<p>Currently my college list is too big; I need to pear it down. A big factor in determining what school I'll go to is how many classes are taught by actual professors. When I mean accessibility, I don't necessarily mean talking face to face or having lunch with them, but just how many of them actually teach undergrads.</p>
<p>Princeton's high on my list because they're so focused towards undergrads, I like that. Harvard, by contrast, has a reputation for being more oriented towards grad students, so it's much lower on the list of places I want to apply for college (although for grad school it's number one).</p>
<p>In particular, I'm interested in how often Chicago, Columbia, Penn, Yale, Dartmouth, Georgetown Foreign Service, Brown and Stanford undergrads actually get to be taught by those amazing and brilliant Nobel laureates.</p>
<p>I got the application from Columbia in the mail today, and they tried to focus a lot on the fact that there are small classes, sometimes 22 or so students. How true does this hold for Columbia and the schools listed above? If it helps, I'm primarily interested in the social sciences (econ, polsci, philo, history) and english (creative writing, classics possibly)</p>
<p>For Columbia, you can look at the online directory of classes and see the actual enrollments. You can also see student reviews on Culpa. You'll see for example that the introductory econ classes are large, though they are all taught by professors (including a Nobel Laureate who is co-teaching the basic introductory course but so far getting very mixed reviews.) Like other research universities, the profs lecture and then there are sections led by TAs. Everyone gets a senior seminar and honors majors can opt for a senior thesis which would give you faculty contact. Econ is the biggest mob scene, however. Classics will probably get you small classes everywhere.</p>
<p>The core classes are, indeed, capped at 22 students, but not necessarily taught by profs. You are assigned to them, and may get either a prof or a teaching fellow, which is an advanced grad student. The profs are not necessarily better teachers. It just depends on the luck of the draw. My son, who is enjoying most of his core experience, seems to judge those classes more on the basis of the students and the level of discussion than who is actually teaching it.</p>
<p>If attention from profs is your main criterion, but Columbia appeals to you in other ways (core, urban) I think you will get more contact with profs at Chicago than Columbia, especially as a lower division student.</p>
<p>How closely, if at all, are great research and great teaching correlated?</p>
<p>My friends father, a current professor of biology, went to Harvard and took classes with the famous Crick (or Watson, it doesn't matter for my point). Although his contributions to biology are clearly immense, he said he was probably the worst teacher he's ever had. I am not saying that all great researched are bad teachers or that if you are a great researcher you cannot be a decent teacher. I'm merely saying that the correlation is not determined.</p>
<p>How many Nobel Prize winners are there vs people who are worthy of the prize in almost non-measurable differences. Of course it's quite an accomplishment, and one of the most exclusive and prestigious awards available, but does it affect the quality of teaching? Probably not. Its a great novelty, though, for the students to have studied with a Nobel Laureate. And the same is true for famous names or prize winners in various fields. Going where I go, I want to study with Judith Butler and John Searle, partially because they are supposed to be fantastic teachers and thinkers, and partially for the name.</p>
<p>One last thing- since when is philosophy considered a social science? And Classics almost always has its own department, or is at least separated from English, because it is the study of ancient texts, generally Greek and Latin, whereas English is the study of the English language and its development through texts.</p>
<p>The schools you mentioned have very different environments and are generally thought to be strong in the areas you mentioned, although creative writing might be hard to find and, of course, some programs at some schools will be better than other programs at other schools.</p>
<p>In Cornell Engineering, all the classes are taught by profs. Profs are available as much as you will need them despite their busy schedule. Grad students hold office hours to help you with assignments. Upper division classes are quite small. Access to profs seems quite satisfactory.</p>
<p>In the 70s, I want to a large U Oregon (yes, I know times have changed some since). ALL my courses were taught by professors & grad students just led the smaller discussion sessions. I have to agree that some of the most brilliant folks are NOT good instructors. Some of the grad assistants were awesome at explaining things in a way students could understand.
A retired dean said that their grad school requires at least one letter of reference from a professor in the major department the student is applying for. He had some students from UC schools who asked what to do since they had NEVER had any classes taught by professors, including those upper division ones in their major. It is indeed something to bear in mind & something you may wish to inquire of at the various schools.
It's my understanding that many of the smaller schools have more courses taught by professors. My neighbors (both with MBAs from Harvard) said they would NEVER want to go there as undergrads because they didn't feel undergrads are treated that well. She went to Brown & loved it as an undergrad & he went to UMichigan (as in-state student). Her sister went to Yale as undergrad & loved it there & still maintains friendships with folks she met & lived together in the "college" for 4 years. Other sister went to Williams--friend said it was TOO small for her tastes, but suited sister. Schools with fewer grad students TEND to devote more attention to their undergrads (at least that's my understanding).</p>
<p>At Harvard, virtually ALL classes are taught by professors: 3 hours of lecture by the professor, and usually 1-2 hours per week in small group sections run by a PhD graduate student.</p>
<p>The ONLY exceptions:
(1) Pre-calculus & first-year calculus. These are only taught in small group sections run by PhD students. For such low-level math, it is better to be in smaller groups... and PhD students are more than qualified.
(2) Beginner and intermediate foreign languages: only taught in small sections to foster participation. Harvard has a policy that foreign language classes, whenever possible, are taught by NATIVE speakers... I took 2 years of Russian and my language instructors, all natives of Russia who were PhD candidates, where absolutely phenomenal.
(3) First-year expository writing: only taught in small sections. Instructors are often journalists, novelists, poets, columnists, and other real-world writers.
(4) Certain specialized small seminars... often, PhD students are the best experts in topics related to their dissertations.</p>
<p>Out of my 32 courses at Harvard, 28 were taught by professors, and 4 by PhD students (3 Russian courses, 1 Expository Writing course).</p>
<p>If the number of classes and discussion sections taught by actual professors is a big "factor", why are you only considering schools that use graduate student TAs?</p>
<p>There are many colleges where EVERY class, EVERY discussion section, and EVERY science lab is taught by a professor. Yet, none of them are on your list?</p>
<p>Sorry about putting Classics under English...I made a hurried connection. I thought "Reading = English, Classics = Reading, therefore, Classics can fall under English." I think my general point was made though; concentration in the humanities.</p>
<p>interesteddad: I've got some schools like that on my list (LACs), but this question really doesn't concern them. It's not that professors teaching is the factor for making me choose me choose among all colleges, it's the factor making choose among the ones I've listed. I've got my heart set on those, now I just want to whittle the list down.</p>
<p>It's okay. But as you said before, humanities and social sciences.</p>
<p>Like I said, the schools have very different atmospheres and attract different, although sometimes similar, students. If you visit Chicago, then visit Brown, or Stanford, and you will notice very different environments. We could list them, like the pre-professional Stanford atmosphere in a very green and relaxing semi-isolated bubble near a small Northern California rich suburb, or Chicago, with it's very intense, focused student body in Chicago, or Brown, with its Providence location with small town feel and open curriculum. Perhaps the requirements of the schools might sway you towards one or the other. Columbia is known for their solid core, but some people don't want to deal with required classes. At Brown, you design your course of study with an advisor. The list goes on.</p>
<p>You could talk about strengths of particular areas of study from school to school. But since the schools tend to be so strong across the board at the undergraduate level, you should probably consider department strength after feel, unless a department or course of study which you are seriously considering isn't even available at one of your schools.</p>
<p>You can get class size data broken down in each category (2-9, 10-19, 20-29, etc.) from each school's Common Data Set documents, usually available on their websites.</p>
<p>I know of no easy way to get accurate statistical information about the use of TAs or even accurate information about the number of professors teaching undergrads, except through research on a school by school basis, perhaps with the on-line course catalog, perhaps by contacting the Provosts Office or Dean of Faculty office.</p>
<p>At Brown you may get a TA for a section of a large lecture class but sometimes not even then. All profs teach undergrads (lets face it Brown's grad school population is small) & when I was there all of them taught freshmen as well.</p>
<p>If you are a tiny bit savvy about picking classes you can go from one professor-legend to another for four years. That's what I did.</p>
<p>Most profs had office hours about 2-3x per week for an hour or two. Most were extremely accessible.</p>
<p>If you pursue an honors track within your concentration, your classes will be small (<20) and you will also get first dibs on the classes being taught by stars in the dept.</p>
<p>Truly, Brown in most respects feels like a larger LAC.</p>
<p>At Michigan, 98% of lectures are taught by full time professors. 2% of lectures (generally intro to Calculus or College writing) are taught by TAs. </p>
<p>Only 5% of the lectures at Michigan are huge (over 100 students). Those are usually broken down into discussion groups with fewer than 25 students that meet once or twice a weeks. that's were TAs really play a large role. About 25% of those discussion groups are led by TAs. But one must kep in mind that at Michigan, TAs are PhD students well in their Thesis-writing stage. Given the quality of Michigan's graduate programs, those TAs are the future of academe. </p>
<p>You will find similar arrangements at the majority of the top research universities. In short, I would not worry too much about the lack of attention you will get at research universities. It is seriously blown out of proportion on this forum.</p>
<p>When I was at MIchigan (eons ago :)), I took two lecture courses in astronomy taught by Robert Kirshner, who is now a best-selling, world renowned astronomer, Philosophy with Richard Brandt, also a giant in his field (it was a medium sized lecture, and he also led my discussion section), and many small English classes with very well known profs (in one case, an Honors survey using the Norton anthology that the prof edited, in another case, with the guy who's now president of Drew University). I haven't heard that anything has much changed since then.</p>
<p>Things haven't changed at Michigan Garland. When I was at Michigan (in the mid 90s), I took Intermediate and Advanced Microeconomics with Hal Varian (now Dean of the school of Economics at Cal). The intermediate class had 80 (the 5 sections were all taught my professors, one of which was led by Vhimself) students and the advanced class has fewer than 20 students. I also took poli sci classes with Raymond Tanter and Kenneth Lieberthal. Those two classes had fewer than 30 students. Finally, I took a Psychology class with the father of Genetic Algorithims, John Holland. Holland's classes never have more than 20 students. Those 4 professors are giants in their respective fields. Some profs, like Lieberthal and Holland are very down to earth and apporachable, others, like Tanter and Varian are a little more reserved, but they all teach undergrads and take their teaching seriously. I think you will find the same thing at most top universities. Unfortunately, some students have unreasonable expectations and this forum certainly doesn't help much in taming unreasonable expectations.</p>
<p>Above the classic core cirriculum (Plato, Homer, Art Humanities, etc.) I believe I ever had a TA at Columbia. I can't speak for the sciences. The biggest classes I found myself in were Psychology 101 (about 40+) and the famous upper level 'History of U.S. Reconstruction' class taught by the recently deceased Prof Shenton. Shenton regularly held court in a room full with nearly 100 students. Shenton was a leading American scholar.</p>
<p>Most often, by which I mean almost always, my classes at Columbia were less than 20. Sometimes much less. Even the course 'The Jeffersonian Age', taught by the great and cranky Prof McKittrick was mostly empty seats.</p>
<p>When I mean accessibility, I don't necessarily mean talking face to face or having lunch with them, but just how many of them actually teach undergrads.</p>
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<p>At Harvard, 100% of the arts & sciences faculty teach undergraduates every year. 100% of those teaching undergrads have office hours every week. You can get as much professor contact as you want. Having transferred to a major university from a small LAC, I agree that this issue is blown way out of proportion on this forum.</p>
<p>That's funny. Harvard students frequently cite large introductory lecture class sizes, disappointment with TAs, and lack of focus on the undergrad experience as issues at their school. </p>
<p>Now, those perceived weaknesses are often more than offset by notable strengths in other areas with the end result being that Harvard is a fabulous university. But, it is not a place noted for an extreme degree of professor/undergrad interaction for the average student.</p>