I get pushback IRL when I suggest schools like Beloit, Earlham, Lawrence for kids I know who need exactly what you are describing (even if they don’t fully recognize it in their 17 year old selves). These are kids who may have been hearing “does not work up to her potential” for 12 years and has assimilated that; these are “pointy” kids (loves Classics, old coins, wandering museums and historical societies but is in the “regular” math track getting B’s); all sorts of types of kids.
Guidance counselor is pushing the flagship because “there’s something for everyone” which is totally true. But maybe Lawrence or Hope or Rhodes or Bard or ?
I agree with what you are saying. One sided conclusion is as non-sequitur as another.
However, I don’t think one off cases of people doing great from weak institution or one off case where someone from great college does badly are relevant.
These numbers are aggregated over decades so one can say that there are certainly reasons why certain schools have high productivity but without intimate understanding of the college it is not possible to ascertain the reasons.
Some undergraduate institutions, or some departments within those institutions, certainly “punch above their weight”. Unsurprisingly, faculty PhD advisors in good PhD programs are in the best position to evaluate the strength of undergraduate programs in their specialties at different colleges. They understand the rigors of the courses taught at and have experiences with students who came from those colleges.
Not all PhD programs are worth pursuing and only a very small fraction of students are suitable PhD candidates. For prospective PhD students, they need to figure out the good programs in the fields they’re interested in and the rational behind their pursuit of PhD degrees. Do they have a deep desire to push the boundaries of human knowledge in a highly specialized area? Do they possess a special talent and enjoy comparative advantages in that area? Are they well prepared academically, emotionally and financially for the long and uncertain journey toward a PhD degree and beyond? Is the PhD degree a near necessity in their career objectives (because of the required preparation for those careers, not just credentialing)?
I understand what you are saying-but I am still not sure of the conclusion. Transylvania U rates quite highly in your list at no. 16. I actually like that school. Close to open enrollment with a 92% acceptance rate, 66% grad rate, and modest scores( 1070-1270). Good teacher prep program. Should we be happy or sad that a disproportionate percentage of its grads pursue a Stem phd? Honestly, I do not know. Depends in part on where they are pursing those degrees and what they hope to do after. I do not think you can draw many conclusions without that additional data.
I think this exactly is OP’s point. Some institutions may be fostering graduate studies. So someone who wants to do those should take it into account. According to some people doing MS or PhD may be absolutely worst thing to do but that is not the point of discussion here I thought.
Research in the most effective ways of doing such activities with the least intrusion on people’s rights and freedoms and with the least actual and perceived unfairness?
We should note that the % of students doing PhD is a small number even at high ranked schools in this list. It is not like everyone from that place is going to a PhD. It is quite possible that there is a small % of students which they “buy” which are in top 25% and they are guided to do a PhD. It is also possible that some students in middle 50% are helped and encouraged to do well as well.
It is curious that people are almost wanting to categorize the higher PhD % of surprises as an evil thing
I found this thread and the list of colleges interesting and food for thought.
There are many people on CC who seem to want only top10 schools but have a lot of disdain for graduate school. I don’t really understand why this thread has annoyed them so much.
Of course, you shouldn’t take this list as gospel but it gives you another way of looking at colleges. In the end, a student selecting a college needs to find one that will help them achieve their goals and this is just one data point.
As a data point in another thread I had reason to research the outcomes of recent LSU physics undergrads pursuing phds. I believe 9 of the 10 were doing so also at LSU. Universities generally very strongly discourage undergrad and grad phd work at the same place. So is it more valuable to know that 10 kids sought doctorates or that 9 of them had to remain at LSU, with the limited potential that will result?
This does not accurately summarize the discussion. I’ve known some of these posters for years; many of them do NOT want only top 10 schools, and have zero disdain for grad school.
What is prompting the discussion is the disregard for what the data says and what it doesn’t say. Which is leading to all sorts of statements of fact (not what the data says), assumptions, and random conclusions.
If I told you that Earlham, Haverford and Swarthmore graduates have less tooth decay in their later years, would you immediately assume that Quaker college students have better oral health than college students in the population at large? No. But not before asking “is there geographic concentration in those three colleges”, i.e. more urban students than rural, and kids in urban areas usually start seeing a dentist earlier than kids in rural areas. And then you’d ask “what’s the gender balance, and is tooth decay associated with one gender more than others?” and then you’d ask “Do these colleges discourage the use of bottled water-- due to climate/plastic/trash issues associated with their Quaker orientation, and do people who don’t have fluoride in their drinking water in late teenage years suffer from more tooth decay later on?”
Etc. There could be 10 or 15 reasons… and you’d want to understand the data before telling anyone “go to a Quaker school for better dental health in your later years”.
That’s what’s happening. We’ve got data; some posters have already drawn a conclusion about what the numbers mean without asking a single question. Others are pushing back because correlation does not mean causation regardless of where you went to college.
I think most of posters who are for the topic are saying give it a second look to these if you are interested in doing a PhD. May be go visit, talk to professors, try and use LinkedIn to see where the PhDs are from. See how many PhDs on LinkedIn and what they are doing etc. etc. Once you find a nugget there are many ways to investigate if it is gold or brass nugget.
I think people have said how doing PhD is bad commercially and what’s the big deal about school producing more PhDs. Also people have said that it may be because of the bad advising but I don’t want the discussion to get bitter. I will edit my post
Who is saying that someone should go to Transylvania, or U. of Dallas, or St. John’s, based just on this data? I’m certainly not.
I repeatedly am trying to indicate that I view this as ONE data point, not the ONLY data point, that could be used to find additional schools to consider/research. The Big Names are already pretty well-known. Not everyone will be admitted to or be able to afford a Big Name. The resistance to using this as a data point to investigate/research more particular schools is really astounding to me.
Terrific- let’s have a few of the “folks are saying PhD’s are rubbish” (which nobody said) post emphatically :
“This is a helpful data point to investigate/research particular schools”
And the entire posting community would stand up and cheer. However, that’s NOT what many of the posters want to see. They want their own particular point of view to be validated – data, logic and analysis be damned.
My own view? We’ve created a generation that puts more time and effort into researching shampoo or where to order a sandwich (umpteen Yelps, what do my influencers say on Tik Tok, I need to read 500 Amazon reviews before I buy a household product) than they do researching high stakes decisions.
So anything that encourages research on different colleges is a great outcome in my view. Especially since so much research (even on CC) ends up with folks posting “I know three people who didn’t get any aid at JHU. Don’t apply to JHU if you need aid” or “Penn State has weed out classes for engineers and pre-meds. Don’t go to Penn State”.
The insecurity and defensiveness about the “elite” schools is astonishing, given that nothing on these various lists diminishes the elite schools at all. These are just lists showing the percentage of students from various schools who receive Ph.Ds. Interesting data for those who might consider pursuing a Ph.D., especially for those who won’t likely be attending the elites. Yet, merely including a school like Reed (a fine school) on a list with MIT has some searching for mid-range ACT scores, as if MIT’s honor and reputation has been disparaged, and others are resorting to running down other schools and degree programs as obviously inferior.
I really don’t understand why it is so offensive to some when posters dare suggest that other options exist for those who might not have access to elite schools?
ETA: Post was regarding the entire thread, and was not meant to be directed at any particular poster.
