<p>I look forward. And I see what you’re saying about science (physical and computational) at places like UIUC. I’ve recently been discovering that many leading public institutions are in general better at, and more innovative at science education than most leading private institutions. Perhaps, it’s because they are responding to their large class sizes and the failure rates in introductory courses (because at public school, many people actually fail, and not receive something between C and B- as fail). Only a select few (maybe like 3 or 4. Primarily, the very wealthy ones like Harvard, Yale, and Stanford, and of course MIT) private schools are innovating or trying different methods in the sciences. Fortunately, Emory will be among them soon (better late than never I guess). Top public schools are sometimes under-rated by many of us who attend elite privates for UG science. In many cases, if you can tolerate the larger class sizes, many of these schools are likely better (and the attrition for tracks like pre-med or science in general at such schools is now on the decline. Most top privates can’t say this. I think researchers have found that attrition correlates positively with the selectivity of the school. Some exceptions may be those schools with very high grade inflation. However, the pattern is even seen at places like Stanford where, as normal, chemistry weeds folks out). I think, at the current time, many private schools are complacent just assuming that their models are sufficient because of placement rates. However, this is less because of learning outcome moreso than survival. They know it could be better, but changing things requires lots of resources as a lot of science faculty are resistant to such changes. I’m sure the gen. chem changes at Emory in a year or 2, for example, will raise hell with people like Mulford or Weinschenk who are essentially perfect at lecturing in a traditional format to large masses (Let’s not even talk about the research faculty who will likely refuse to teach in such ways) because of the additional time expenditure incurred. Publics also probably try harder do it because there is more at stake (they are responsible to state government and citizenry more than they are USNW).</p>