<p>It’s all about the incentives, mathboy. Research Unis pay professors to conduct research. Research Unis promote faculty who conduct research (and bring in the grant $). Research Unis place faculty on the tenure track solely due to their research capabilities. That doesn’t mean that can’t and don’t teach undergrads, it just means that that such teaching is not rewarded. In contrast, a school like Harvey Mudd is all about undergrads – the professors there, who also conduct research, have no one else to help on them on their projects except undergrads. At Dartmouth, tenure track decisions include teaching evaluations. Sure, ‘office hours’ mean open doors, but how many profs would offer them if given a choice between that and research in a lab?</p>
<p>Ok I totally agree there …but you gave a very extreme example of LAC. I am unclear as to what extent you get extremely enthusiastic, exceptional teachers when research probably plays a huge (the major) role in giving tenure. Example, Princeton, a top research school in many fields.</p>
<p>I would say researchers at the top level are also great at giving effective course presentations when they teach things they love. We cannot forget a researcher needs to continually give talks and write clearly about the relevant topic.</p>
<p>Basically I am not denying there are schools known for teaching…but I find there are also myths and misconceptions circulated.</p>
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<p>I understand what you’re saying in the context of this discussion, but wanted to add something. I for one think that the divide between “teaching” and “research” is far from what people on CC tend to promote. There seems to be this misconception (though I’m not saying you fall prey to it too) that research is done at the expense of teaching. But doing research with a professor is a form of teaching. I would argue that it’s the best form of learning, because you’re forced to go to the very fringes of our current knowledge and try to push the boundaries a bit further–all research, after all, starts with learning more before you can figure out what to do next. You learn and understand the most when you research something. </p>
<p>And it’s the best form of teaching too: essentially independent study + producing something new, in an Oxbridge-tutorial format. You work one-on-one with the professor, possibly also with other professors/students who are working on the same research. I think that’s partly why such a high proportion of students at major research universities do research; not because it’s just available, but because it’s the best form of teaching and learning.</p>
<p>That’s my personal reason for not applying to LACs. Not that I couldn’t do research there, but that it’s much more plentiful at a university (greater depth within the breadth, so more professors doing stuff I like). I think teaching ability is largely irrelevant; this sounds completely contrary to the conventional wisdom on CC, but upon arriving at college, students realize, sooner or later, that they’re in charge of their learning in classes. IMHO if you need someone to get in front of you and lecture in order for you to learn the material, you’ve got much, much bigger problems.</p>
<p>^^^^well said</p>
<p>You are right, Mathboy – it’s a 2 tiered issue:</p>
<p>1) what is the ratio of students/engaged faculty
2) what is the % of faculty time devoted to undergrad vs. grad</p>
<p>What would you rather have, a student/faculty ration of 6:1, with 30% of faculty time devoted to undergrads,</p>
<p>-or-</p>
<p>Faculty ration of 11:1 with 90% of faculty time devoted to undergrads?</p>
<p>to be gross about the calculation, you could say in the first instance an undergrad student gets 1/6<em>30% of a faculty member, whereas in the second, a student gets 1/11</em>90%.</p>
<p>What you don’t want is the situation that is common in the social sciences and humanities at very large public research universities, where the 1/18 * 30% is probably an accurate result.</p>
<p>I agree with phantasmagoric, but think we are mutually skewed to favor similar types of things, both being interested in being researchers and coming from strong research schools (mine probably with a lower level of ‘undergrad focus’).</p>
<p>There is definitely (typically) a drop in teaching quality when one gets from a LAC to a research U. Whether or not this is relevant depends on the student and goals.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily true. Williams offers wonderful research opportunities in science, for example. Williams also offers the Oxford-style tutorials, to anyone who wants it. Does Cal? If so, how many undergrads?</p>
<p>But back on the point of this thread: Cal vs. P’ton. Even if I buy the argument – that research at Cal is much more plentiful – that doesn’t mean its easy to get involved in than it is at say, P’ton. First research dibs at Cal, for example, go to Regent’s Scholars. OTOH, HYP has so much friggin’ money, that they can shower anyone and everyone with a personal research grant, including off campus travel if needed. Dartmouth literally begs its students to apply for a research grant bcos the money is unused some years. True at UCs?</p>
<p>While what you say is true about Williams, the breadth and depth of what is going on at a large research U is still unparalleled. It depends how much difference that makes to you.</p>
<p>I do not have figures on how hard research is to get at Cal, but it seems like in nonovercrowded majors, it is not hard. I would not ever make the claim it is easier to find than at Princeton. After all,Princeton is a smaller school with top research and fewer undergrads by far.</p>
<p>I would also remind - getting substantial research tends to be no problem for the strongest, and coincidentally these are the ones who aim for a research career with any real seriousness.</p>
<p>I do not understand what the deal with everyone in the planet needing tons of research opportunity floating around. You need to master fundamentals really well to have a chance at doing much semi meaningful. And those who do so tend to have no issue - in fact people who accomplished much less than that seem to have no issue finding something to do at a top research U. Further, those who are up to it have the greats of the field to learn from and work under.</p>
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<p>bluebayou, the flow of the thread for research v. teaching was really from the point of view of research university v. LAC…and in the UCB v. Princeton situation it is Research Univ. v. Research Univ.</p>
<p>and specifically in ChE, although it has 1/2 the undergraduate ChE students, Princeton has as many graduate ChE students as UC Berkeley - so if the amount of research done in the department is grossly defined by the size of the graduate school department then UCB and Princeton are equal in that regard, at least for ChE.</p>
<p>I do not believe eng’g students at Cal have a hard time getting into research whilst it is quite an accessible thing at Princeton. I also think that the research at Cal is more extensive, bigger, more impressive and have bigger funding than those at Princeton.</p>
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<p>agree</p>
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<p>Cal might have more extensive and bigger research with bigger funding than Princeton on a gross basis purely because of its much larger size than Princeton overall - but not when you look at it on a per capita basis.</p>
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<p>There used to be data on CC on the figures of research amount at all major research-led schools and Cal has a considerable margin (in terms of amount of research funding) over Princeton. Maybe someone has the link to it.</p>
<p>lol is this thread even going on? Are people still focusing on useless data? Say Berkeley does have X + 5 funding available and Princeton has X + 2. Berkeley is better. But a common undergrad probably needs X/2 if any to do whatever he’s interested in among the grades, social life, issues he has.</p>
<p>Dallas Community College beats all. Game over.</p>
<p>ha, speaking of social life, does Princeton really offers a better social life than Berkeley does? That is a very subjective matter.</p>
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<p>geesh, of course it does.</p>
<p>what kind of question is that?</p>
<p>^ In what way?</p>
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<p>Perhaps true, but we have no way of knowing if the OP is the “strongest” student. Thus, as best we should assume mid-point. Of course, if OP gets into P’ton, we could probably assume upper quartile at Cal, but still, the assumption of “strongest” = facts not in evidence.</p>
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<p>I get that, which is one of my earlier posts was to do the simple math: grad students/undergrads. Since both are less than 1, I then recommend looking at $$/capita. P’ton wins easily. They literally shower everyone with money. At Cal, you have to be the ‘strongest’ for consideration, correct?</p>
<p>@bluebayou,</p>
<p>Top quartile is way, way sufficient. In engineering, which has a more restrictive admissions process, I am pretty sure one has top resources waiting if one works and grabs them.</p>