<p>I was inspired to calculate the proportion of undergraduates at national universities by a discussion in another thread about how some national universities are more like liberal arts colleges. My suggestion is that it is the proportion of undergrads that is the most important defining feature of an LAC. </p>
<p>But...What makes a school a "Liberal Arts College"? Is it primarily the predominance of undergraduates? Is it the subjects taught? Is it the overall size? Is it something more elusive, like "campus climate"? Are Texas A&M, Purdue, and Rutgers really LACs? Is there an optimal proportion of undergraduates or is it the more undergrads the better (do fewer graduate students mean better undergrad education)?</p>
<p>If Princeton and Dartmouth are LAC-like then so are Cornell, Berkeley, Iowa, Wisconsin, Washington, and Florida (according to the undergrad ratio method).</p>
<p>I used the IPEDS Peer Analysis System to create the following table, so it is only as accurate as the IPEDS data. The first number is total fulltime enrollment and the second number is the proportion of fulltime undergraduates. I had a little trouble with UNC Chapel Hill calculation.</p>
<p>Feel free to add other colleges to this list. I hope you find it interesting.</p>
<p>college, total fulltime enrollment, proportion of undergraduates
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SANTA BARBARA 21026 0.86
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-SAN DIEGO 24663 0.82
TEXAS A & M UNIVERSITY 44435 0.8
PURDUE UNIVERSITY-MAIN CAMPUS 40108 0.8
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-DAVIS 29210 0.79
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY-NEW BRUNSWICK 34696 0.77
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA 33405 0.75
WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE 3817 0.75
BROWN UNIVERSITY 8004 0.75
RENSSELAER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE 6696 0.74
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY-MAIN CAMPUS 50995 0.74
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN 50377 0.74
COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY 7575 0.74
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 40687 0.73
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME 11479 0.73
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND-COLLEGE PARK 34933 0.72
DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 5704 0.72
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON 40455 0.72
UNIVERSITY OF IOWA 28442 0.71
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON-SEATTLE CAMPUS 39199 0.71
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY 32803 0.7
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 47993 0.7
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY 6708 0.7
CORNELL UNIVERSITY-ENDOWED COLLEGES 19518 0.7
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-LOS ANGELES 35966 0.69
GEORGIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY-MAIN CAMPUS 16841 0.69
LEHIGH UNIVERSITY 6641 0.69
BOSTON COLLEGE 14561 0.67
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY 18247 0.67
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI 15250 0.66
UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH-MAIN CAMPUS 26731 0.64
TULANE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA 12667 0.63
BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY 5072 0.63
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-ANN ARBOR 39533 0.63
WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY 6504 0.63
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA-MAIN CAMPUS 23341 0.61
BOSTON UNIVERSITY 29596 0.6
RICE UNIVERSITY 4855 0.6
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN ST LOUIS 13210 0.56
CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY 9803 0.56
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY 11294 0.56
EMORY UNIVERSITY 11781 0.54
UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER 8329 0.54
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 32160 0.51
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 17747 0.51
TUFTS UNIVERSITY 9690 0.51
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 39408 0.51
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 23305 0.51
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 13233 0.49
DUKE UNIVERSITY 12770 0.49
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA 26800 0.47
YALE UNIVERSITY 11441 0.46
GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 24092 0.46
YESHIVA UNIVERSITY 6129 0.46
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 2171 0.41
PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY 7919 0.4
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY 10320 0.4
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 24648 0.39
CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY 9095 0.39
STANFORD UNIVERSITY 18836 0.35
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 13870 0.33
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK 21648 0.33
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY 18626 0.31</p>
<p>You have too much time on your hands...</p>
<p>Heavenwood,
This only took 30 minutes using the IPEDS Peer Analysis System...it's a really cool tool once you learn how.</p>
<p>I think 75% is good. No reason. Just a balance.</p>
<p>Oh...I thought that you had to do it from scratch...sorry...didn't read your full post...</p>
<p>Collegehelp, any idea how many undergrads vs grad enter school annually? My guess is about 4 million undertgrads vs. 800,000 grads. What I find interesting about your numbers is that they must show that since there are only 2.3 million grad students (thanks!) they must be clustered at far fewer institutions overall.</p>
<p>hm........someone explain proportion of undergrads to me plz?</p>
<p>School X had 10,000 students. 2500 are grad and 7500 undergrads. It has a 75% ug proportion.(or 25% grad proportion)</p>
<p>thanx........so whats a good number??</p>
<p>Matter of opinion. I think some is good because they are mature and add intellectual folks to the campus. If you have too many the profs will only try to please the grad students and you (ugs) are crap. 20-30% sounds good to me.</p>
<p>To make it more relevant, you have to remove grad professional schools like medicine, law, dental, public health, vet, etc.</p>
<p>Interesting list. I think U Chicago might be somewhat of an exception. Although it has a lower percentage of undergrad students than UNC, for example, Chicago has much more of a LAC-like feel.</p>
<p>I think professional school people are good for a campus. I don't see much distiction except that some have their own faculty that don't teach ugs.</p>
<p>Here are some top liberal arts colleges that are not 100% undergraduate:</p>
<p>college, total fulltime enrollment, proportion undergraduate
DREW UNIVERSITY 2082 .75
WASHINGTON & LEE 2169 .81 (IPEDS may not be accurate here)
BRYN MAWR 1567 .83
U RICHMOND 3638 .85
SMITH COLLEGE 3084 .86
BARD COLLEGE 1911 .88
WHEATON COLLEGE (IL) 2618 .90
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 2974 .93
SEWANEE 1448 .94
EARLHAM COLLEGE 1237 .95
FURMAN UNIVERSITY 2784 .97
BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY 3512 .97
WILLIAMS COLLEGE 2012 .97</p>
<p>All other top 70 National Liberal Arts Colleges in US News are 98%-100% undergraduates, most of them are 100%.</p>
<p>I agree that you should NOT include professional schools, which have there own separate faculty & facilities (often entirely separate campuses). For this to be meaningful, I think you should be comparing the fraction of undergrads to undergrads+grads who SHARE the same set of professors.</p>
<p>an interesting observation....</p>
<p>There is a moderately strong relationship between the proportion of fulltime undergraduates at national universities and the freshman graduation rate. The relationship is inverse. As the proportion of undergrads increases, the freshman graduation rate decreases.</p>
<p>This may be due to higher freshman SAT scores at national universities with larger graduate programs such as MIT and Caltech. The larger the graduate program, the more selective the university.</p>
<p>The correlation was -.42, statistically significant at the .0005 level.</p>
<p>a couple of universities were left off the original list:
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY-MAIN Campus 38596 .86
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-IRVINE 23109 .83</p>
<p>A thought...large graduate programs may enhance reputation and help attract top undergrads but then can detract from faculty attention. There are trade-offs for undergrads at a campus with a large graduate program, which gets back to the optimal size question.</p>
<p>What numbers are you using for Cornell?</p>
<p>A quick back-of-the-envelope exercise shows (using Wiki's numbers):</p>
<p>Cornell
UG: 13,500 (approx.)
Grad: 6,500 (approx.)
Ratio: 0.675 (vs. the above 0.7)</p>
<p>A few quick points that come to mind right away:</p>
<p>1) Some of these numbers (student population) don't appear all that accurate</p>
<p>2) Ratios only tell you half (or less) of the story. What about the importance of absolute numbers?</p>
<p>In other words, if you have 100,000 undergrads and 1,000 grads - BANG - you have a 1.0 ratio - but what does that tell you?</p>
<p>In the above example, the ratio is absolutely meaningless given that the ratio doesn't change the fact that you are still going to school in an OCEAN of students - and merely just a number.</p>
<p>For example, let's assume that the OP's numbers are right and Cornell's ratio is a 0.7 = which is also equal to Princeton's 0.7. </p>
<p>But how can you call these schools even remotely equal? Princeton has an undergraduate class of less than 5,000 whereas Cornell has 13,500 = which is almost THREE times the number???</p>
<p>The list is an interesting but half-baked list of numbers IMO.</p>
<p>Ivy_Grad-
The numbers come from the IPEDS website using the Peer Analysis Tool. These are the official numbers for 2004 that the universities reported to the feds. The numbers I chose were the fulltime student numbers for 2004. There isn't much difference between .675 and .7. The numbers should be the most accurate available.</p>
<p><a href="http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/%5B/url%5D">http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/</a></p>
<p>Half-baked is better than unbaked. I think the UG ratio probably tells less than half the complete story about what makes a university tick, but it is a significant factor. The total enrollment absolute number would be another important factor, but a different factor. The UG ratio at Cornell, Princeton, and Dartmouth is about the same but the absolute size is different. The absolute enrollment size accounts for some of the differences in "feel" among Princeton, Dartmouth, and Cornell. The differences in "feel" can't be due to the UG ratio because that is the same at those three universities. I was just trying to understand the differences and similarities among universities.</p>
<p>I think we are in agreement, actually. I did not intend to say that Princeton, Cornell, and Dartmouth provide the same experience. But, I did think some of the UG ratios were surprising. </p>
<p>I am not sure that larger universities necessarily mean less intimate environments. I think you are more likely to find students and faculty who share your specific interests (soulmates) at a larger university. There is less to choose from at a smaller school in the marketplace of interests, ideas, and relationships. More students means more faculty. I know it is possible to develop close relationships with faculty at Cornell.</p>
<p>A large number of grad students is more likely to distract faculty from undergrads. On the other hand, they facilitate research opportunities and are helpful as teaching assistants.</p>