and research opportunities for Swarthmore faculty and students. The proposal to offer a joint PhD program came as Barthol’s 50 year lease was nearing its end in the 1970s. They were looking to expand the lease and build a Van der Graph accelerator on campus for additional nuclear development.</p>
<p>Swarthmore’s President, Courney Smith, had appointed a committee to consider the PhD proposal when he died of a heart attack during the black students takeover of the admissions office in 1969. That and the bad climate for appreciation of nuclear research at an a former Quaker institution in the late 60s and 70’s killed the deal. Bartol built its Van der Graff accellerator around the corner on the Baltimore Pike and later moved to down I95 to the University of Delaware.</p>
<p>They probably made the right decision. I think that, generally speaking, liberal arts colleges are best served by keeping their focus on their core undergrad mission. I can’t think of too many instances where dabbling in graduate programs has really strengthened an LAC. I suspect that in the current mode of budget trimming, there are some schools that would dearly love to get out from under small graduate programs.</p>
<p>Except that “getting out from under” them would be the equivalent of giving away an extra $200,000,000 in endowment funds, at least at Wesleyan it would. </p>
<p>Wesleyan, as far as I can tell, is the only LAC currently approved to receive funding from the National Institutes for Health (NIH) and receives about four times the outside funded scientific research that Swarthmore does. It is under no pressure to get rid of its small Ph.D programs which allow faculty and students to conduct research 365 days a year (not just during summer breaks or during sabbaticals.)</p>
The NIH has a [url=<a href=“http://report.nih.gov/award/trends/FindOrg.cfm]search[/url”>http://report.nih.gov/award/trends/FindOrg.cfm]search[/url</a>] function that allows you to review the annual funding supplied to particular institutions. It’s apparently not unusual for LACs to get up to $500,000 or so of NIH funding annually. I got hits on most of the top LACs that I entered, including schools like Swarthmore, Vassar, Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, and Smith.</p>
<p>But Wesleyan was in fact significantly higher, at about $1.6 million. I didn’t see any other LACs that reached even the $600,000 level, based on my casual searching.</p>
<p>Just for some perspective, Dartmouth weighed in at $80 million, Johns Hopkins at $582 million.</p>