Princeton -- undergrad focus?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>Princeton boosters are always screaming about how focused the university is on undergraduates, especially relative to peer schools like Harvard and Yale. But if you look on the USNWR class size breakdown</p>

<p>National</a> Universities Rankings - Best College - Education - US News</p>

<p>you'll see that Princeton has noticeably fewer classes with under 20 students (73%) than Harvard (80%) and Yale (79%) and substantially more classes with over 50 students (10.9%) than Harvard (8.3%) or Yale (6.9%).</p>

<p>If class size is a measure of undergrad quality, doesn't look like Princeton is all that exceptional to me ...</p>

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<p>I think that minor difference is just the consequence of having a big engineering program where everyone has to take some classes. Also, those stats are pretty deceiving for Princeton. For intro physics, we had a once a week lecture with like 200 kids but the class met 3x a week in sections of <30 students and that is what really drove the learning.</p>

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<p>It looks like our Harvard undergrad friend is on a roll with these threads today. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/982620-why-yale-always-3-usnwr-rankings.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/982620-why-yale-always-3-usnwr-rankings.html&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>. . . and is being a little hyperbolic:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>For what it’s worth, here is the USNWR ranking of undergraduate teaching at national universities:</p>

<p>[Best</a> Colleges - Education - US News](<a href=“http://premium.usnews.com/best-colleges/national-ut-rank]Best”>http://premium.usnews.com/best-colleges/national-ut-rank)</p>

<p>[Methodology:</a> Best Undergraduate Teaching - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2010/08/17/methodology-best-undergraduate-teaching.html]Methodology:”>http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2010/08/17/methodology-best-undergraduate-teaching.html)</p>

<p>2011 Ranking of Best Undergraduate Teaching</p>

<p>1—Dartmouth
2—Princeton and Miami U. of Ohio
3—
4—Notre Dame
5—William & Mary
6—Brown, Berkeley
7—
8—U. of Michigan, UVA
9—
10–Stanford, Yale</p>

<hr>

<p>This is, of course, just the result of a survey of top academics and is not based on hard numbers such as the class sizes noted above.</p>

<p>However, the class size numbers, which certainly aren’t the exclusive measure of “undergraduate focus” seem to vary from year to year anyway. Here are the same numbers from two years ago:</p>

<p>CDS Form Data From Two Years Ago</p>

<p>Classes under 20: (highest percentage is best)</p>

<p>75%–Yale<br>
73%–Princeton
69%–Harvard</p>

<p>Classes over 50: (lowest percentage is best)</p>

<p>8%----Yale
10%–Princeton
13%–Harvard</p>

<p>You might see very different numbers in next year’s Common Data Sets. While Harvard, Princeton and Yale were all hard hit by the downturn in the markets, relatively speaking, Princeton did quite a bit better than the other two. One year ago, when all three schools closed their books for the year, Harvard’s endowment had dropped 30%, Yale’s had dropped 29% and Princeton’s had dropped 23%. All three schools have had to save money through slowed hiring of new faculty members and class sizes will probably be larger at each of the three in the next few years.</p>

<p>Ranked by Size of Endowment:</p>

<p>Institution----------Value as of 6/30/09-----Value as of 6/30/08-------% Change</p>

<p>Harvard-------------$26.0 billion -------------$36.9 billion ------------29.5% drop</p>

<p>Yale----------------$16.3 billion -------------$22.9 billion-------------28.8% drop</p>

<p>Princeton-----------$12.6 billion -------------$16.3 billion ------------22.7% drop</p>

<p>By the way, I think that the undergrad focus argument is overplayed a little by Princeton supporters. There’s plenty of evidence that all three of these schools care about their undergraduates and try to provide quality instruction.
 </p>

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<p>^ wooooo go Princeton!</p>

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<p>Hm, maybe it has something to do with the fact that Harvard lets teaching fellows lead courses.</p>

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<p>PtonGrad2000, can you shed some light on this if I’m mistaken?</p>

<p>But I’m pretty sure that since a large number of professors at Harvard and Yale are teaching graduate classes alongside UG ones, teachers assistants are prevalent in UG classrooms. So you might not be able to learn firsthand from that esteemed nobel prize winner you were hoping to take notes from or reach that other professors whose research really interests you as efficiently. </p>

<p>If I’m not mistaken, all (or significantly close to all) class at Princeton are taught by professors themselves rather than TAs. Mirite?</p>

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<p>D just graduated from Yale this past spring and never had a TA teach any of her classes, although they did lead discussion sections, the Yale equivalent of precepts. I understand that TA’s do teach some introductory math and language courses at Yale, but it’s certainly not a widespread occurrence. (And lest you think I’m biased, I’m a proud Princeton alum.)</p>