<p>So we’re comparing apples to oranges, please make sure you use Oxford’s GPA calculator: [Oxford</a> College - GPA Calculator](<a href=“http://oxford.emory.edu/admission/gpa_calculator/]Oxford”>http://oxford.emory.edu/admission/gpa_calculator/)</p>
<p>What is the average GPA of undergraduate students at Oxford College?</p>
<p>Oxford always has been, and always will be, nothing but a back-door into Emory. For generations it was utilized to get unqualified legacies into the College. Now it seems to have morphed into something more akin to a “farm league” for the College’s diversity stats. </p>
<p>There is no reason to have a JC with (essentially) automatic admission into Emory. Oxford grads won’t even allow (I refer to refusal by alum) a reasonable (at least 3.2) GPA as a requirement for becoming a junior in the College. What’s the present day excuse for that BS? No other top school has a JC allowing students to get a degree from a top 20 National University, based on just two years of study at the college (not JC) level. I’ve never heard of any school- top 20, top 50, or top 100 with this kind of back door degree scheme.</p>
<p>^We see this same post every so often, accompanied by an unwavering unwillingness to consider the facts. </p>
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<p>I’m sorry that the original Emory isn’t elitist enough for you.</p>
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<p>This isn’t a reasonable request. Oxford class are by and large more rigorous than those at the College of Arts and Sciences and even if you imposed this 3.2 requirement on students who begin at the College of Arts and Sciences (who you claim are so much more qualified), you’d be kicking out a whole bunch of students.</p>
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<p>Actually, if you want to go there, there’s Columbia University School of General Studies where you too can earn the same BA or BS from Columbia if you have a 3.0 from any other college or university and are willing to foot the entire tuition bill without any financial aid. There’s also Cornell University, which has guaranteed-admissions articulation agreements with community colleges around the nation.</p>
<p>At the graduate level, practically anyone can be admitted to an MA in Humanities/Liberal Arts or an MTS from Duke, or an education master’s at University of Pennsylvania or Columbia University.</p>
<p>It kind of would not make sense to require a 3.2, when you need a 1.7 to stay in the College of Arts and Sciences. Not to mention the fact that the institutional average is between 3.2-3.3 (as in if you count grades of all 4 classes, and not just graduating seniors), which suggests that Emory should send about 30-40% of its own students packing if it were to run on that policy. And aig is actually correct, many classes at Oxford (especially intro/mid-level math and physics) are a bit tougher there as they either have harder content or a rougher grading curve (if any, Emory almost always always has one, and its pretty generous). Oxford is like a typical LAC not really interested in keeping its students happy, career-oriented and stuck-up, but interested in properly educating them. If they have to slam GPAs a little, they will (main campus profs. and admins as a whole, will never have the courage to get serious in this arena). I bet that some of the average students at Emory would whine about some of the classes at Oxford due to the increased workload and expectation of engagement. Being at Emory gets one used to a more hands off, laid back type of rigor (rough exams sometimes, not much work, whereas at Oxford, you will often run into lots of work and rough exams or writing assignments). I like the so called “backdoor”, it certainly makes for some academically interesting students on this campus. Main campus can be very boring academically and its nice to have students from Oxford, many who are less apathetic about the experience because of the way they were taught. They haven’t had two years of, what may be either ease or mediocrity for many (unfortunately) to drain them of their academic excitement and passion. Oxford may have what many consider “depressing” aspects, but academics isn’t one. Wish everyone on main could say the same.</p>
<p>It would be counter-productive to take on every argument supporting the anachronism known as Oxford JC. As I noted, the JC’s “purpose” seems to have morphed from a way to slip legacies into Emory. With the benefit of hindsight, i can now see that in the 1980’s Oxford became a pool of Southerners to offset the huge # of Northeasterners flooding into Emory. As the joke back then (class of 1981) went, “Emory is a Methodist university founded in the South for Northeastern Jews”. </p>
<p>It seems Oxford is now being used to bolster certain other statistics with which Emory has always struggled. I have the benefit of having also attended Vanderbilt for Graduate studies, as well as Emory Law. From the Vandy point of view, the whole Oxford deal looks absurd. I have no doubt I would have the same view if I attended Duke.</p>
<p>Duke sets the standard in the South, with everyone else chasing. In the past two decades I have seen Vandy make major changes regarding its student body. I have also seen Vandy move to #17 nationally, and #2 in the South. Emory is clawing to hold on to #20, and #3 in the South. (On the other hand Emory’s primary post-grad schools, Law, Medicine & Business, are doing great). I think taking the simple step of requiring a 3.2 GPA for an Oxford student to matriculate into the College would address almost every concern I have about Oxford, and help Emory in trying to move into a steady place amongst the top 15 national universities.</p>
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<p>This idea of a 3.2 is an arbitrary standard pulled out of thing air that neither addresses any legitimate concern, nor has any empirical backing. Given that the classes at Oxford are not any easier than in the College of Arts and Sciences (and indeed are more rigorous), why should Oxford students be held to a much higher standard? Further, either we would lose a significant number of students (the same would be true with a 3.2 requirement at the College of Arts and Sciences), or we would see massive grade inflation.</p>
<p>And let me shed some light on why Oxford is functional for Emory in terms of statistics. It’s not so much that we have a larger number of low-income, underrepresented minorities, or southern students–it’s that Oxford students are not included in Emory’s undergraduate rankings (mainly U.S. News). Since there are Oxford continuees, the College of Arts and Science has fewer spaces to fill in freshman and transfer admissions. If you got rid of Oxford, the College of Arts and Sciences would need to admit many more students: the admissions rate would rise, the admitted students’ stats would fall, and our rank would drop significantly.</p>
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<p>What’s absurd are Vandy’s Peabody College of Education and Northwestern’s School of Education and Social Policy, which have recently forgone the idea of undergraduate instruction in the field of education to fill their class with wealthy pre-business, pre-medicine, and pre-law student with no interest in education (you’ve heard of Vanderbilt’s HOD major, I assume?).</p>
<p>Peabody & the corresponding school at Northwestern are far from absurd. They are cynical but wholly realistic attempts to compete in SEC & Big Ten football, respectively. Academically, they are no more absurd than the concept of majoring in Education at either Vanderbilt or Nortwestern (or Emory).</p>
<p>The continuing refusal of Oxford people to agree to any reasonable requirement for entering Emory appears to be a moving target. Am I to understand the present rationale is that Oxford is more academically rigorous than Emory? Yeah, Oxford J.C. Is right up there with Amherst & Williams. </p>
<p>Accept a reasonable (a 3.2 GPA is a “B” average. Seems reasonable to me) standard to get in Emory as a Junior, or just learn to accept that to most Emory grads Oxford will always be a second-rate, back door way into Emory.</p>
<p>Loridans, that will not help! Period. Just let that stupid idea go. It is unfair (I mean, let’s make it fair and raise it Emory too. Seriously, Emory is seriously grade inflated and you are allowed to stay in with a 1.7 GPA all four years if you like, and you wanna require a 3.2 at a place whose sole purpose is to educate well and rigorously) and irrelevant (not to mention, Oxford students seem as if they are more likely to go to graduate programs and not professional, and will thus help get Emory alums more represented in academia. I have a friend who got into most of the top chemistry programs including Caltech and Berkeley. She came from Oxford, and there are many more like her. So in the longrun, Oxford may be doing us a favor because main campus sure does a relatively poor job, compared to peers, of encouraging people to pursue Ph.Ds. And let’s be honest, more reputable schools, regardless of rank are well-represented in academia). Oxford is not included in Emory College admission statistics. If Emory wants to move up the rankings latter, it will have to be more competitive recruiting people at Emory college. And get over us being number 20 and Vandy number 17. Vandy didn’t “move” there, it’s almost always 17-18. The schools are not much different regardless of the fact that their rank is higher and entering class stats are higher. Academically, these schools would feel about the same (as for overall atmosphere, that’s a different story). </p>
<p>Again, if Emory wants to move up the ranking latter, it should educate better and be more innovative and facilitate more opportunities for undergrads. and tell people that it’s making these strides (market better), not manipulate stats. Let go of this idea that getting rid of Oxford will do us a favor. The school has essentially become a model for new pedagogical ideas and liberal arts teaching. Given the progress that it is making in the arena of education (as in making way more noise than main campus due to its innovations here), we need it around. It’s the entity of the university that actually educates extremely well. Among top 20s, the education on main doesn’t really stand out, and even if it did, it’s not pressworthy. Other very top universities (Yale, MIT, Stanford, Harvard, etc) have been actively disseminating educational tools and techniques, with things like Open Course Ware, and posting actual recorded lectures of courses on You Tube. Once Emory gets to the point where it is confident enough to show off its educational techniques on a large scale, then I think we have accomplished something. Oxford is essentially a place to pilot innovative educational techniques, and students attending benefit from it. Also, Emory benefits from it because it can observe how it works on a small scale, and then perhaps try to implement certain things on main (and honestly, some professors on main will even go on a leave to teach a new course down at Oxford, because they know that the students and faculty are more open to experimentation than those here). I feel that without this internal model, Emory would have no real incentive to change certain things and would indeed simply resort to useless maneuvering in order boost the rank to a level that it hardly deserves if merely based upon what it provides to students. Students would be happy with a higher rank, but in reality, nothing will have actually changed, and why would things change if we can merely achieve number 15 by boosting SATs and app. numbers. And trust me, no matter our rank, some things need to change at Emory. The last thing we need is a measurement saying “we’ve really improved” when we have not ( and no, shiny new buildings don’t count as real improvement, all top 20s have those). </p>
<p>As for the rigor thing: I’m sorry Loridan, your logic is faulty here. You are suggesting that Oxford would need to be comparable to Amherst and Williams to be more rigorous than Emory. Get the hell out of here with that. Emory cannot even be compared to those schools. Among top 20s, Emory rigor is kind of low. Oxford, even without being a top flight liberal arts college could indeed be more rigorous than Emory. There are plenty of schools ranking well below us that have higher rigor. Emory is known for a solid education, but not for high rigor (I know in the sciences, often the deans and admins pressure against a particularly high level of rigor, especially if it isn’t to be complemented with an overly generous grading curve) or stress related to academic performance (unless you count the whining about having a 3.6 and not a 3.7). I mean, maybe compared to the average state school sure, but compared to most elites and highly ranked schools, Emory has quite a low work-load and is laid back (not enough grade inflation to be Brown laid back, but compared to schools with similar grading schemes, our rigor is low). My understanding is that Oxford workloads are generally higher, especially in humanities and social sciences. And now, with the Ways of Inquiry curriculum, many classes are even tougher than before and could easily take the Emory counterpart for a ride in terms of workload and intellectual rigor. I have checked syllabi at Oxford before because I was curious (I would compare them to the Emory counterpart), and indeed Oxford is often tougher, especially the new INQ classes. Honestly, comparing to Emory rigor sets the bar low unless you talk about someof the science professors and some of the more conservative social science and humanities faculty. But these spots of rigor are more so the norm at a school like Oxford from what the syllabi indicate. I mean, I went to Emory all 4 years and graduated. The only reason my education was rigorous is because I specifically chose challenging coursework and professors so that I would not be bored. I could have easily taken an extremely easy route, even as a science major. Sliding through Emory if you want to is really not that hard (I mean, our peers have grade inflation like we do, but the ones far more reputable actually do have more rigor to complement it). Emory has amazing teachers and faculty, but is not really known for rigor, sorry to break it to you. Some of the social science and humanities courses here were graded easier than some of my HS honors courses even though I had more time to work on papers at Emory (because a lack of “busywork” or overlapping assignments). And the actual engagement within the class room can sometimes be as low as those in an HS course. Given that Oxford is smaller, I would expect the faculty there to have more time to give insight and critique on the quality of work done, and thus give lower grades on things like essays and stuff. At Emory, often such classes are about trying to keep students engaged in class, while also keeping them happy about their grades. Too much attention to the latter on the profs. parts leads to a fail on the former normally (b/c, if one knows that mediocre effort will get B+/A-, why prepare for class or read). Oxford probably has less incentive to have such a scheme running. Seriously though, I can imagine that many schools w/lower entrance stats. than Emory could be more rigorous.</p>
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<p>Except they have separate admissions processes that are entirely concerned with selectivity and exclusion rather than even a nominal concern for the profession (rather than mere discipline) they purport to further. And you didn’t respond to my note about Columbia’s “General Studies” program. I’m sure you’ll find a similar willingness to admit less competitive applicants for second bachelor’s degrees at Vanderbilt’s Peabody College and Rice University, if you can afford full freight.</p>
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<p>You need a 1.9 to graduate from the College of Arts and Sciences. Because of competition, we tend not to admit a student who ends up earning a 1.9 (barring unusual circumstances), yet we would still admit them to the degree. Why not raise this requirement?</p>
<p>I bring up the question of the rigor at Oxford not in the discussion of whether Oxford ought to exist, but in the idea of an arbitrary GPA cut off.</p>
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<p>A 3.2 is actually closer to a B+ average. It has no empirical basis; why should Oxford students have to prove themselves with so much higher standards than those admitted in the College of Arts and Sciences. Either it would lead to grade inflation, or a strict curve through which we’d make students compete for seats and encourage dysfunctional course enrollment. Neither is functional. Is there really such an unfounded attitude that Oxford is not rigorous? Why don’t our students fail out when they get to CAS, if there’s such a huge difference?</p>
<p>The friends I talk to often cite that they got lower grades at Oxford on average (as in Oxford professors were more willing to give out C,D, and F grades than profs. are here). I don’t think the rise in grades once they get to Emory is merely due to “being properly trained” to adjust to college and standards at Emory (honestly, if Emory was truly rigorous, despite the fact that students here have much higher stats, you would see the same phenomenon. MIT, a truly rigorous school with students that have significantly higher stats. than Emory students, have some intro. math and science courses where over 25% have a D or an F, even after accounting for a curve. This is why they have the pass/fail system. Some intro. science courses on main, like biology barely give out that many C grades, and hardly no one gets a D or F anymore). Grading at Emory is simply easier, even in the sciences. As soon as grades dip below an 80 average, they are curved back up (or even to a B+) at Emory. I bet that this was not guaranteed at Oxford, or even common.</p>
<p>I want to be fair about excising the “Oxford Cancer”. I’d like to see the Dental School resurrected on that land. Although situated in a ridiculously small, boring town, as a born Southerner who has lived in Ga., Ky., and Tenn., I know that in a rural area of Dixie one is never at a loss for bad teeth.</p>
<p>Having far more experience & hindsight than most posters (degrees '81, '82, '86), I try and look at the commodity side of an Emory degree. What’s it “worth” in the market? How far can you take it geographically with it still being highly regarded? And what’s it worth in the market of ideas: non-professional post graduate education? One has spent, through family, loans or otherwise, an enormous amount for the BA or BS from Emory. How is that degree regarded by others and, in the fullness of time, by the grad?</p>
<p>I can tell you that throughout the 80’s & 90’s the “value” (and I speak of more than $$) of an Emory College (and Law) degree rose. But, things have stalled in the past decade. In contrast, I see the value of my Vanderbilt degree rising. And while Vandy has always been one of the few “name” quality schools in the South (for academic purposes let’s define “South” as the 11 Confederate states plus Ky.), the actual quality of the school has finally matched its “name”. Vandy has a national name, strong alum, and (finally) has shaken up the school’s demographics so it is more than just a Southern school full of rich kids. </p>
<p>Emory is clinging by its fingernails to the “Top 20”, which is tremendously disappointing. Seeing it matched or passed by schools such as Notre Dame is inexplicable. I spent 2 weeks at Emory in 2010 trying to determine “the problem”, but could not put my finger on any major problems. Further, i found the college’s instability in the rankings vis-a-vis the Law School odd. When i attended the Law School i regarded its educational core as second-rate compared to my undergrad experience. Thus, I have been falling back on the obvious: better student body entrance stats, good facilities, good professors and close the back door (i.e., Oxford).</p>
<p>I can live with Oxford being the experimental, education think-tank for the College, as long as entrance standards are not too far below Emory’s, and a “B” avg. be required to matriculate as an Emory Junior. As far as being fair, look at the bigger picture. People who could not get into Emory are being given the chance to gain an Emory degree if they can hold a “B” avg through two years at a JC. That’s a fair and reasonable manner to deal with Oxford.</p>
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That’s exactly what we need: a failed program that will bring even more prestige- and money-obsessed pre-health students to Emory.</p>
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The reality that you and some other alumni may feel a bit slighted because some “rift raft” students that you don’t deem worthy were admitted to Emory University and earned a degree is largely an irrelevant consideration. If Emory has a mission other than being ranked as highly as possible (which I’ve begun to doubt), it’s not to satisfy upper-class complaints that they don’t feel special enough.</p>
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“There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong." Better entrance stats would be good, but we (ought to) have a mission beyond selectivity and exclusive for its own sake. Our biggest problems are our weak academic graduate programs and our lack of any real identity, in the way that UChicago and Georgetown have identity. I’m afraid that we end up serving merely very well-resourced students who are pre-law, business, and pre-health and simply couldn’t get into a higher-ranked program. We have to have something unique in our program that draws students to us over our competitors. </p>
<p>I’ve delineated over and over in this thread how Oxford helps keep the stats up for the College of Arts and Science and that, in our absence, Emory’s rank and selectivity would fall. No one has disputed these statements, but rather ignored their inconvenient truth.</p>
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It’s really fewer than 100 students at Oxford each year whose numbers are significantly below those of at the College of Arts and Sciences and the bottom of that group fails out or transfers in their first year at Oxford. Oxford has become a lot more competitive in the last three years ago—before that, I’m convinced that practically everyone was accepted.</p>
<p>I’ve joked that we ought to close Braham and East residence halls (which, before two years ago, weren’t used because of their poor condition), and accepted only a very small number of students to fill the other residence halls. With such a small group, we could enroll a cohort whose stats exceed those of the main campus, and rebrand ourselves as the “Honors Experience” of Emory University, with two years of close faculty-student interactions, research, academic inquiry, and leadership. This would be mostly to spite the elitists at the Druid Hills campus. :P</p>
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<p>Have you ever been to Oxford? You seem to be treating it from a misinformed theoretical perspective, colored by elitism. It is dishonest and incorrect to refer to Oxford as a “JC,” and many of your concerns seem to stem from the rigor and quality of instruction (though you seem mainly concerned with us not being exclusive enough, as if exclusivity, in of itself, is a proper mission for a school).</p>
<p>This is what happens when you have USNWR rankings. The volatility in Law School ranking reflects poorly upon their methodology (how can you go from 20 to 30 and back to 24 over a 2 year period or less, it’s stupid!). You experience is dated. Both Oxford and Emory have become seriously more selective since then and Oxford has made its mark in higher education. It’s not fair because Oxford is an entity of Emory. They deserve the same treatment as a main campus student for as long as they have similar or higher rigor. Period! </p>
<p>And by the way, I don’t make fun of UGA as they have been doing much better in admissions, and currently Oxford gets better students than UGA. This makes Oxford probably the school with the 3rd highest entrance stats. in the State (Emory is 1, Georgia Tech is 2, Oxford 3, UGA 4). I think that getting students with a 1200+ average is actually really solid and way better than most US schools. And people with a 1200-1300, while many will not gain admission to a top 20</p>
<p>Get over your back door theory, it won’t help the rankings (given you “experience”, I expect your insight to be less shallow and deeper than that). And in reality, the condition of Emory’s facilities are better than a decent amount of top 20s, and the same can be said about the professors. Your concern over the USNWR rankings is a little too much. Did you get what I said? We could improve our rank by not actually improving and don’t think that reflects well on them. All we have to do is get more apps. and a lower admit rate on main campus. Our rank behind ND, Vandy, and Rice have nothing to do with how good our facilities, endowment, and teaching are (I mean, our endowment is higher than the 3 of these, and our facilities are less old, and our teaching is probably as good or better). Those rankings have gotten to the point where they essentially rank the incoming class and this is where Emory struggles. It is not as popular as the other schools, that’s all. Think about the values of incoming students today. They hardly research a school other than its rank/prestige and placement into prestigious professions , greek/party scene, and whether or not it has sports. They don’t care about the different educational environments. I would say Emory not having any D-1 sports or an engineering school (thus those that did care the slightest about programs offered are turned away) hurts it more than having Oxford. Also, consider what happens if we don’t have Oxford, since you care about main campus ranks. Normally the other schools get a lot of applicants that know they have no chance (sometimes they do it through deceptive recruiting). So does Emory. However, without Oxford, I bet those without the confidence to apply would do so. At least they now say, “If I want a good education, I may apply to both and see if I get into one.” The fact that there is another option with a lower threshold attracts another applicant. If you rid of Oxford, you won’t get more applicants on the grounds that students say: “pheww!!! They finally got rid of Oxford, Emory is awesome now!”. To get the USNWR ranking, Emory simply needs to attract more or better students. That’s kind of difficult if Emory sucks at marketing (still does in this age when every top 20 markets viciously), lacks D-1 sports, and engineering, an increasingly popular field of study(due to its profitability). If you are so concerned with the ranking, go talk to the administration and the admissions office about the students they recruit on main campus. I would argue that admissions needs to gain more confidence in who they think they will yield. They don’t aim as high as many of the schools ahead of us in rank. I think its because they fear the yield. However, this sentiment is baseless because enroll has spiked over my 4 years at Emory (my incoming class was 1278 and now most are 1350+), indicating that despite decline and now a stagnation (compared to 2008) of app. numbers enrollment . I would also argue that the enrollment increase is bad because space for certain classes and housing is under pressure now (like sophomore housing situation is becoming quite ambiguous, because, while frosh dorms were built, not much changes occur to sophomore dorms). They should get to the point that they accept less so that the enrollment does not continue to spike. Instead they continue to accept the exact same amount every year, regardless of if app. numbers fall or rise. I think they did this to achieve the goal of expanding the class size and making more revenue. I am sure it is working to some degree and they were probably willing to take a hit in the rankings to achieve it (because “real” institutional progress should come before the rankings). I just say, it’s time to end it because we can’t handle it and too many people are now whining about “precious” (imagine Lord of the Rings), the rankings. But I mean, outside of rankings, be proud of Emory, it needs work but it does offer some unique things that I should have given it credit for earlier. It spearheaded the program where Tibetan monks come to elite schools in the US to study science. This represents an internationalization effort and an effort to keep true to the mission along with adding some interesting flavor to the learning environment at Emory. I could name more, but I definitely appreciate this one. That really helped make Emory’s academic environment more interesting over my 4 year tenure. Unfortunately, the rankings you care about so dearly don’t really measure or care for this type of stuff. Selectivity, endowment, and prestige is it. I think we should be more concerned about the educational experience. The more successful programs, like the aforementioned, that Emory makes, the more likely people will perhaps begin to see a uniqueness or identity of the school and hopefully this will attract better students (like the Chicago effect. Students recognize that, while they don’t offer football or engineering, they are really unique in their way of educating among national universities, and offer a quirky environment of intellectualism). However, Emory does not seem to have a true identity that sets it aparts from others other than its lack of sports and engineering. Emory will have to just be different to attract people in the academic sense and gain an identity. It needs to attract students that actually recognize and like that its environment is different from its peers. </p>
<p>BTW: Georgia does not need a dental school. The demand has decline for dentists which is why the original closed in 1990 and was replaced with a public health school, something that Georgia
increasingly needs.</p>
<p>Also Loridans: It is possible that the undergrad. experience was legit better when you attended as it was more like a liberal arts college than a research university. If it would have hung on to this, it would be more like Chicago today. Given the direction it has gone in trying look exactly like schools that it isn’t really similar to, it is paying the price that’s all. And if you considered your Law Schooling 2nd rate, why are you surprised about the Law Rankings? Even your judgement says that its rank is probably inflated. So you recognize the superficiality of the ranks, but want it anyway, even if the quality is poorer than they indicate? Really?! Come on.</p>
<p>The problem with Oxford isn’t its bad or grade-inflated academics; as many of you have said on here and many Oxford transfers who have taken classes at both Oxford and Emory main campus will tell you, the classes there often involve more work, are more grade deflated, and require more creativity or critical thinking their Emory equivalents (obviously I’m talking mostly intro and intermediate level classes since Oxford doesn’t offer any upper levels). In addition with a smaller class sizes there you generally get more personal attention from the profs. </p>
<p>What makes some Emory main campus students view Oxford as a back door and second rate is not their classes, but their student body. While one’s HS SAT scores and GPA alone won’t define his/her success in college, when those averages are significantly lower at Oxford to the point that they are on par with UGA, the student body there simply won’t be as competent as at Emory. Of course there are some exceptions like Oxford Scholars who would like have gotten into Emory but chose it for the money, or those who just wanted the small class environment. But in general, the result is you are generally putting academically less qualified students with more rigorous academics, which not only will result in very low GPAs for most (many of the Oxford transfers I know have under 3.0 GPAs) but also place those few stellar students at Oxford with a class of mostly less qualified students. So the bottom like for the back door argument is that since admissions theses days at any top 20 including Emory comes down to the fact that not every qualified applicant can be accepted (as there are more qualified applications that spots), someone who was qualified for Emory but rejected could easily have gotten into Oxford. On the other hand, someone who was not qualified for admissions into Emory but was for Oxford can still get an Emory degree.</p>
<p>The solution to this would be to make it such that there aren’t any significant differences between Emory and Oxford’s student body, but whether one chooses one campus or another is merely a matter of personal preference for the class style and living environment. So I would propose that Emory make one universal application instead of separate applications for Emory and Oxford, and hold all applicants to the standards of Emory main campus right now. Once students are admitted, they get to choose which which campus they enroll in for their first two years.</p>
<p>As for increasing rankings in the short run a lot of it will come down to marketing to a wider audience. 34% of students here are from the Southeast (which probably has about 10-15% of the country’s population) so Emory still hasn’t really reached all parts of the country as well. We do have a engineering dual degree program with GA Tech thanks to President Wagner (who is an engineer himself) but that’s only half useful because not everyone wants to spend 5 yrs in undergrad; some just want the engineering degree without the liberal arts education. In the long run though, increasing rankings will have to come from increased endowments which requires putting more alumni in profitable professions, something the Ivies like to do a lot. </p>
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<p>The dental closed after about 1996 not because GA didn’t need more dentists, but because the declining demand for dentistry in the whole country led to decreased enrollment and thus was deemed not financially sustainable. </p>
<p>And keep in mind that pressures to go into higher paying professions among students here (namely medicine, business, and law) often come from their parents who are paying up to $55k per year in tuition and living costs. For their view, such a financial investment isn’t very wise unless their child can make a lot of money in return. Students who are taking out lots of loans are also essentially limited in their career choices by how which professions will allow them to pay back those loans. Therefore students in these situations have a right to be concerned about their future financial situation. I wouldn’t call it obsessed. As for prestige, that shouldn’t be a concern for premed but law students have the right to be concerned since currently about 2/3 of law school graduates can’t even get a real full time, non-temporary, law-related job and since most law firms hire essentially based on school rankings. Many of the students here who choose to pursue less lucrative careers such as getting PhDs or working in the humanities are often those are near full ride scholarships or getting near full need-based financial aid. They and their parents have almost no financial investment in their education, and thus don’t require as high level of returns in the future. But of course your career choice should not prevent you from taking intellectually stimulating courses that fall outside of courses that med school or business school require.</p>
<p>Wow, there are so many holes in the logic being used in a lot of that and this is all I’ll say for now, but I’ll poke one:<br>
Duke has about the same endowment as Emory and is doing extremely well (as in top Ivy well). Georgetown has 1/5 our endowment, and despite its slightly lower rank, is much more reputable. Emory just needs to refocus its efforts and learn how to use its money outside of building more traffic circles.</p>
<p>I was part of Oxford-Emory Class of 2014, the year that they had an acceptance rate of 58% and over-admitted about 200 students. I stayed for only one year.</p>
<p>I didn’t like majority of my class. I’ll first talk about the 50-60% that fit into the majority.</p>
<p>They were cutthroat almost in the literal sense. Metaphorically speaking, they were walking around campus carrying knives and ready to give you a Colombian Necktie any second. (Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little.) They were generally shallow, and loved to play “games” and games. They cared more about getting good grades and being successful and having “friends” than anything else—it was like they established connections and friendships soley for fulfilling their self-interests and goals instead of actually being a real friend. </p>
<p>In the extreme case, there was one guy that was immensely notorious around campus for causing griefs, disturbances, being smelly, and drunk. He decided to run for president (what the hell?) and the host told him IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE AUDIANCE that he’s not allowed to date anyone. As for personal experiences, I was in the second floor of Branham studying in the closed-room when that guy walked in, said “Hi, <my name=”">," pulled out his computer, and started singing loudly non-stop. At first I thought he was doing it for fun and maybe he had a good day, so I waited for 10 minutes, enduring it, and he still kept doing it, so I left. He didn’t stop singing even after I left and closed the door. Maybe he was too into his own world at that moment, I don’t know.</my></p>
<p>On another personal experience, I saw a guy at my lunch table one day wearing a shirt that semed to be inside-out, ‘cause of the stitched letters’ fluffiness. I said to him, “I think your shirt is backwards?” and he replied with, “No. It’s Hebrew, you ■■■■■■. What the hell have you been learning?” and grinned like some self-righteous a-hole. The whole table went silent and stared at him. Fortunately, I was finished with my food so I told them I needed to go study, bid goobye, and left.</p>
<p>I lived in Branham & East (Branham, to be specific) and our newly bought pool table in the first semester was broken and all scratched up by the beginning second semester, also with one broken pool stick taped up and stored in the closet, and another that ended up curved and unuseable, with the tip completely missing. I wonder if the one at DUC in Main has that kind of problem. The one in East Hall at Oxford seemed much more well-treated.</p>
<p>Oh, and most of them in the 50-60% group loved to gossip about other people’s “problems” and “mistakes.” </p>
<p>And most of the Koreans stuck to their own ethnic group and never reached out, and talked in their own language. Probably due to cultural shock and having to adjust and adapt to a completely new environment. They were pretty closed to people from outside of their country.</p>
<hr>
<p>Other than those people, about 20% of my class were nice, had good senses of humor, and solid intellectual depth and curiosity (I was amazed by some of the students in this category). (By the way, for the purposes of the following aspects, I’m not not going to talk about any more negatives.) There was one guy there with unlimited passion in art history—you can give him any painting, symbol, or a short historical narrative, and most of the time he can tell you someting detailed and interesting about it. And there was another guy who wanted to be a lawyer that could outwit you in any legal conversation you stroke with him. You get him talking about it and he could go on and on. He had a clear sense of where he stood, haha.</p>
<p>Volunteer Oxford Coordinators were the best people I met. I remember the first project I went to in a van with a sophmore VOC—she was courageous and determined, you could tell. I ended up volunteering with her every week or so for a whole semester. I was a Volunteer Co-Coordinator (unrelated to her; I worked with another VOC), though, so maybe I’m a little too positive here.</p>
<p>I don’t know much about the PALS except that they were always smiling and helpful. </p>
<p>My classes were all rigorous—all general requirement classes. </p>
<p>My English 185 was the most rigorous, in my opinion: two 250-word analytical essays due every week and a 1,000-1,3000 word paper due every two weeks. Plus all the reading you had to do and a group research presentation. And every single one of them were serious and graded thoroughly. People got every one of their essays marked with red inks, comments, and suggested improvements, and the class average was about a C. And, the funny thing is, I bet she was way more busy than we were with all the grading, and reading our stuff!</p>
<p>General Chemistry I is pretty much the same as other colleges, I think: one lab per week and four tests total throughout the semester, all of which had about 10 multiple choice questions for simple memorization, and the rest application and calculation. And suggested problems that weren’t graded.</p>
<p>I also took European History 1600-present and Art History Renaissance to Present (I don’t remember exactly if those were number-years or era names). The European history professor had an short-answer and essay-based midterm and a final, plus weekly 5-minute in-class short-answer quizzes (to test if you’ve read your stuff), and a final 2,000 (or was it 3,000? I can’t remember exactly) word research essay on an approved topic. Art History was the least rigorous: two 20-multiple choice questions quix per semester, an in-class essay midterm, and an in-class essay final, with four topics given two weeks in advance to study for, with a total of eight by end of semester, and two or three randomly picked on test date to write about. </p>
<p>I also took Intro to Stat, which had some group assignments that we had to do every three weeks that were application-based: we had to design an experiment, collect our data, do the calculations, and write a report. Other than that, three tests spread throughout the semester that had zero multiple choice questions.</p>
<p>Economics 102: Macroeconomics. Midterms and final, with application-based essays and group projects spread throughout the semester, and weekly online interactive assignments.</p>
<p>Beginning Batminton ---- hardest PE class I’ve ever taken; three times harder than those I took before college. He gave us a two-sheet, front-and-back, 14 or 16 point front words, study guide to study for midterm and final, and everything was asked on the exams. 40% of the grade were skill tests: there were about seven tests you had to do: serving, front-low, back-high, soft shot, far shot, or a bunch of something else names I don’t remember that you had to make solid, good shots 9 out of 10 to get a 90% average. To practice for these set of tests, we were assigned a weekly practice homework throughout the semester that we had to do on our own and signed by a staff or a work-study student as proof that we did it. These homeworks were about 20% of our grade.</p>
<p>I can’t remember the other two classes I took right now, but I think you got the idea.</p>
<p>What I liked the most about them was that all of my classes made me think, and think, and think some more, and then think deeper. It never stopped. The sophmores were kind enough at the beginning of Fall to spread around the campus, “Don’t fall behind. Keep up your work.” They were damn serious. Every time you slack off, you’re digging your own grave.</p>
<p>I withdrew from Oxford in Spring of 2011 and got readmitted for Fall 2012, but I’m not sure I wanna go back there again.</p>
<p>Note: if I got a few details wrong, forgive me.</p>
<p>I’m sorry you went through that. It’s fair a fair assessment, but keep in mind that the same things happen on main campus. They are just less visible or more avoidable because the student body and campus are significantly larger. That was just a “welcome to college” experience. Nothing about those incidences or anecdotes were unique to Oxford unfortunately (by the way, the Koreans on main are cliquey as well, extremely in some cases. Not only this. In terms of conditions of equipment and dorms. Have you heard of Harris and Mctier. Let’s not talk about how people get drunk and ruin furniture in newer dorms on main). You will see and experience things out of the norm at places as diverse as either campus and that’s all to it. And also, I find it hard to believe that Oxford students are that cut-throat. If so, there is no need because you don’t have as many grading curves like we do on main campus (though to an average student they are beneficial grading curves, if you are above average, that’s where the cut-throatedness begins). </p>
<p>With general chemistry, I think Oxford’s lab differs from main and that’s what makes it a bit more rigorous. Lab at Emory is a joke and doesn’t prepare a person interested in going into the sciences to do things like present scientific observations or even write scientifically (no lab reports, ever!)
Econ: The workloads in econ courses (especially intro.) at main are generally trivial to non-existent. And the exams are often multiple choice. Business econ. with certain profs. can be pretty rough however. The exams are somewhat difficult and their is a decent workload. In addition, the class is graded on a b-school curve for a core class (as in, grades are distributed so that the average is about a 3.15, much lower than needed to get into B-School. Students taking that class need to make As in everything else). </p>
<p>Either way, you seem as if you were turned off by many of the students, but pleased with the academics. However, even when academics are good, you want an environment where you are comfortable, so you should really think about if you want to return. You might be better off at a larger, more laid back school than either Oxford or Emory.</p>
<p>Can anyone comment on the computer science program at Oxford (or lack thereof). I saw a few classes on the actual Oxford webpage, but was unable to locate one within the course catalogue. I am getting a little worried about my college choice here…</p>
<p>If a class isn’t offered at Oxford, I’d imagine that if your schedule is flexible enough, you may take it on main. But here you go: [Oxford</a> College - Courses Offered](<a href=“http://www.oxford.emory.edu/audiences/current_students/Academic/academic-divisions/natural-sciences-and-mathematics/mathematics-computer-science/courses-offered.dot]Oxford”>http://www.oxford.emory.edu/audiences/current_students/Academic/academic-divisions/natural-sciences-and-mathematics/mathematics-computer-science/courses-offered.dot)</p>
<p>I think you would complete most of the math requirements (and the physics requirement) at Oxford and only a couple of CS requirements there (unless you are willing to take the shuttle to main), and complete the rest of the degree on main campus.</p>