Reed vs Calreton vs Grinnell vs Wesleyan

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Which has the best performance in sending its graduates to the top PhD programs? I know each school's PhD productivity, but I wanna know which school the graduate tends to go. My major is Biology.</p>

<p>The grad schools most frequently attended by Reed are UCB, U of Washington, U of Chicago and Stanford. <a href="http://www.reed.edu/ir/success.html"&gt;http://www.reed.edu/ir/success.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>For Calreton, according to its website, "Some of the most commonly attended graduate and professional schools for Carleton graduates include Yale, Harvard, and the University of California–Berkeley."
<a href="http://apps.carleton.edu/admissions/parents/life_after_carleton/"&gt;http://apps.carleton.edu/admissions/parents/life_after_carleton/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I don't have data of Grinnell and Wesleyan. But I'm assuming their performance is not as good as Carleton. </p>

<p>Swarthmore isn't my choice, but its performance attracted me the most.
<a href="http://www.swarthmore.edu/student-life/career-services/post-graduation-statistics.xml"&gt;http://www.swarthmore.edu/student-life/career-services/post-graduation-statistics.xml&lt;/a> </p>

2

<p>PhD program* counts over the entire school are not particularly useful; what you want to know is how graduates in the majors you are considering do in terms of PhD program admissions, matriculation, and graduation. A school may be excellent in one subject while being poor in another subject for the purpose of preparing for PhD study.</p>

<p>*Also, when professional schools (MD, JD, etc.) are included, that muddies the claims further.</p>

3

<p>I’m sorry. In my previous comment, the “graduate schools” was used as the same meaning as “PhD programs.” The data which I gave is strictly about PhD programs. Since all LACs listed in the above have strong bio major, I assumed the students of bio major performed better than the published data. </p>

4

<p>You quoted Carleton as referring to “graduate and professional” programs, so MD, JD, etc. may be included.</p>

<p>In any case, look at strength of courses, curricula, and undergraduate research opportunities, and ask the department directly to see if it is willing to tell you about post-graduation PhD program placement.</p>

5

<p>OK. I will send emails to these colleges and visit some of them. </p>

6

<p>Biology PhD Production Rates, Adjusted for Undergraduate Program Size<br>
Method<br>
M = number of graduating biology majors per school, 2012<br>
P = number of PhDs conferred on alumni per school, 2006-10<br>
Rate = P / (M*5) </p>

<p>Data Sources<br>
IPEDS (<a href=“Use the Data”>http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/&lt;/a&gt;) for M, number of graduating bio majors per school, 2012<br>
NSF (<a href=“NCSES”>NCSES) for P, number of bio PhDs earned by school alumni, 2006-10 </p>

<p>Rate … School<br>
37% Carleton College
34% Wesleyan University
32% Reed College
22% Swarthmore College
22% Princeton University
22% University of Chicago
21% Grinnell College
19% Harvard University
11% University of California-Berkeley
10% Johns Hopkins University</p>

<p>I am not aware of any good data sources that would allow us to compare performance of these schools in sending graduates to “top” PhD programs. First you’d need to define and identify those programs. </p>

7

<p>Some additional data:
<a href=“Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College”>http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

8

<p>If you are trying to choose between these four schools, I would say the difference is probably negligible. You could go anywhere you wanted from either of these four schools.</p>

9

<p>I just received an email from Grinnell, but the adcom seemed not to have such a list. Yet I’m glad to hear that there’s a nice program encouraging dedicated students to conduct their own research. </p>

<p>Yeah, I hope the difference would be negligible, so that I don’t need to be worried about my future chance to be accepted to great PhD programs of schools such as Stanford, UCB, and Harvard. </p>