<p>How do med and grad school applicants fare after an undergrad at Oberlin? Do many go on to high ranking programs/schools?</p>
<p>More Oberlin grads have gone on to PhD programs than from any other LAC in the country. Med school admissions are very strong too.</p>
<p>Not to quibble, but Oberlin has turned out more PhDs than other LAC in part because it's at least 50% larger than most of the competition. Correcting for size of student body, Oberlin does quite well but drops down to number 5 among LACs behind:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvey Mudd</li>
<li>Swarthmore</li>
<li>Reed</li>
<li>Carleton</li>
<li><p>Oberlin</p></li>
<li><p>Amherst</p></li>
<li><p>Williams</p></li>
</ol>
<p><a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/x15575.xml%5B/url%5D">http://www.swarthmore.edu/x15575.xml</a></p>
<p>To add something onto both comments -- Oberlin will tell you we're #1 in a lot of things; we are, but not per capita. Per capita we're #5 in PhDs among LACs, and #7 among ALL colleges (the only two non-LACs that beat us are Caltech and MIT).</p>
<p>In the sciences and engineering we drop to #15 -- not 7, but still nothing to shrug at!</p>
<p>Even those lower numbers are impressive and say much for the academic environment at Oberlin. And don't forget that of the 2,700 students at Oberlin, around 700 are in the Conservatory; those students add much to the culture and ambience, but perhaps lower the numbers of future PhD's (though certainly the number of professional musicians coming out of Oberlin exceeds that of other LAC's).</p>
<p>Why do you think Oberlin produces so much Phd's? Maybe the A-officers favor academic-tilted kids?</p>
<p>maybe academically-minded students tilt toward Oberlin -- as less pre-professional than many comparable schools? perhaps the academic environment inspires and encourages the kind of student who wants to go further in an academic field? It is also striking, in this regard, that many of Oberlin's professors attended liberal arts colleges (including Oberlin).</p>
<p>I've asked this question to Dr.Grim when he visited our school today, and he said that one of the factors is that many students come to school searching for pre-med and then convert to earning a PhD looking at all the research opportunities in the school.</p>
<p>There's also a lot of prep that goes into grad school that Oberlin really acts to help with. Most students do some kind of long, independent project , either an honor's thesis, a Capstone or just a paper- all of which are at the graduate level. There are a lot of programs sponsored by Career Services that deal with Fellowships and Grad Programs.
It also becomes more relevant after a few years here. To enact the goals you want, MA programs become more salient.</p>