<p>Ok so Princeton has less grad students than most other top-colleges, right? People say this makes it so that Princeton has a good undergrad focus, and that undergrads have a lot of research opportunities. But if there aren't that many grad students, then who does the research? Obviously the research can't be top-notch if it's just professors heading teams of UNDERGRADS, so is the lack of grad focus really that good?</p>
<p>There are 2000 grad students. That's enough, honestly. Graduates here are doing some pretty impressive research (you'll find out about it, since most of your preceptors will be graduate students), but undergraduates are definitely holding their own as well. It's pretty amazing that undergraduates here have almost as many opportunities for research as grad students.</p>
<p>the previous poster is correct. and according to our resident statistician byerly, princeton's ratio of undergraduate students to strictly GRADUATE students in the arts and sciences is substantially the same as the ratios at harvard and yale. what princeton doesn't have, that harvard and yale do, are the thousands and thousands of PROFESSIONAL students (business, law, medicine, etc.). as a result, its ratio of undergrads to grad PLUS professional students is much more "favorable" (for undergrads) - something like 2.5/1 at princeton, versus 1/1 at yale and 1/2 at harvard. so, similar amount of graduate research as HY, but with greater undergraduate focus, at least numerically.</p>
<p>as for the quality of princeton's graduate programs, see:</p>
<p>Have you ever attended a university that had a law school, medical school, business school, etc.? If you had, you'd stop making the ridiculous claim that the existence of professional schools somehow detracts from the undergrad experience. Do you think the law students, med students and business students are really descending on the college at universities like Harvard and Yale to steal opportunities from the undergrads? In fact, the opposite is true. The existence of the professional schools provides additional resources and opportunities for undergrads in terms of classes, faculty and research.</p>
<p>i did not make any such "ridiculous claim." please re-read my last sentence, particularly the qualifier at the end. you seem to be extrapolating from the issue of undergraduate focus to that of the quality of the undergraduate experience. the two issues are not coextensive. i happen to believe that the undergrad focus at a school is determined largely by its undergrad to grad/prof ratio. do you disagree? as for the quality of the experience, naturally that's more complex, - the relationship between the ugrad-grad/prof ratio and ugrad quality is probably not all that highly correlated.</p>
<p>Personally, I've never been able to figure out what the heck people mean by "undergrad focus," but the phrase does seem to be trotted out on these boards with some regularity. As best as I can tell, it typically seems to be used by Princeton supporters as a means of claiming that the undergrad experience at Princeton is better than at Harvard and Yale, and by Yale supporters as a means of claiming that the undergrad experience at Yale is better than at Harvard. If you mean something different, then I apologize for jumping to conclusions (but then again, if you mean something different, I have no clue what you mean).</p>
<p>The existence of the professional schools provides additional resources and opportunities for undergrads in terms of classes, faculty and research. - Couldnt agree more. </p>
<p>The co-location of Harvard (or JHU) medical school makes its undergrad bio-science studies stronger, not weaker. Harvard (or Stanford or Yale) Law School makes its undergrad English/history/social science programs exceptional. By extension, Wharton makes Upenns undergrad business program so attractive.</p>
<p>Yes, and Princeton's programs are just as good even without such graduate programs. The lack of professional schools does not at all detract from the undergraduate experience here, that's for sure.</p>
<p>Whet, I'll have to disagree with you here, and I have some standing to make my case, having been an undergraduate at Princeton and a law student at Harvard. It was extremely rare for us to see undergraduates on our campus at the law school (even though it borders on Harvard Yard.) I can't remember seeing more than a handful of undergraduates in our libraries and I can assure you that our presence at the university had absolutely no effect on the programs you've noted in your post. </p>
<p>It IS the case, however, that the opposite was true. I personally, and a great many of my classmates were regular patrons at Widener and heavy users of the resources at that library and others. This was unavoidable since many of our research papers necessarily ranged beyond strictly legal questions and could only be researched in the general stacks in the Yard. In that sense we were far more a drain on the resources available to the undergraduates than they were a drain on those available to us. </p>
<p>I would agree that the medical school students and the business school students were different. Their main campus facilities were so far away from the undergraduate campus that they weren't around nearly as much.</p>
<p>So, f.scottie's points are at least somewhat valid but it's easy to overstate the case. There is little or no evidence to suggest that our presence at the university was a boon to the undergraduates (unless it was to chastise them from time to time over infantile behavior in public places!)</p>
<p>And, Whet, you really need to change your screen name.</p>
<p>While you may not have noticed the undergrads when you were at law school, I can assure you that undergrads who are so inclined do make use of law school resources. I did as an undergrad at Harvard and my son already has now that he's an undergrad. Same for med school, business school, school of public health, school of government, etc. Indeed, faculty from each of these schools have even offered freshman seminars at Harvard this year. As for Widener - it's primarily a graduate library, but like other graduate resources, it's available to undergrads who have the need for it. So your use of Widener is not diverting resources from undergrads - to the contrary, the graduate schools sustain a resource like Widener, which is then made available to undergrads as well. One more example of the graduate schools adding to, not subtracting from, the resources available to undergrads.</p>
<p>I do, however, agree with you about WDW's screen name.</p>
<p>I'd think the whole undergrad focus deal operates more along the lines of, the administration is there for you, the university endowment goes toward funding your projects (supposedly it is very very easy to get funding for nearly anything of academic value), the career counselors work with you, the USG (undergraduate student gov) has a great deal more influence on the higher ups.</p>
<p>There are, of course, some professional school students -- in Woody Woo, for example.</p>