Professor accessibility in the Ivies, big schools as well

College Search & Selection
21

<br>


<br>

<p>It's equally funny that you're telling recent graduates what the Harvard experience is like when you are apparently neither a student, an alumnus, or a parent. Please correct me if I'm wrong about that.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Is that what the OP asked, or what I claimed? Perhaps you should re-read both posts.</p>

22

<p>Let's not get defensive. And let's stay accurate. The FAS faculty members do take leaves, so not 100% teach undergrads every year. </p>

<p>The question was professors teaching classes. I think we can agree that there is a difference between a professor giving a lecture to a class of 50, 100, or more, then breaking down into grad student taught sections of 25 at a university and a class that consists entirely of a professor and 20 students, more likely to be found at an LAC. Forget about whether the professor is teaching the lecture, and ask whether the grad student is teaching.</p>

<p>Grad students run the gamut from great to terrible. The major reasons they are a concern are</p>

<p>You need NO teaching qualifications to be a grad TA. You can be terrible. If you are bad enough you may not teach again, but that does not help the students who were in the class you taught. Professors get tenured in part on teaching ability. At universities students complain that this does not count enough, but it does count.</p>

<p>When you need letters of recommendation, professors are useful and grad students are useless. No one cares what they may say about you. </p>

<p>The size of classes, and distribution of profs vs grad students teaching will vary across departments at universities. So it is not meaningful to generalize. The answer is likely to be very different for Classics than for Engineering. If you care, you have to look at the actual numbers in the courses you would be taking.</p>

<p>Harvard, famously, looks for assertive people. At the stereotypical LAC, you can expect the faculty to pay attention to you, even if your do not have an in-your-face personality. At big universities, like Harvard, the aggressive types can get face time with the profs, but do not expect them to come to you. This is really a "fit" issue. If you respond better to a more cozy environment, then a place like Harvard would not be appealing. If no one has ever ignored you in your life, and you could not imagine how they could, then Harvard may be perfect.</p>

23

<p>If you are looking for continuous contact with high quality professors, then consider Reed College.</p>

24

<br>


<br>

<p>I agree that there's a difference between a lecture class and a seminar, but the number of seminars is not a good way to differentiate universities and LACs. Look at the USNews stats for % of classes under 20 -- they're virtually identical (low 70's) for HYP and AWS. It was my personal experience that a lecture course is a lecture course, whether there are 50 fellow students or 150. Your mileage may vary.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>If for some reason you need a letter of recommendation from a professor in a field where you've only had large lectures (this would be quite unusual at any Ivy), the TA composes the letter and the professor signs it. I've advised many clients who were graduates of large public universities and did this; they never had trouble getting the professors to go along.</p>

<p>At any rate, the OP was asking specifically about Columbia, Stanford, and the like, and this is a non-issue at those schools, because everyone takes many small classes in addition to large ones. If you look at how HYP students do as far as Rhodes scholarships and other prizes that are heavily dependent on multiple recommendations, it's clear that they aren't suffering from poor recs relative to LAC students.</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>I agree completely. Note that I said that you can get as much professor contact there as you WANT -- if your goal is to fly under the radar, you can, but professorial contact is there for the taking if you WANT it. I certainly never claimed, and never would, that Harvard is a place of tremendous professorial hand-holding, or the ideal school for a shrinking violet. But that's not what the OP asked about in this thread; there are many "fit" threads devoted to that topic. The OP specifically stated that s/he was NOT asking about "face to face" interaction or "lunch with" professors, but about whether the famous names actually teach undergrads. At every school s/he mentioned, the answer is, they do.</p>

25

<p>"they never had trouble getting the professors to go along"</p>

<p>What do these professors do when someone calls them up to talk about this student, but the professor has no idea who he/she is? Fake it or admit that they had the grad student write the letter?</p>

<p>I assume the people who win prizes are those for whom the system worked. So they were able to get the attention they needed.</p>

<p>More importantly, if you are go beyond the intro courses at the schools you are discussing, the class sizes get smaller quickly. The top LAC's are similar to many elite U's in the percent of classes under 20, but have the advantage in the number over 50, which are rare at the LAC's. The numbers do vary quite a bit from school to school and major to major, so investigate further than even the overall % under 20 or over 50.</p>

<p>By the way, I think it is unfair to say that Watson was a terrible TEACHER. He was a terrible LECTURER, but his sequence of information, pacing, organization, and of course depth of knowledge, were quite good. So he could run a course, he just could not lecture to save his life.</p>

26

<p>at Brown, I got to write my undergraduate thesis with a nobel laureate, who also teaches a small first year (freshman) seminar. </p>

<p>Sergei Kruschev (Nikita's son), Fernando Cardoso (former President of Brazil), John Edgar Wideman (two time PEN/Faulkner award winner) and other famous faculty teach undergrads and advise theses at Brown as well.</p>

27

<br>


<br>

<p>Doesn't happen that often. If it does, the professor has kept a record of who he signed letters for. When he gets a call, he says, "Let me refer you to my assistant Jane Doe, who handles this kind of thing for me." Grad schools are used to this with state school applicants, and in practice, it rarely hurts an applicant. Individual contact between recommenders and the graduate programs is largely confined to PhD programs, and kids who want those usually ARE TA's by senior year.</p>

<p>But as I said, this is a public-school phenomenon anyway, so it's not really a propos; I don't think there's any debate that you'll have much better professor access at Amherst than at Michigan State. In contrast, the only way to make it through a liberal arts program at any of the universities the OP mentioned without taking a lot of small classes is by deliberately avoiding them (in most majors, it's actually impossible).</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>~4% at AWS, a whopping ~12% at HYP. I would absolutely agree that if you view lectures with over 50 people present as inherently deficient, you should choose an LAC. Again, though, that's a "fit" question, and extensively addressed in other threads.</p>

28

<p>
[quote]
I agree that there's a difference between a lecture class and a seminar, but the number of seminars is not a good way to differentiate universities and LACs. Look at the USNews stats for % of classes under 20 -- they're virtually identical (low 70's) for HYP and AWS. It was my personal experience that a lecture course is a lecture course, whether there are 50 fellow students or 150.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Hanna,</p>

<p>USNEWS condenses the actual class size data they receive on the Common Data Set filings in a way that tends to mask differences. Here is the complete data for four of the schools you mentioned. Sorry, I can't provide Harvard's because they do not make their Common Data Set info public. This data is all from the Fall 2004 term:</p>

<p>2 - 9 STUDENTS:</p>

<p>Yale 27.2%
Princeton 29.6%
Williams 36.2%
Swarthmore 36.6%</p>

<p>10 - 19 STUDENTS:</p>

<p>Yale 46.7%
Princeton 44.0%
Williams 34.3%
Swarthmore 36.9%</p>

<p>20 - 29 STUDENTS:</p>

<p>Yale 11.7%
Princeton 8.5%
Williams 14.2%
Swarthmore 19.3%</p>

<p>30 - 39 STUDENTS:</p>

<p>Yale 3.9%
Princeton 4.9%
Williams 6.3%
Swarthmore 3.9%</p>

<p>40 - 49 STUDENTS:</p>

<p>Yale 2.2%
Princeton 2.4%
Williams 4.8%
Swarthmore 1.1%</p>

<p>50 - 99 STUDENTS:</p>

<p>Yale 5.0%
Princeton 7.5%
Williams 3.3%
Swarthmore 1.9%</p>

<p>100+ STUDENTS:</p>

<p>Yale 3.3%
Princeton 3.1%
Williams 0.9%
Swarthmore 0.3%</p>

<p>You suggest that anything over 50 is the same. That's fine. With this actual data, you can combine and compare anyway you like.</p>

29

<p>Ah yes, data. And then there is the completeness of the data. And then there is the interpretation of it. For both of these, it helps to know about the schools being discussed. And even then, it's often apples to oranges. </p>

<p>For example: The Common Data Set for Princeton lists sizes of Class Sections BUT ALSO the size of Class Sub-Sections. (This is not listed above.)</p>

<p>These sub-sections include the lab sections of courses as well as preceptorials. "Precepts" are the discussion groups that Princeton lectures are divided into.</p>

<p>Class size: Out of 862 classes, 255 have 2-9 students,
379 have 10-19,</p>

<p>and then there are 1110 Sub-Sections. 340 have 2-9 students
665 have 10-19.</p>

<p>Beyond what can be seen by looking at the data, I think it helps to know what is available for students who WANT more interaction with profs. For instance, Williams has Oxford-style tutorials. Can't see that by looking at the data. Or, another example, Princeton has Freshman Seminars with some of the most dynamic, beloved, and accomplished professors.<br>
These sorts of things aren't listed on data sets, but they are there for the taking. I'm sure other schools have similar things available as well. Then too, the availability of enthusiastic and encouraging profs during office hours, before and after classes, and so on, isn't found in a data set, and it isn't limited to any one kind of school, or any one school.</p>

30

<p>The subsection data is provided for all schools. It would be nice if they listed the nubmer of subsections taught by TAs, but the Common Data Set and the colleges are conveniently mum on that one.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Williams has Oxford-style tutorials. Can't see that by looking at the data.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Sure ya can. Why do you think Williams has so many courses in the 2-9 student range?</p>

<p>Data is nice because it cuts through a lot of the BS and lets you make comparisons in black and white.</p>

<p>Of course it would be nuts to pick a college without identifying distinguishing programs, especially when those programs contribute heavily to a school's identity -- like the Winter Study program at Williams or the core curriculum at Columbia or the unique external examiners Honors Program at Swarthmore. Many of these date back decades and were key to shaping the nature of the school. So it's definitely important to look at those things.</p>

31

<p>With all due respect to Williams, Oxford-style tutorials have two students meeting with one prof each week. One student presents his/her paper, the other critiques it.
That's 2 students. Big difference between 2 and 7, 8, or 9. I don't see this distinction in the Common Data Set, unfortunately for Williams. </p>

<p>I also don't see sub-section breakdowns on Yale's Common Data Set for the last two years, at least on Yale's own website. But my broader point was that for students who want depth in subject areas, variety of activities and viewpoints, profs who are renowned in their fields and as good teachers--it is possible to find these and to still have small classes and much interaction with profs-- in classes, for research, or just to chat. </p>

<p>I think ID said it better than I, that there are distinguishing features of schools, and data sets can't tell you those. I would have been thrilled to have my kids at any of the schools mentioned in this thread, each school with its own unique programs and strengths. That's why, when looking for schools, a student really needs to find what suits him and inspires him. (And of course find those schools in a range: schools that the student can surely get into, probably will, and just might with a little luck. --The cc mantra: reaches, matches, and safeties.)</p>

32

<p>With all due respect, I think simply looking at class sizes misses altogether a big part of the difference in experience between a LAC and a university. </p>

<p>Things I wish I had known 3 months ago: At the best LACs, there is some focus on "learning how to learn" and "learning how to think creatively/critically" whereas at universities profs are more likely to simply teach the knowledge of their specialty without putting creativity into how they teach it. At the tiniest LACs with the tiniest departments, you are likely to take multiple classes with the same profs -VERY unlikely at a university. So at an LAC your relationship with a prof is more likely to span a couple of years. At the richest LACs, professors are evaluated in part on their willingness to be "friends" with students -at a university student-teacher relationships will def be more formal, no matter how assertive you are. So far, at the UoC, my professors are definitely more knowledgeable than my profs at Smith. However, they probably put less thought into the style in which the class is taught -at the end of the quarter I'm sure I'll have a better idea of how this affects the amount I learn.</p>

33

<p>Ecape, "at the tiniest lac's with the tiniest depts, you are likely to take multiple classes from the same profs"--yes, absolutely you may. But you may not have a choice, depending upon how tiny the school! But make no mistake: you can also be at a university and very well have the same prof for a frosh seminar, a class or two or three the following years if you wished, to lead a a precept, and as a thesis advisor. So, a four-year relationship is definitely possible, if you so wished. But at the university, because of its size, you would likely have choices of other profs who are expert in this field or specialty as well. You would be exposed to different approaches and have choices for courses and paper/theseis advisors. And I don't know that you can make broad assumptions on the formality of these relationships. I can tell you with assurance that one of my kids is at a university where the profs stop and chat on campus, have dinners with the kids and so on. Some of this has to do with the opportunities at the school, but at any school taking advantages of the resources has to do with the initiative of the student as well.</p>

34

<p>You're right, I'm speaking in generalities -at a LAC, for instance, it may be possible to have a conversation with your prof nearly every day after class, if you are so interested. You may go to their office hours and talk about something unrelated to their class, or ask for help on a regular basis. At a university, if you are a good student you may have a dinner or casual conversation once or twice, but your relationship is likely to be more course-centered. B/c university profs have many more responsibilities, it makes sense that they compartmentalize their professional duties. Correct me if I'm wrong.</p>

35

<p>Your LAC "for instances" seem to apply to Princeton University. Doesn't mean you are wrong, just that distinguishing features of schools may defy generalizations.</p>

36

<p>Well put, cricket.<br>
For the intimacy & prof-interaction that my D is experiencing, including but not limited to, her precepts, she might as well be at a small LAC. There is a real mythology out there about how LAC's are always more intimate, always provide more undergrad opportunities than small universities do. Not necessarily true. Depends on the program, the department, the sizes of the sections, the # of profs relative to all of that -- & other aspects of accessibility (Prof load, for example). A particular small to mid-size U could be superior in those respects to a particular LAC. One has to inquire & visit to determine such differences & details. Broad-stroke data sets which publish averages do not tell the whole story.
:-).</p>

37

<p>The reason oxford is considered internationally as the best university in the world is the individualized attention given to students by lecturers. I attended a course at Oxford that only had three students. Consequently, we had customized discourses concerning concepts. I realize that serious academic dialogue is indeed lacking at the Ivies.</p>

38

<p>Rollo,
My D is <em>hardly</em> experiencing a "lack of serious academic dialogue" at an Ivy. And as to Oxford being the best, well it does battle with Cambridge over that prized title. </p>

<p>However, yes, small discussion groups, not to mention <em>frequent</em> & mandated tutorial meetings such as at Oxford & Cambridge, can be to die for. Yet both teachers & students have opined on the optimum number for a discussion group -- 3 being too small for some, a minimum of 7-9 often promoting better exchanges of ideas; in some cases 12-15 has been even better. The quality of each student, the level of individual preparation, the ability of the instructor to promote exchange & ask provocative questions -- these can be more important to me, an ongoing adult student.</p>

<p>Get somebody with an ego problem, and you can be dying for 12 students to shut him up.</p>

39

<p>ecape,
It's still too early in my D's freshman yr for her to have experienced this, but both P and Yale have described to prospective students the informal meetings that occur in prof's homes, etc. (And these are social occasions.) Ditto for after-class opportunities. So I can't verify with actual examples yet, but my understanding is that these personal exchanges are similarly quite common (& as frequent as desired), as they are in LAC's.</p>

<p>My D has an on-campus job, an evening e.c., & a demanding academic course that she opted for, so she may have less time than some for voluntary schmoozing. (Thus this theory remains untested!)</p>

<p>The fact is, I don't put all LAC's in one category any more than I put Ivies all in one category. To my D, Dartmouth is vastly different from Princeton, as is Harvard, as is Brown. (Not in a ranking manner, just descriptively.) And Williams strikes me as quite different from Amherst -- even though they are often spoken in the same breath.</p>

<p>I think part of this really relates to genuine fit. I think when a student feels comfortable at a particular campus (for some, that's Berkeley or Michigan!), then he or she is more eager to forge relationships & make the undergrad experience as personal & individualized as possible. That's why some of us harp so much ad nauseam about "fit." That sense of belonging is kind of 2-way -- or at least, to my thinking.</p>

40

<p>Yes, I have noticed that while 20 seemed small in my very smart hs, it can be large at UChicago where many students are both smart and very assertive/competitive -didn't anticipate that for some reason.</p>