Student Faculty Ratio: An Overlooked Number

College Search & Selection
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<p>IMO, the key point in CCIllinois post was not the public university aspect, but the big class vs small class thought. I think her point was that her experience with smaller classes was a superior learning environment vs large classes. </p>

<p>While occasionally someone will encounter an excellent learning opportunity in a large class (100+ students with outside TA), do you ever wonder how much different (better) that same class would be with that same professor in a classroom of 20 students?</p>

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<p>Good gravy! Don’t take this personally, ghostbuster, as the comment is meant more generally, but I find the level of sheer anti-intellectualism rampant on CC appalling. India is the “new China,” poised to become the world’s most populous nation, rapidly emerging as a global economic powerhouse and one of the half-dozen or so most important nations in the world from a geopolitical perspective. I think Americans darned well better start caring about India, if only out of economic and geopolitical self-interest. Not to mention that it’s got one of the richest cultural traditions in the world, about which the vast majority of Americans are woefully ignorant.</p>

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<p>You’re both absolutely right, not many students will take Hindi. Unfotunate, in my view. But my point was not that the only small courses at major universities are in subjects like Hindi. I’ve said this on CC before: as an undergrad philosophy major at Michigan, I never took a single class in my major that was larger tham about 25 students, most considerably smaller. Oh, and keil, not a single TA—not one. all my classes were taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty in one of the most distinguished philosophy departments in the world, one that no LAC in the country can match. Oh, and the professors all new my name, too. And I took only 2 or 3 big lecture classes outside my major—not because I had to, but because they were classes I particularly wanted to take because of the excellence of the professor. Now I know it’s not possible to do that in all majors at a school like Michigan—but it is possible in probably the vast majority of the 115 or so majors available in the College of Literature, Science & the Arts. </p>

<p>My own D DOES want to study Hindi. She’d like to continue to study Portuguese, too; she’ll have two years of college-level Portuguese under her belt by the time she actually starts college. Wise, I think, given Brazil’s rapid emergence as another major economic and geopolitical power, one we’re all going to interacting with much more going forward. But she won’t be able to study either of these critically important languages at the vast majority of LACs, and I know of not a single one that offers both. Nor, if her interests turn to a field like philosophy or classics or anthropology, will she come close to matching the depth and breadth of the curriculum available at a school like Michigan. I have no doubt the quality of her classes will be good at any of the LACs she’s most interested in. But those schools, while preparing her to be a well-rounded generalist, simply won’t provide the same opportunities to go into really substantial depth in any particular field, or to explore off-the-beaten-path interests—like the languages, literatures, and cultures of emerging global superpowers like India and Brazil, something I certainly don’t consider “obscure” (keilexandra’s word) or “of zero value” (ghostbuster’s description).</p>

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Of course, that is not the case for everyone. As I have noted before, use of TAs is prevalent in certain subjects. Foreign language instruction, for example – even in [rare</a> languages](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063217980-post44.html]rare”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063217980-post44.html). Heck, as a grad student at a public, I’ll be teaching in about two years.</p>

<p>That said, many privates are equally guilty. If you’re wanting to avoid that completely, you’d have to pick a LAC.</p>

<p>I also take issue with the idea that small colleges automatically have smaller classes. My alma mater is roughly twice the size of Rice, but on average its courses are actually smaller.</p>

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<p>It depends on the course. For example, I would much rather listen to a world expert discuss the middle east or ancient greece for an hour or so than listen to 18 year-old peers ask stupid questions (so they can make sure they earn the 10% class participation points). But the point is that such a lecture can be accomplished in a room with 20 or 200 – it don’t matter.</p>

<p>OTOH, some courses like Writing 101 or Calculus are probably much better taught in a small setting. Indeed, a math prof who used to post on cc recommended that kids take Calc in HS for that very reason alone. (Of course, if students learned better how to write in HS, there would be no need to offer Writing 101.)</p>

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<p>Different students have different learning styles.</p>

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<p>It’s important to remember that class sizes between different majors can vary widely. Biology, business, etc. are large majors at most universities and will have large sizes. More obscure majors will have small class sizes, even if they are offered at large state schools. So, a university-wide student/faculty ratio is quite meaningless.</p>

<p>Secondly, there comes to a point where you simply have too few kids in the class and it’s impeding learning. For a discussion course, I’d rather have 10-15 students in the class than 5 students simply because you are exposed to a greater range of ideas and perspectives. I think it would be simply dreadful to fill up 50 minutes time after time with ideas from only a couple of students.</p>

<p>Thirdly, some courses are simply better taught lecture-style (mainly the hard sciences). For that, it doesn’t matter if the course has 100 students per lecture or 250 students per lecture. There’s very little discussion going on and I’d prefer that there be as little discussion as possible. I don’t want to waste my time hearing answers to other people’s questions. There may arise a situation where the course has so many students that it’s hard to access the professor during office hours. But, I have rarely found that to be the case. In fact, most professors are begging for students to come to their OH’s.</p>

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<p>Well, I don’t know if “guilty” is exactly the right word here, but it’s a good point. Most private universities and some publics refuse to tell us what percentage of their classes are taught by grad students—they simply fill in “N/A” in that box in the data set US News uses. Some do tell us, and it’s worth noting that Yale’s figure, 9%, is not so very different from Michigan’s, 14%. But to my mind, there’s a world of difference between Yale’s 9% or Michigan’s 14% on the one hand, and UNC-Chapel Hill’s 25%, UIUC’s 27%, U Georgia’s 29%, and Purdue’s 30% on the other. </p>

<p>But what’s up with the “N/A”? They think the question is “not applicable” to them? Why? Clearly it’s not because the answer is 0; a number of schools do report 0%, not difficult to do at all if that’s the true answer. Do they mean the number is “not available”? Why—because they’ve never bothered to count, perhaps because they think it’s such an unimportant fact? I think a lot of prospective applicants might find it quite important and highly relevant. Or do they mean the number is “not available” to us, the consumers of the data—because they’re not making it available, perhaps because they’re embarrassed to admit it? </p>

<p>Of the top privates that do report, Brown says 3%, Stanford 6%, Rice 6%, Case Western 6%, Notre Dame 7%, U Miami 8%, and Yale 9%. Absent better information to the contrary, I’d have to assume Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Cornell et al are somewhere in the Stanford-Yale range—not a trivial number but not a huge one, at the end of the day not so far from a school like Michigan but significantly less than some other public research universities.</p>

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<p>Bc,
When you compare a large universe of colleges, you see a mostly clear picture about the relative use of TAs at publics and privates and also about the relative use of TAs within each of the sub-groups. </p>

<p>Here is the data for the USNWR Top 75 National Universities:</p>

<p>% of classes with TAs , Private National University</p>

<p>0% , Princeton
0% , Wake Forest
0% , Yeshiva
0% , Pepperdine
1% , George Washington
1% , SMU
3% , Brown
6% , Stanford
6% , Rice
6% , Case Western
7% , Notre Dame
8% , U Miami
9% , Yale</p>

<p>na , Harvard
na , Caltech
na , MIT
na , U Penn
na , Columbia
na , U Chicago
na , Duke
na , Dartmouth
na , Northwestern
na , Wash U
na , Johns Hopkins
na , Cornell
na , Emory
na , Vanderbilt
na , Carnegie Mellon
na , Georgetown
na , USC
na , Tufts
na , Brandeis
na , NYU
na , Boston College
na , Lehigh
na , U Rochester
na , Rensselaer
na , Tulane
na , Boston University
na , Syracuse
na , Fordham
na , Worcester
na , BYU</p>

<p>% of classes with TAs , State University</p>

<p>0% , UC SAN DIEGO
0% , UC IRVINE
1% , U WISCONSIN
4% , GEORGIA TECH
5% , U FLORIDA
7% , U WASHINGTON
8% , VIRGINIA TECH
10% , CLEMSON
10% , RUTGERS
14% , U MICHIGAN
15% , U MARYLAND
16% , U VIRGINIA
16% , TEXAS A&M
25% , U N CAROLINA
26% , U CONNECTICUT
27% , U ILLINOIS
29% , U GEORGIA
30% , PURDUE</p>

<p>na , UC BERKELEY
na , UCLA
na , WILLIAM & MARY
na , UC DAVIS
na , UC S BARBARA
na , PENN STATE
na , U TEXAS
na , OHIO STATE
na , U PITTSBURGH
na , U MINNESOTA
na , U DELAWARE
na , INDIANA U
na , MICHIGAN ST
na , UC S CRUZ
na , U IOWA</p>

<p>BTW, of the Top 40 LACs, only 14 bothered to report a % number. Those that did reported 0%. </p>

<p>I think that you’re intentionally off on your guesstimate in order to put your favorite school in a more favorable light.</p>

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<p>^^^^^</p>

<p>I know for a fact that some (and probably most) of those numbers are wrong. I’ve worked as a TA at two universities listed at 0%!</p>

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<p>USNWR is not the authority on education. It’s a magazine.</p>

<p>Some of those numbers about % of classes taught by a TA look very strange to me. </p>

<p>UCSD and UCI are really 0%? Hmmm.</p>

<p>How are these numbers derived?</p>

<p>If a professor teaches a chemistry class of 500 with 10 TAs leading the discussion groups, does that count as 10 classes taught by a TA? One class? 0 classes?</p>

<p>And do all schools agree on what the definition is of classes TAs teach?</p>

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<p>It counts as zero, I believe.</p>

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<p>Bluebayou, I agree with you about classes where the students talk about a subject they know very little about. Hate those. I would rather hear the expert any day. </p>

<p>But as far as TAs go, I was kind of hoping for more than I believe. :slight_smile: I would like to know what is.</p>

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<p>When I visited UCSD, one other parent asked the Math Department Chair whether any classes were taught by TA’s. He explained that some were, as a service to the TA (resume?).</p>

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<p>Dstark,
Maybe you don’t understand what can go on in a small classroom with a talented professor. When done right, it’s magical and a materially different (IMO better) learning experience than a lecture in front of hundreds of students. </p>

<p>Why such a great experience? Not because it’s a performance by the “expert.” No, just the opposite. Put a talented group of students together with a talented teacher and you have the opportunity for a participatory learning process that stretches your brain, sometimes challenges your assumptions and lets you know if you have the intellectual talent to keep up…or not. Think Oxford tutorial teaching in a classroom of 15 really bright students. </p>

<p>The best teachers have knowledge, but they also know how to impart it to their students and take them along on the journey. The best professors actually know how to engage their students, get them involved in the discussion, help suggest various avenues of discovery, allow the brilliance of some students to emerge while recognizing the blowhards and limiting their contributions. And sometimes the professors, too, learn something in the discussion. The best professors may often have large egos, but they also have the common sense to know that all of the intelligence in the room does not begin and end with them. </p>

<p>You may want to hear an expert give a speech and that’s fine for you, but I strongly suspect that most top students would greatly prefer a small class with a talented professor and a sharp group of classmates. And as for the expert’s speech, put it in electronic form on the internet and let me access it on my schedule. God knows it’d be a lot cheaper for the school to deliver it that way… and probably a lot cheaper and efficient for the student to access it as well.</p>

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<p>Well Hawkette, I know you do, but I don’t want to listen to a bunch of people talk about stuff they don’t understand. In some subjects small classes work and some classes they don’t. </p>

<p>Small classes help students present their ideas, learn to speak, form coherent arguments, and bull@@@@ well too. And those are great skills to have. </p>

<p>I had some excellent small classes but I also had so me excellent large classes. If you prefer small classes, that’s fine. </p>

<p>I know there are other people that agree with me. Maybe because they told me. Then again, maybe they were lying.</p>

<p>So whatever a person wants. There are thousands of schools out there and even in individual schools you can get different class sizes. To each his own. </p>

<p>Can you explain the data you posted about TAs to me? How is the TA teaches percentage of classes taught measured?</p>

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<p>Enjoy your large classes and send me the internet link. And also a MUCH lower tuition bill. Thanks.</p>

<p>The TA data is from USNWR.</p>

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<p>Well, there is a class online about Game Theory taught by a Yale professor. I enjoyed it. I haven’t watched it all the way through yet. Maybe if you search the parent’s thread you can find it. That’s where I found it.</p>

<p>I know where the data is from. How did USNWR get the numbers? How was the percentage of classes taught by TAs measured. I doubt UCSD has 0% of its classes taught by TAs. Somebody in this thread doubts it too.</p>

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<p>By the way, Stanford has some large classes. I thought that was one of your favorite schools. Why don’t you talk more about Lacs?</p>

<p>I like Stanford too.</p>

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<p>Just because a class is small it doesn’t mean it is going to be like your high-school english class with 2 or 3 girls annoying girls that won’t shut-up. Small classes are not always a small social group with students talking half the time.</p>

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<p>No, hawkette. Sorry. I’ve got to blow the whistle on this one. I think any reasonable person, looking at the data you present, would have to conclude that the answer “N/A” to the question “what percentage of your class sections are taught by TAs” is electing to answer, “I’m not going to tell you, because I’m embarrassed by the answer.” And that includes most of the top private research universities, as well as a surprisingly large number of publics. Among CHYMPS-level schools, only P, Y, and S answered. P’s answer is demonstrably wrong; they said 0%, when in fact almost all grad students at P earn their graduate fellowship “stipend” by working as “preceptors,” which generally means they lead one small discussion section per week in a larger lecture class taught by a professor—exactly the same function performed by the grad students traditionally known as Teaching Assistants (TAs) and now known as something like Graduate Student Assistants (GSAs) at a school like Michigan. Here’s what Princeton’s political science department, for example, tells its entering grad students about their teaching requirements:</p>

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<p>Where I come from, that’s called a TA. The difference is that Michigan honestly calls those small discussion groups “sections” and admits they’re taught by grad students. So, Princeton having basically falsified (or “tweaked,” to use the polite term) its data to appear in a more positive light, that leaves Stanford (6%) and Yale (9%) as the only credible CHYMPS-level schools in the bunch. And I maintain that, unless you can produce better data to the contrary, we should assume the rest of the CHYMPS-level schools have numbers comparable to S and Y. If the true number is zero or something close to it, why wouldn’t they just tell us? </p>

<p>Is 6% or 9% so different from 14%, the Michigan figure? Yes, there’s a difference; but it’s pretty small. Granted, Michigan is much lower than many publics. But it’s really, really cheap and intellectually dishonest make the argument that 1) the average for publics is higher than the average for privates, and 2) Michigan is a public, therefore 3) a school like Michigan should be lumped together with all the other publics and dismissed as offering an inferior education—when in fact Michigan’s number is much closer to Yale’s than to the schools that are bringing up the publics’ average. Yes, Yale’s 9% is less than Michigan’s 14%. A discerning applicant should take that into account. But a discerning applicant will also not be misled by the phony sort of “all publics are the same” argument you routinely make on these pages. They’re not; 14% is a world away from 25%, or 27%, or 30%. And 14% (Michigan) is far, far closer to 9% (Yale) than it is to 25% (UNC-Chapel Hill) or 27% (UIUC) on this score.</p>