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<p>Reed is a very small school. Berkeley is a very large school. Saying that because you saw more Berkeley students than Reed students is meaningless, it doesn’t take into account the size of the schools.</p>
<p>I also don’t know why you think that when you see someone on campus you automatically know where they went for their undergraduate work, (your words).</p>
<p>Eduardo Ochoa - U.S. Assistant Education Secretary for Postsecondary Education is a Reed graduate. But there is the larger question of LAC vs. big university education in the sciences. If one can locate it, I would recommend reading, “Science at Liberal Arts Colleges: A Better Education? by Thomas R. Cech.” Cech was educated at an LAC and is recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry. He does a good job of describing the pros and cons of each.</p>
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<p>@RML – you need to back this up with some data, I don’t think this is right.</p>
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<p>I’m having a little trouble understanding this sentence. Do you mean that Berkeley attracts top employers and the employers then hire Berkeley graduates and pay them well? As opposed to what you wrote that Berkeley hires top employers and then pays them well?</p>
<p>Assuming you meant the former then yes, a school like Berkeley will always win with immediate job placement right out of undergraduate school when compared with a school like Reed. A small LAC doesn’t provide the kind of education that immediately translates into a job like a school like Berkeley does. If the OP wants to finish his undergraduate schooling with immediate job offers then he should go to Berkeley. If he is willing to not have as many job offers in May of the year he graduates then he could consider a school like Reed.</p>
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<p>That comment was not based on just personal observation. I did provide a study that looked at the baccalaureate origins of science PhD students, and taking into account the size of the institutions, you were significantly more likely to get into a top ten PhD program if you had a baccalaureate degree from a research university than a LAC. Research universities included not just the top privates such as HYPSM but also large public research universities such as Berkeley and Michigan. So my point was that if the OP wants to get into a top biology or chemistry PhD program for instance, he/she is more likely to do so with an undergraduate degree from Berkeley than Reed.!</p>
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<p>Hmmmm…</p>
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<p>OK, the study. The study is 20 pages long, technical and confusing. If I really wanted to understand it I would need several days. You mentioned</p>
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<p>May we just look at that? I’m not trying to take things out of context or oversimplify, I just can’t try to tackle the whole study right now.</p>
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<p>I’ve lost the formatting so for people who want to look at the table in its original form</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/con...onf2003_03.pdf[/url]”>Faculty and Research | The ILR School;
<p>table 6, page 18.</p>
<p>I find this table extremely problematic.</p>
<p>Part A. divides undergraduate schools into five categories: Top 10, Top 25, Research institution, most selective BS, highly selective BS. It isn’t clear to me which school falls into which category. In fact a top 10 school would fall into both of the first two categories, top 10 and top 25.</p>
<p>Part B. Six of the big powerhouse institutions are listed and four LACs. This is a very incomplete list of schools and nothing is sorted by percentages. In fact, the category is titled “Proportion of Named Institution”. I believe that these are not the top 10 schools sending undergraduates to top PhD programs but rather ten sample schools from the complete study and how many graduates they sent to top 10 graduate programs.</p>
<p>Since Reed isn’t one of the named institutions I don’t see how you can come to any conclusions about how many students it sent to top 10 graduate programs during the specified years.</p>
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This statement is flat out untrue and contrary to the findings of the National Science Foundation. You are significantly more likely to earn a PhD in science coming from a LAC with the exception of CalTech and MIT.</p>
<p>[REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]REED”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)</p>
<p>^ Pea, I find that table problematic, too. For instance, what does “Universities with 10 or more top programs” mean? Apparently this is tied to the NRC-95 rankings, but the meaning of “top programs” does not seem to be defined. Note that this study is labeled “Preliminary” … “For Discussion Only”.</p>
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<p>How can you draw that conclusion? Table 6 provides no information about graduate school acceptance rates. </p>
<p>It compares (A) science &engineering PhDs completed after baccalaureate degrees from 6 research universities with (B) s&e PhDs completed after baccalaureate degrees from 4 LACs. It shows that a higher percentage of PhDs in Set A, compared to those in Set B, were earned at universities with 10 or more “top programs” (not necessarily “top” in the enrolled fields).</p>
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I actually got it from here – [Facts</a> at a glance - UC Berkeley](<a href=“By the numbers - University of California, Berkeley”>By the numbers - University of California, Berkeley)
And, to be honest, I don’t see any reason why Berkeley would lie. </p>
<p>scroll it down, you will see this wording: “the campus produces more Ph.D.s annually than any other U.S. university.” under Fields of study.</p>
<p>I don’t think Berkeley would lie and I don’t think you are lying either.</p>
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<p>What that means is that more students in the graduate programs at Berkeley receive their PhDs than at any other U.S. university. That doesn’t surprise me a bit, Berkeley has a first rate graduate program.</p>
<p>That is different from what we are talking about, we are talking about which undergraduate institutions educate more people who go on to receive a PhD from an institution like Berkeley.</p>
<p>I will certainly accept your assessment that the job recruiting at Berkeley is first rate. If the OP wants to have job fairs and prestigious companies on campus recruiting after he has finished his undergraduate degree then he should go to Berkeley.</p>
<p>Yes, Berkeley produces more PhDs than Reed. 
Berkeley even produces more undergrads who later earn a PhD than Reed produces, but Reed produces more per capita.</p>
<p>Not that any PhD holder be reading our drivel, but they would be LTAO at our discussion of how the quality of PhDs relates to a random high school student’s posting. ;)</p>
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RML, that just means that Berkeley has the most PhD students in the nation. This reflects nothing upon the quality of its undergrad education and it doesn’t even tell the reader Berkeley is a good grad school! </p>
<p>It just means that Berkeley is a big grad school with many diverse offerings.</p>
<p>Cellard, a quick Google search turned up the following faculty member in the Chemistry department:</p>
<p>[MIT</a> Chemistry: Daniel S. Kemp](<a href=“MIT Department of Chemistry – Department of Chemistry at MIT”>MIT Department of Chemistry – Department of Chemistry at MIT)</p>
<p>and this grad. student also in chemistry (who just got her ph.d this month):</p>
<p>[Julia</a> Robinson-Surry | LinkedIn](<a href=“http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/pub/julia-robinson-surry/25/719/39a]Julia”>http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/pub/julia-robinson-surry/25/719/39a)</p>
<p>So which school did the OP choose? Dying of curiosity!</p>
<p>Even more so: Why did you choose it?</p>