The US News Prestige Rankings

College Search & Selection
161

<p>Afan, I am not sure I agree with your simplistic interpretation of awards won and how they relate to the quality of a university. Awards are grandated to fewer than 1% of a university's total student body, and that's in the case of Harvard, whose students have won more awards than any other university. But that does not mean state schools are completely devoid of award winners. UVa has had 60 Rhodes winners. That's more than Penn and Cornell combined. UNC has had 40 Rhodes winners, also more than Cornell or Penn combined. Michigan, Cal and UCLA had 25 Rhodes winners each, more than Cornell or Penn. Even on a per-student basis, those schools all do as well as, if not better than Cornell or Penn. </p>

<p>Cal and Michigan is 2 of just 9 undergraduate US institutions to have produced a Fields medal winners (Stephen Smale). </p>

<p>But like I said, it is ridiculous to judge a university by winners of such awards. If you remove Harvard, Yale and Princeton from the equation, most elite universities have produced between 20 and 60 Rhodes winners and between 15 and 40 Marshall winners...over the last 50+ years. That's an average of 1 student per elite university per year. </p>

<p>As for the percentage of students who go on to earn PhDs, it is hardly a measure of anything. With the exception of the top LACs and a couple of research universities (like MIT, Caltech, Harvard , Princeton and Chicago), only 2-4% of students go on to earn PhDs. Again, it is nonensensical to attempt to interpret anything out of those figures. </p>

<p>"You say : This is not a criticism of the publics. They are great places. But let's keep the facts straight. The average academic preparation of students at the elite privates is higher than at the publics." That is indeed a criticism and such a statement is so ignorant, I actually pity you if you truly believe that.</p>

162

<p>I have to agree with afan. In particularly, I note that, except for the military academies, an unusually low number of Rhodes Scholars came from public schools, especially when normalized for the sizes of the school populations.</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_scholarship#Notable_universities%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhodes_scholarship#Notable_universities&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It's personally sad for me to discover that Berkeley alums have won so few Rhodes Scholarships. Berkeley has won only 21 Rhodes. The last one was Ankur Luthra, whose win was announced in Dec 2002 (and hence joined the Rhodes class of 2003), and before him, the last Berkeley winner won in 1989. Berkeley made a big deal when he won, and it was really happy that he did, because the drought was becoming unbearable. But in the same year that Luthra won 1 for Berkeley, Harvard won 5 (4 undergrads, 1 from Harvard Medical School), </p>

<p><a href="http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/12.12/01-rhodes.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/12.12/01-rhodes.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Heck, it's pretty rare for a year to go by when somebody from Harvard DOESN'T win a Rhodes. </p>

<p>The point is not to sit around talking about Harvard, but rather to highlight the fact that, except for the academies and perhaps Virginia and for some odd reason North Carolina, the public schools don't seem to produce many Rhodes winners. I can understand a school like MIT not winning that many, because the Rhodes competition is heavily weighted towards the liberal arts (due to the weighting of 'literary achievements'), and most MIT students are engineering/CS students. {Look at any Rhodes winners of any year and you will note that rarely are more than 3 or 4 of them engineers or CS majors). But Berkeley and Michigan are schools with very large liberal arts programs. They should be winning plenty of Rhodes just by weight of their sheer size. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.rhodesscholar.org/win.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.rhodesscholar.org/win.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>It's an indication of 2 factors. #1, those public schools simply don't have the student quality that the top privates do. And #2, those public schools just don't prepare their students well for competitions like the Rhodes. Sad but true.</p>

163

<p>
[quote]
Michigan, Cal and UCLA had 25 Rhodes winners each,

[/quote]
</p>

<p>While I can't speak for Michigan or UCLA, Cal has had 21 Rhodes winners. Luthra was the latest one, and was #21 in Cal history. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/12/09_rhodes.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2002/12/09_rhodes.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

164

<p>
[quote]
Michigan, Cal and UCLA had 25 Rhodes winners each, more than Cornell or Penn

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Let's keep our facts straight. As of 1996, Cornell has had 25 Rhodes Scholars. Cornell has won several more since then. For example, in 2003, Cornell won 2, in 2005 another. So that's a total of at least 28. </p>

<p>"[As of 1996] The selection brings ... to 25 the number of Rhodes Scholars at Cornell since 1904"</p>

<p><a href="http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Dec96/Scholars.sfm.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Dec96/Scholars.sfm.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/archives/I/corn434.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.scienceblog.com/community/older/archives/I/corn434.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Dec04/Rhodes.Gibbs.ssl.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Dec04/Rhodes.Gibbs.ssl.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>UCLA has 9 Rhodes Scholars since 1997 (and none since)</p>

<p>"Annette Salmeen, a UCLA honors student majoring in chemistry and the winner of a gold medal in swimming at the 1996 Olympic Games, was named a 1997 Rhodes Scholar. Salmeen, 22, is the ninth UCLA student to be named a Rhodes Scholar "</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ucop.edu/pres/reports/prmar97.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ucop.edu/pres/reports/prmar97.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

165

<p>Re Rhodes: Could be because the folks who go to the state schools in the first place aren't as obsessed with prestige. Also, I think the elite privates are more prone to having committees or offices or vice presidents or whatever whose sole function is to cultivate and groom top students for these awards. The privates are very concerned with getting these awards, because...they are very interested in increasing their prestige,.</p>

<p>Re the use of SATs, if you doubt Alexandre's version, make a few phone calls to admissions offices and prove him wrong.</p>

166

<p>Michigan had 25 Rhodes winners:</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Michigan_alumni%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Michigan_alumni&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Ok, so Cal has 21. </p>

<p>Still, Michigan, UVa, Cal and UNC all have more Rhodes scholars than Cornell and Penn on a per capita basis. If my additions are correct, those 4 publics have 75,000 undergrads and have produced 120 Rhodes scholards. Cornell and Penn have 25,000 undergrads have have produced 25 Rhodes scholars. Seems pretty even to me. </p>

<p>Sakky, you say "It's an indication of 2 factors. #1, those public schools simply don't have the student quality that the top privates do. And #2, those public schools just don't prepare their students well for competitions like the Rhodes. Sad but true.". I would say that publics simply do not encourage or attempt to produce Rhodes scholars as much as the academies and private schools. But as I said above, one should not judge the quality of an institution based on how many of their students win those one-in-a-million awards. At the end of the day, if you take away Harvard, Princeton and Yale, top universities all have roughly the same number of winners.</p>

167

<p>Sakky, I stand corrected, Cornell has produced 25 Rhodes Scholars and Penn 17. But my point stands in that those awards are very rare as it is and one cannot simply look at those awards and try to determine which schools are the best.</p>

168

<p>kazz:</p>

<p>On the subject of how SAT scores are reported, you didn't tell me anything of value. First, you gave two isolated examples, only. Second, those examples indicated what is considered in the admissions process, not what is reported on the common data set.</p>

169

<p>Of for crying out loud, people!!!</p>

<p>NO measurements of how many academic awards are won by students of this or that university are a measure of how "good" this or that university may be. The more talented the student body, the more competitive it will be for those types of awards. In addition, I have worked at two schools that had counselors devoted to helping undergrads win those sorts of awards, making sure (for instance) that Rhodes candidates participated in at least club sports from freshman year.</p>

<p>It's not an apples to apples comparison when the samplings are apples and oranges.</p>

<p>The larger question is, "What assumptions about the 'quality' of the education at a school can be derived from commonly available numbers?" I don't have an answer, but I do have a starting point.</p>

<p>Some useful numbers:</p>

<p>Overall quality of students (since class discussion is more useful when one is exchanging ideas with very bright students) as measured by standardized test scores.</p>

<p>Class sizes (mode, median, mean): Smaller classes promote more class discussion and interaction, and that leads (generally) to deeper learning</p>

<p>Reputation among peer schools: Subjective, but useful, nevertheless.</p>

<p>Size of library: More important than most people think. If you want to find an obscure tome on some New Guinea tribe for anthropology, you are better off looking for it in a library of 6 million books than in a library of 250,000.</p>

<p>If I know those things, I think I can come up with a reasonable decision. There may be other data that are useful.</p>

170

<p>I am not sure if the differences in reporting the SAT scores using best sitting of best combination are worth such a debate. The scores are entirely self-reported and, as the recent example of Middlebury shows, subject to extreme "creativity." The reported scores are WHATEVER the schools want it to be. </p>

<p>For the record, do I believe the scores reported by Michigan to be the exact percentiles of all candidates or enrolled students? Yes, as much as I trust Middlebury's numbers. The very french Bibendum is the first image that comes to mind: <a href="http://www.lindqvist.com/kitSiPub/bilder/20050523160440.gif%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.lindqvist.com/kitSiPub/bilder/20050523160440.gif&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Do I believe that the schools report their SAT in the MOST favorable light, but not exactly the most accurate: absolutely.</p>

171

<p>As a Rhodes candidate this year, I can testify that only Harvard, Yale, and maybe Princeton have the resources to achieve runaway Rhodes success. Columbia had two people handling advising for every student scholarship and fellowship need two years ago. After several disappointing years, they finally split the fellowship and scholarship offices to give Rhodes/Marshall/Fulbright candidates more guidance...since then, Columbia has had lots more Fulbrights. But one person advising the entire student body on all three fellowships, and an office that does not even advertise itself to students, can hardly compete with HY which have an advisor counselling students in each house or residential college from freshman year on.</p>

172

<p>Alexandre,</p>

<p>I really don't believe "using best sitting of best combination" would result a difference of 40 points overall.</p>

<p>First of all, most people improve in both sections upon retake. </p>

<p>Let's consider the following scenarios: (the last is the difference between the two practices)</p>

<ol>
<li>1st time M 700, V 700, 2nd time M 740, V 740 (no difference)</li>
<li>1st time M 700, V 700, 2nd time M 740, V 700 (no difference)</li>
<li>1st time M 700, V 700, 2nd time M 700, V 740 (no difference)</li>
<li>1st time M 700, V 700, 2nd time M 620, V 800 (80 points difference)</li>
<li>1st time M 700, V 700, 2nd time M 800, V 620 (80 points difference)
6 1st time M 700, V 700, 2nd time M 740, V 680 (20 points difference) </li>
<li>1st time M 700, V 700, 2nd time M 700, V 660 (no difference)</li>
<li>1st time M 700, V 700, 2nd time M 660, V 660 (no difference)</li>
</ol>

<p>First of all, for every case of #1/2, we will have to have a case of #4/5 just to result overall difference of 40 points. The thing is #4 and #5 are just much more unlikely than #1/2/3! Most people fall in the first 3 categories. The ones that do see a drop in one of the section are most likely close to case #6, instead of #4/5. But even if ALL applicants are in case 6, the difference is only 20! When most people are in #1, 2, 3, and to lesser extent #6, there have to be difference of much much more than 80 points (like 200/300 points or whatever) for those minority cases to result in a the difference of 40 points in overall average between two different practices. But those cases are EXTREMELY rare. In our example, it's actually numerically impossible since the maximum possible difference between two practices is 100 points the first time score is 1400. :)</p>

173

<p>When it comes to the Fulbright awards, one mentor/advisor can make a world of difference, as checking the stories of Smith or a few of the Claremont schools would reveal--or Brown among the Ivies. A dedicated focus on winning the award--and correctly projecting the recipient countries-- can propel a school from a handful of awards per annum into double digits figures. </p>

<p>For the record, I find the equating of awards such as the Fulbright with the quality of education at a school to be simply preposterous. The success of programs at certain schools simply reflect a desire to allocate the resources to be successful.</p>

174

<p>Wow, a lot to respond to.</p>

<p>First, I never said that these were measures of the "quality of the university". I was careful to say these are indicators of the academic preparation of the undergraduates. If others want to add, "and the amount of support the students receive from the university", I would not disagree. If I assume, without evidence, that students who win these awards are glad they did, then I assume, again without evidence, that they are glad they got the help they did.</p>

<p>I cite the evidence for the "facts" I assert, rather than making a claim and daring anyone to prove me wrong.</p>

<p>How did the comparison of "prestigious scholarships" devolve into a comparison of Rhodes alone? Because this seemed more favorable?</p>

<p>Why was the comparison of Rhodes figures appropriate when it was claimed that the elite publics matched the privates, but became less relevant when facts were cited (with references) disproving this claim? Where did the incorrect figures come from in the first place?</p>

<p>When comparing the elite publics to the elite privates, why eliminate those elite privates with the highest numbers. Isn't this tantamount to conceding the point, and arguing based on a reduced set, selected because they are a reduced set? If we are going to exclude the privates with the highest numbers, then eliminate the top publics and repeat the comparison.</p>

<p>
[quote]
With the exception of the top LACs and a couple of research universities (like MIT, Caltech, Harvard , Princeton and Chicago), only 2-4% of students go on to earn PhDs.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>This is just wrong.
Not true
Factually inaccurate.
Look it up.</p>

<p>Besides, I did not just say "PhD's", I said "advanced degrees", which includes masters and professional degrees. But again, I suppose the number of people who go to medical school "does not matter", because strong academic performance has nothing to do with med school admission.</p>

<p>I gather the results of the Putnam were so lopsided, and well documented, that there was no distortion worth presenting?</p>

<p>I fully agree that the value of a college education to an individual, and the best college for an individual, have very little to do with the numbers we have been debating. That is why I find it puzzling that some people find it so important to inflate/invent numbers that are wrong. If they don't matter, why bother to distort the facts?</p>

<p>It seems the "ignorant" among us are a lot more reliable for accurate facts and figures.</p>

175

<p>Here's a list that was posted on another thread citing at least 100 colleges that send over 5% of its students on to get a PhD.</p>

<p>Academic field: ALL </p>

<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database</p>

<p>Number of Undergraduates: ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database </p>

<p>Percentage of graduates receiving a doctorate degree.
Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period</p>

<p>Note: Includes all NSF doctoral degrees inc. PhD, Divinity, etc., but not M.D. or Law. </p>

<p>1 California Institute of Technology 35.8%
2 Harvey Mudd College 24.7%
3 Swarthmore College 21.1%
4 Reed College 19.9%
5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 18.3%
6 Carleton College 16.8%
7 Bryn Mawr College 15.8%
8 Oberlin College 15.7%
9 University of Chicago 15.3%
10 Yale University 14.5%
11 Princeton University 14.3%
12 Harvard University 14.3%
13 Grinnell College 14.1%
14 Haverford College 13.8%
15 Pomona College 13.8%
16 Rice University 13.1%
17 Williams College 12.7%
18 Amherst College 12.4%
19 Stanford University 11.4%
20 Kalamazoo College 11.3%
21 Wesleyan University 11.0%
22 St John's College (both campus) 10.6%
23 Brown University 10.6%
24 Wellesley College 10.4%
25 Earlham College 10.0%
26 Beloit College 9.6%
27 Lawrence University 9.5%
28 Macalester College 9.3%
29 Cornell University, All Campuses 9.0%
30 Bowdoin College 9.0%
31 Mount Holyoke College 8.9%
32 Smith College 8.9%
33 Vassar College 8.8%
34 Case Western Reserve University 8.7%
35 Johns Hopkins University 8.7%
36 St Olaf College 8.7%
37 Hendrix College 8.7%
38 Hampshire College 8.6%
39 Trinity University 8.5%
40 Knox College 8.5%
41 Duke University 8.5%
42 Occidental College 8.4%
43 University of Rochester 8.3%
44 College of Wooster 8.3%
45 Barnard College 8.3%
46 Bennington College 8.2%
47 Columbia University in the City of New York 8.1%
48 Whitman College 8.0%
49 University of California-Berkeley 7.9%
50 College of William and Mary 7.9%</p>

<p>51 Carnegie Mellon University 7.8%
52 New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology 7.8%
53 Brandeis University 7.7%
54 Dartmouth College 7.6%
55 Wabash College 7.5%
56 Bates College 7.5%
57 Davidson College 7.5%
58 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 7.2%
59 Franklin and Marshall College 7.2%
60 Fisk University 7.1%
61 Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL) 7.1%
62 University of California-San Francisco 6.8%
63 Allegheny College 6.8%
64 Furman University 6.6%
65 University of Pennsylvania 6.5%
66 Washington University 6.5%
67 Bard College 6.5%
68 Northwestern Univ 6.4%
69 Rhodes College 6.4%
70 Agnes Scott College 6.3%
71 Spelman College 6.3%
72 Antioch University, All Campuses 6.2%
73 Kenyon College 6.2%
74 University of Dallas 6.2%
75 Ripon College 6.1%
76 Colorado College 6.1%
77 Bethel College (North Newton, KS) 6.1%
78 Hamilton College 6.0%
79 Goshen College 6.0%
80 Middlebury College 6.0%
81 Erskine College 6.0%
82 University of the South 5.9%
83 University of Michigan at Ann Arbor 5.8%
84 Drew University 5.8%
85 Wake Forest University 5.8%
86 Tougaloo College 5.8%
87 Goucher College 5.8%
88 Chatham College 5.7%
89 Cooper Union 5.7%
90 Alfred University, Main Campus 5.7%
91 Tufts University 5.7%
92 University of California-Santa Cruz 5.6%
93 Colgate University 5.6%
94 Colby College 5.5%
95 Bucknell University 5.4%
96 Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology 5.4%
97 Concordia Teachers College 5.4%
98 University of Virginia, Main Campus 5.4%
99 Sarah Lawrence College 5.3%
100 Southwestern University 5.3% </p>

<p><a href="http://www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/...ch_article.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegenews.org/prebuilt/...ch_article.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

176

<p>Afan, I cannot do the research for all universities, so I will just talk about Michigan, assuming that schools like Cal, UNC, UCLA, UVA, UTA and a couple more state schools have similar statistics. </p>

<p>1) Putnam: This competition has been dominated by Harvard, Caltech, Princeton and MIT, with 5-7 other universities featuring in a supporting role, among them Cal, Cornell, Duke, Michigan, Michigan State, Toronto, Washington University and Waterloo. Do you realize that schools like Dartmouth, Columbia, Penn, Chicago and Yale have never done well in that competition? Those universities all have awesome Math departments and produce some of the best mathematicians. The reason is simple; The Putnam is a tradition. Some universities have traditionally done well in the competition and attracted students who devote a lot of time to preparing for the event. It is not a measure of academic quality. </p>

<p>2) You say that private elites send more students to graduate school than the publics. I am not sure where you got that information from. Roughly 45%-50% of Michigan students go on to earn a graduate degree of some sort (most of those straight out of college). Roughly 25% go to Law school or Medical school and the remaining 20%-25% get MBAs, Masters in Architecture, Engineering, Pharmacy or Dentistry or a PhD. Can you name me many private universities that have more than 50% of their undergrads go on to earn a graduate degree? And those students don't go just anywhere. In fact, roughly 10% of those students end up getting their graduate degrees at one of the University of Michigan's graduate schools. I think we can both agree that Michigan's graduate schools are pretty solid. But Michigan also sends many of its students to other top graduate schools. In fact, another quarter go on to other top 25 graduate programs. In other words, a third of Michigan students who pursue graduate studies do so at elite graduate programs. Just from last year's class of 5,000, close to a thousand Michigan students enrolled into Law school and another 350 enrolled into Medical school. Of the thousand or so who enrolled into Law school, 65 chose Michigan, another 40 chose Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Chicago and NYU and yet another 150 chose top 20 Law schools like UVa, Duke, Georgetown, UCLA, USC, UT-Austin etc...Just so that you get a feel for how many options those students have, top 10 Law schools like NYU, Georgetown, Duke, Penn, Cal have less than a 20% yield rate from successful Michigan applicants. The Medical school and MBA stats aren't as clear, but I know that each year, roughly 50 Michigan students chose to enroll into Michigan's Medical school and another 50 or so chose to enroll into top Medical schools like Penn, Harvard, Washington U, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Columbia, Chicago, Northwestern etc... Also, 50 or so Michigan students chose to enroll into Michigan, and another 100+ Michigan students chose to enroll into top MBA programs like Wharton, Kellogg, Chicago, Columbia, Harvard etc...</p>

<p><a href="http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/detail/0,2034,12364_html_690,00.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.lsa.umich.edu/lsa/detail/0,2034,12364_html_690,00.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.med.umich.edu/medschool/admissions/life/diversity.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.med.umich.edu/medschool/admissions/life/diversity.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I must admit that you were quite right in saying that more than 2%-4% of students at trop universities go on to earn PhDs. But my point stands, there isn't much of a difference between the elites. As I mentioned above, I knew that top LACs, Chicago, MIT, Caltech and Harvard produce many PhDs. However, there isn't much of a difference between Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Michigan, Northwestern and Penn. </p>

<p>At any rate, even if Michigan's numbers weren't that impresive, which clearly isn't the case, one thing is clear. Any of the top state universities will provide a student with unlimited options and opportunities. You make it sound like a student will get more out of an education at a private elite like Penn or Johns Hopkins than at a public elite like UVa or Cal. That is not the case.</p>

177

<p>On quick glance on collegedata, it says that UMichigan has 34% directly go onto grad schools. Private schools it lists as higher than that include MIT (55%), Cal Tech (49%), Cooper Union (48%), JHU (40%). I know I've seen explanations on the Dartmouth and Colgate websites saying ~ 75% and 65%, respectively, eventually go onto grad schools within five years. I don't see what would make Dartmouth any different than any other top 20 private university or Colgate any different than any other top 20 LAC in this respect.</p>

178

<p>I’m sorry…. Since when does PhD production matter….. And why???</p>

179

<p>Other than what Alexandre said, one thing I would like to add for the Putnam is that good coaching can make a world of difference. The Putnam exam isn't a measure of the quality of math classes taught in those schools or how advanced your math level is in the conventional sense. The only prereq for Putnam is just first year calculus. The exam is full of tricky questions that require creativity and unusual intelligence to solve. Most participants can't score anything on most problems--zero is the most common score. If you are somewhat of a genius, you as a freshman can do better than most math majors in their senior year or even some math professors (actually I use "some" just to be more conservative side because I kinda remember the coach at WashU said <em>most</em> professors can't solve them!). The coach at WashU when I was there was one of the leading persons in the field of mathematical physics. A good coach would teach you techniques not learned in any conventional math class. I seriously doubt any introductory calculus class at Harvard would have anything close to what's on Putnam (because most Harvard students will just stare at them cluelessly). Most schools probably don't have faculty member who can solve those problems easily AND volunteer their time to coach at the same time. </p>

<p>Alexandre,
Do you agree with my little analysis that suggests the overall difference between two difference practices you mentioned is likely much less than 40 pts (post #172)?</p>

180

<p>
[quote]
Can you name me many private universities that have more than 50% of their undergrads go on to earn a graduate degree?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Can you name an elite private that does not?
Graduate or professional study is the norm, rather then the exception at these schools.</p>

<p>Consider Harvard
<a href="http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/profiles/studentbody.asp?listing=1022984&ltid=1&intbucketid=%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/profiles/studentbody.asp?listing=1022984&ltid=1&intbucketid=&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Students Going to Law School Upon Graduation: 15%
Students Going to Medical School Upon Graduation: 20%
Students Going to Business School Upon Graduation: 13%
Students Going to Graduate School Upon Graduation: 25%</p>

<p>If you want to exclude HYP, then how about </p>

<p>Brown
<a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/factsandfigures.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Admission/gettoknowus/factsandfigures.html&lt;/a>
"60% of undergraduates pursue graduate or professional study within 5 years.</p>

<p>Within 10 years of graduation, 80% of all students have pursued further education through graduate or professional study."</p>

<p>Or Williams</p>

<p><a href="http://www.williams.edu/admin/provost/ir/as-slide-4.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.williams.edu/admin/provost/ir/as-slide-4.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>
[quote]
You say that private elites send more students to graduate school than the publics

[/quote]

Well, you just saw a list of PhD production, which requires graduate school. </p>

<p>I agree that Putnam does not reflect the general experience of undergraduates. The topic was not "quality of education" but "academic preparation of the student body". Earning recognition in the Putnam is something very few people can do, even with all the coaching in the world. Those people tend to congregate at a small number of elite institutions. Those institutions are overwhelmingly private. These are facts.</p>

<p>PhD production matters a lot to people who want to get PhD's. They want an undergraduate program that is likely to help them succeed in their graduate study. This tends to focus on a particular kind of scholarly emphasis. This type of emphasis is common at the elite schools. If you don't want a graduate or professional degree, then there is no reason to care. However, at the elite schools, most students will end up with an advanced degree.</p>