Strong Undergraduate English Departments

Parents Forum
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<p>" We can assume it's likely at least good, but might any of these be known to be a "tick" or two above good? "</p>

<p>Again, as you already know, the faculty are being drawn from the same pool. The programs are pretty much the same (this is English, not writing, where they might differ substantially.) And there is the usual faculty turnover, etc. </p>

<p>From Interesteddad's list, I think you can say with some certainty that Bennington and Simon's Rock (and then, Bryn Mawr) are the "best" colleges for future English Ph.d's. Why? Because once you factor out selectivity./SAT scores, etc. for admission, you can arrive at a "value-added" measure - i.e. what the college/university itself added to the experience. (In fact, it isn't even close.)</p>

<p>But the reality is that the star English major at Bennington is likely to do well at Swarthmore, and the reverse is likely ture. Yes, Williams has its tutorials, but it is very isolated,and the opportunities to meet and work with a full range of writers is relatively meager compared with the Connecticut River Valley. On the other hand, the day-to-day tutorials might be just want your d. wants. Student for student, Bard has by far the most famous and acclaimed faculty - but whether famous writers make great teachers is anyone's guess. You'll find faculties with large numbers of deconstructivists, or whatever the fad is now, but if you are planning on graduate school, you have to be able to converse in the latest fad - that's an advantage not a disadvantage. (I know - I've been there!)</p>

<p>In other words, I don't think you can get the kind of information you seem to want in any systemic fashion.</p>

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<p>Interested Dad:
Thanks for the list and link. Granted this data doesn't tell you everything, but it's clearly a valuable piece of the puzzle.
You said: "It's probably the best indicator in fields where there is no career path without a PhD, a less reliable indicator of how many English majors go on to be successful corporate attornies..."
How true ... and funny (to this former English major, current real estate attorney/novelist -- apologies to L.I.'s Billy Joel).</p>

<p>Alexandre:
"Why apply elsewhere?"
Trust me, I'm definitely a major Wolverine supporter. The "why" is because Michigan might be a little too close to home. Money savings aside, I recognize that living elsewhere and away from so many high school friends CAN be a valuable part of the overall college experience. For D, Michigan functions as a virtually perfect safety. She is almost certain to get in (and into their outstanding honors program) ... and at an unbeatable price. This allows her to carefully analyze her other apps. If another school simply knocks her socks off -- academically, socially, or financially (hopefully all of the above) -- then she'll consider that other school. Otherwise, it's hardly "settling" to attend Michigan!</p>

<p>Cangel:
Thanks for the Vandy info -- that's one I know very little about.</p>

<p>Mini:
From other threads, I know you have a particularly good feel for the distinctions amongst A, W, and S. While we don't have this same level of familiarity that you do, my personal experiences and conversations with grads from all three tell me that A and S are LIKELY better fits for D. As is Pomona.
You said: "In other words, I don't think you can get the kind of information you seem to want in any systemic fashion."
I think you are right. However -- thinking that I'm not likely to get this kind of information would never stop the self-labeled "DudeDiligence" from asking the question, would it? That's precisely the point. Thanks for all of your assistance Mini.</p>

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<p>Don't get me wrong Dude, I obviously value the concept of leaving home to experience a new environment. I left the Middle East to come to the US to study. Your daughter should certainly look into other options, like Princeton, Brown and Amherst. I would also really recommend Stanford and perhaps Pomona. But unless she gets a good scholarship, I cannot imagine wasting money on any school other than the big 5 (H,P,S,Y and M) because no school outside of those 5 is appreciably better than Michigan in any field or overall. Furthermore, Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan are unique, even by Michigan standards. So your Daughter will have an incredible experience not matter what...unless you are residents of Ann Arbor proper!</p>

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<p>A couple of comments on Alexandre's comments. I would not consider paying for tuition at schools other than HYPS (not M for English!) a waste of money, though I concur that Michigan is a wonderful university. Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst and a few others are as good as the so-called big five. More importantly, it seems to me, is the issue of size and fit. There are people who cannot imagine not living in a big city and some who loathe city life. The same reasoning applies to choosing college. Some students love being in large universities and others will find their niche in LACs.</p>

<p>Having said that, faculty who have children attending their own college have said that they do not get to see their offspring that often (unless they are at a small LAC). So if Dude's D were to attend UMich, she would likely be as swept up in the campus culture as any out-of-towner.</p>

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<p>Marite, I agree with most of what you say. Most of all, I agree with your point about fit. Clearly if Dude's Daughter likes huge cities or tiny universities, Michigan will not be a good fit. However,I disagree with your comment that "Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore are as good as the "big 5". They are as good as Michigan, but not as good as the Big 5.</p>

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<p>"Hey, I once gave a reading at Michigan with Jim Shepard! (I'm sure he doesn't remember that, though"</p>

<p>Garland, tell us about your event with Jim Shepard. Were you reading your fiction as well? Shepard is one of my favorite contemporary writers, "Batting for Castro" being a wonderful example. His wife, Karen Shepard, is also an accomplished writer and also teaches at Williams.</p>

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<p>I'm the parent of a Rice freshman, but I'm afraid I know nothing about the English department. (Dd is not taking English this semester.) I can just weigh in that she is LOVING her experience, the people, professors, the city (yes, even the city) - and I have found the Rice administration (except that one admission's interview scheduler that left a bad taste in our mouth) exceptional.</p>

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<p>For undergraduate study? It would be interesting to do a confidential survey of the faculty at HYPS on that question. I think you would find tremendous respect for the undergrad education at the best small liberal arts colleges.</p>

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<p>Interresteddad, I am not talking about undergraduate study. Nobody can rank universities according to undergraduate study. That's an abstract concept and completely dependent on the student, not the university. </p>

<p>I am talking about the quality of the university as a whole. Amherst is an awesome university, but it is not as good as Harvard. It does not have the same resources, it does not have the same access to industry, it does not have the same global or even national reputation etc... MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale do. Swarthmore, Williams, Columbia, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Pomona, Michigan, Cal, Northwestern etc... do not.</p>

<p>You know, it is not intended as an insult when sobody does not compare a university to Harvard.</p>

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<p>Sure you can. You simply look at the quality of the undergraduate programs. The other business units of a univeristy are largely irrelevant to that.</p>

<p>For example, take a large conglomerate that has one small business unit in the golf club business. Compare it to a small, privately held business that only makes golf clubs. There is no guarantee that the large conglomerate will produce higher quality golf clubs. The fact that they have other business units producing hot tubs and lawn furniture doesn't improve their golf club design capabilities.</p>

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<p>In that case, I would say most top 25 universities and top 15 LACs are about equal. Therefore, there should be no rankings, just groupings of universities of similar calibre and quality.</p>

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<p>I basically agree with that. Or, perhaps, more accurately, the undergrad programs have different strengths. For example, the real strength of Harvard's undergrad program is the tremendous depth and breadth of available extra-curricular activities. There are many Harvard undergrads who spend nearly full-time involved in very advanced extracurriculars, with substantial college funding.</p>

<p>Conversely, the strength at Swarthmore is its academic rigor -- a very intensive, challenging program and a much higher investment in academics demanded of the average student.</p>

<p>It's not possible to assign a quantitative ranking to such different programs. Each has benefits that the other type of undergrad program does not.</p>

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<p>You and I agree on this one Interresteddad. I am currently writing a book on universities. I do not rank universities (I am not qualified to do so), but I group them into larger tiers based on the combined ratings of the Fiske Guide (my favorite guide), USNWR, Barrons and Gourman. </p>

<p>Tier one includes 13 Private Research Universities, 2 State Universities and 5 LACs. </p>

<p>Tier two is almost as good and includes 12 Private Research University, 8 State Universities and 20 LACs.</p>

<p>In all, you have 25 Private Research Universities, 10 State Universities and 25 LACs of impeccable quality.</p>

<p>I am not going to list them because it will cause a huge debate, but I think it is more accurate to group universities rather than rank the,.</p>

<p>Obviously, there are difference, huge ones in terms of culure and traits, smaller ones in terms of quality and reputation, but by an large, they are all excellent.</p>

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<p>An off-list choice she might consider: Vassar</p>

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<p>I think if you did actual spending per undergraduate, none of the Ivies (except maybe Princeton) would break the top ten. Not that spending is the only possible indicator, but it is probably the single most important one. The reason spending on undergraduates is the most important indicator is that it represents the value-added of what happens what once a student is there, rather than what she brought with her.</p>

<p>The top ten would include Wellesley, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, Grinnell, Smith, Caltech, MIT, and Harvey Mudd. And maybe Princeton.</p>

<p>Of course, I actually think that's silly. Schools don't exist in a vacuum - they exist to educate students. "Fit" is the biggest issue - doesn't matter what one spends per undergraduate, or who teaches there, if it doesn't bring out the best in the student, or help her towards her goals. Most of the schools above would be decidedly inferior institutions (and I mean that seriously) for a female gymnast with dyslexia with aspirations of becoming a Division I coach some day. In fact, they'd barely make Tier IV. Once you accept that as obviously true, the rest is just a matter of degree.</p>

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<p>For what it's worth, here's my take on these VERY interesting topics:</p>

<p>The whole "ranking" business is ultimately such an exercise in futility. You can establish so many systems to rank or categorize schools for an undergraduate experience, but there are almost limitless variables to consider and each of these variables differ in almost limitless ways when applied to students with an infinite variety of wants and needs. I'm no accountant, but this certainly has aspects of GIGO ("garbage in, garbage out").</p>

<p>Rather than a USN style numerical ranking (or even a sort of clumped grouping of Top-25, Top-50, whatever), I take comfort in trying to truly understand the upsides and downsides of the kind of UNDERGRADUATE education that a given student is LIKELY to get at a large, medium, or small research university (factoring into the equation the particular student's wants and needs, the prospective major(s), the student's possible post-graduate plans (traditional grad school, law or biz school, med school, out into the workforce) and comparing that to the upsides and downsides of the kind of UG education that the same student is LIKELY to get at a large, medium, or small LAC-style college.</p>

<p>As just one possible example, the ubiquitous Harvard example -- Harvard isn't "best" for everyone. It's clearly not best for a student who wants frequent and continuing opportunities to closely interact with every faculty member with no competition for the attention of the faculty from graduate students or a culture that SOMETIMES values publishing, research, etc. over undergraduate teaching -- AWS and so many others, including some so-called research universities -- would be better for those students. It's clearly not best for say an engineering student looking for a virtual "trade school" program, with state of the art facilities, and a very large student body looking for these same things -- MIT and CalTech would clearly be better for these students.</p>

<p>I think CC contributors are part of a small percentage of people (5% ... 10% ... 25% ... something like that?) who understand that colleges are about fit and that you need to get beyond name-branding and generalized perceptions of some overall quality (an amorphous concept that has little or no applicability to what an undergraduate might want/need, other than how a given school's cache value might affect the students later plans) if you truly want to maximize your chances of finding the much desired "best fit."</p>

<p>That's why I created this thread -- to further D-2's hopes to find a "Strong" undergraduate English department. As I've previously mentioned, for a variety of OTHER reasons we pretty much already know the schools that interest her (recognizing that the "cast" might have a couple of schools join the party, while others might drop off). The question for her was which of THESE schools might have an asterisk next to its name for actual strength in the English department and which might have a different symbol next to its name for a "general reputation" for the strength in the English department (recognizing, of course, that these are very different things and some schools might have both symbols, or neither). However, we also fully understand that this question might largely be theoretical and unanswerable, but still, I thought it worth asking just in case person after person believed that schools a, b, and c have made wonderful strides in the quality of their programs with every likelihood of continuing to do so, while schools 1, 2, and 3, despite stellar "generalized" reputations, are really not at all the place to go for an undergraduate English major because of i., ii, and iii. If there IS a "smoking gun," it never hurts to hunt for it.</p>

<p>Finally, having criticized one-stop-shopping rankings, I nevertheless believe that we all rank whenever we make complicated, multi-faceted decisions. But, it's OUR personal ranking system ... adding factors that are important to us ... with component scoring and weighting done in a way that has value in our personal world ... and in our sole and complete discretion. In this regard, the EFFORT to try to find the stronger versus weaker undergraduate English programs ... from our perspective, but from objective and subjective information in part supplied from others ... is but one "sub-score" in an overall calculation designed to find "best fit" for "this student."</p>

<p>Of course, then most of us throw this stuff out the window anyway and go with our gut.</p>

<p>Thanks to all who continue to post their information, insights, and experience. We are very grateful.</p>

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<p>I'm currently an undergrad English major at Brown, so I can offer you my experience there. I have for the most part, had a wonderful time, and the department is excellent. Brown also has a very strong creative writing program, that houses a number of top notch writers and scholars - for example, CD Wright, who was just awarded a MacArthur 'genius' grant. All the professors here have been extremely accessible, and eager to get to know students outside of class as well. The only caveat that I would add - and I think that this is something that is worth considering with regards to all the schools on your list, is that if your daughter has a strong interest in a particular type of literature, she should make sure that there are professors who have the same speciality. I am personally interested in postcolonial south asian fiction, and while Brown has a few fantastic postcolonial scholars, they mostly work on African fiction. This only really gets to be concern as you become an upperclassmen, and it is not an insurmountable difficulty, but it is perhaps another factor that should be added to the mix. Good luck!</p>

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<p>Thanks for your insights Kismet.</p>

<p>All of our reports from Brown student family and friends have been similarly positive. Of particular interest to me were your comments about accessibility and professors wanting to get to know students. Sometimes people fall into the trap of too eagerly characterizing ALL universities as places where professors are too busy with grad students and not truly interested in teaching and ALL LAC's as places where you will never have such concerns. While there are many times that this is the case, I've long felt that this is rarely the case for an English major and even less likely the case at a school with a undergraduate focused reputation (e.g., Brown, Dartmouth, etc.). Perhaps an English major at Brown is something of a LAC within a university?</p>

<p>A few follow-up questions if I might: How many English classes have you taken? What is the breakdown by class size? What percentage of your fellow English majors would you guess are thinking of going into further graduate studies IN ENGLISH (NOT law school, biz school, med school)? And, finally, what percentage of your fellow English majors would you guess are double-majoring?</p>

<p>Thanks so much for your reply. My daughter loves Brown and would apply ED, but for our need to consider some merit scholarship possibilities and to compare financial aid offers.</p>

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<p>I am not sure that the Ivies in general give out merit scholies. They do meet a lot of the need based aid, but I don't think theyr give merit.</p>

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<p>Alexandre:
I've always believed that the Ivies do NOT give out merit scholarships. My comment about my daughter needing to pursue possibile merit scholarship possibilities was referring to some of the other schools on her list. At Brown, it's simply going to be a question of (a) admission and (b) how any Brown financial assistance package might compare to other financial assistance packages from other schools.</p>

<p>An aside: Based on some of D-1's contemporaries and other people we know over the past few years, while the Ivies are on record as NOT giving out merit scholarships, it does seem that the "quality" of their offered financial assistance packages varies depending on the quality of the student. A cynic might consider this a "merit scholarship" of a sort (since, say, $15K in grants is a whole lot different than a package of $3K grant, $3K work study, and $12K loans).</p>