<p>I thought you said this stuff didn’t matter…now you’re asking for a source? Link to wikipedia Nobels by university affiliation…</p>
<p>I agree with those who say that Nobel Prizes do not determine quality. CMU is excellent in Economics, but it is not in the same league as Northwestern or Penn. The latter two combined have fewer Econ Nobel Laureates than CMU.</p>
<p>I have never understood why economics has nobel prizes. They are absolutely useless except for some reason the winners are put on a pedestal and write crap for newspapers and journals. There is one who writes absolute non-sense for NYT.</p>
<p>"Economics was not on Nobel’s original list of prize disciplines. The Bank of Sweden created it in 1969. Although governed by the same rules as the others, this prize was criticized by many, including members of the Nobel Family, for violating Nobel’s intent. As of 2010, faculty of the University of Chicago had garnered nine Prizes—far more than any other university. "</p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize_controversies</a></p>
<p>Leave it to a bank to make up a nobel prize for economics.</p>
<p>Apparently, Chicago’s 26 prizes are not all for economics.</p>
<p>^ Krugman?</p>
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<p>This is a peculiarly American quirk, nobody else attempts to measure a university’s quality by the number of Nobel laureates it has. The reason American universities do this is obvious, it is good PR and raises the profile of the institution without having to spend any money. A more pressing question is why do American students fall for it?</p>
<p>Having a Nobel laureate in one’s faculty makes zero difference to quality of education and instruction undergraduate students receive. Nor will it have any real effect on the faculty - your assertion that academics are attracted by the presence of laureates is ridiculous. Faculty research interests, position in department and salary - this is what academics care about; they certainly wouldn’t move just to be in a department with a Nobel laureate.</p>
<p>Students do not do high level research as an undergraduate; this is another American higher education myth. What research do they do? What makes it high level? Where is it published and it is peer reviewed? As for recommendation letters, that again is unique only to America so why are you using that to justify truth123’s perverse ranking list (which included three British universities).</p>
<p>How on earth did truth12 come up with this table? He says Cambridge only has nine (the Cambridge website also says that); but if you were to include everyone affiliated with the university like he says he did, the real number is 12. Oxford has 10. LSE has 13. Harvard has 16. Stanford has 13. Princeton only has 2 which weren’t also shared with other universities. And only 6 of Harvard’s 16 Nobel laureates were academic staff. This table is bogus.</p>
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<p>You really ought to make an effort to read better. I wrote that an 18 years old should be more interested in finding out who will be his teachers. In a continuation of that line, I cannot see any links between that and this list at it seems to have little to no verifiable sources nor links to Economics, and this despite its title. </p>
<p>Entire BS comes to mind. Fwiw, UCB, you might want to help out 123 with some facts about Cal’s Nobel “affiliates” … Preferably if still living or active.</p>
<p>^ You also wrote:
“And, for the occasional silly ranking on CC!” </p>
<p>That’s where I got the general impression of your interest.</p>
<p>Dionysus,</p>
<p>You really don’t know what you are talking about, but that doesn’t stop you from stating it with absolute certainty. So very typical of many comments appearing on CC.</p>
<p>My assertion that academics are attracted to the presence of Nobel (or Fields) laureates is anything but ridiculous! Excellence attracts excellence. You may not believe it, but what academics want the most from a research-intensive university is an intellectually stimulating environment provided by other outstanding colleagues. And people at the very top of their field, such as Nobel laureates, help create this. They are the magnet. Their presence also attracts the very best graduate students and postdocs, essential ingredients for productive research. Finally, strong departments, and departments with several Nobel laureates usually are very strong, tend to pay their faculty extremely well - in order to attract and keep the academic stars. So it’s all connected.</p>
<p>Your other statement that undergraduates do not do high-level research is equally misguided and wrong. I don’t know which school you attend, but at NYU and other major research universities the undergraduates are regularly co-authors of papers published in top scientific journals, with stringent acceptance standards, especially in natural sciences and math. The best of them spend ~two years working intensely in the research groups lead by the faculty.</p>
<p>Please inform yourself before making another contribution.</p>
<p>There’s really nothing else for me to say other than you’re still wrong. I could spend ten minutes writing another post, contradict you some more and say you’re talking rubbish but I would just be repeating myself. Join me in the real world when you can, okay?</p>
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<p>Well, one can claim the information to be irrelevant and silly at the same time as stating there are better elements for an 18 years old to evaluate when selecting a school.</p>
<p>Why do I have the feeling you understand perfectly what I have written so far, but love to play games and pushing buttons? </p>
<p>Fwiw, I believe you have presented much better arguments in support of Cal in the past.</p>
<p>By the way, while I hardly share the romantic views of atnyu regarding the collaboration of undergraduates with the prominent faculty at NYU (or anywhere else for that matter) one has to admit that the syllabus of Thomas Sargent is a masterpiece. It is also a looong download as the HANDWRITTEN notes total 432 pages.</p>
<p><a href=“https://files.nyu.edu/ts43/public/teaching/NYU_course_all_2011.pdf[/url]”>https://files.nyu.edu/ts43/public/teaching/NYU_course_all_2011.pdf</a></p>
<p>So, here’s a tip of the hat to a … Cal alum. And one who does teach UGs. </p>
<p>PS Take note of that compliment, UCB!</p>
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You are wrong there. These Nobel laureates are paid well.</p>
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That wasn’t my contention. You called the rankings silly and then later asked the OP for a source to the data. </p>
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I do understand, but sometimes it takes a couple reads of your posts to pick up on all your nuances. </p>
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I agree. And I did notice your compliment.</p>
<p>If this will help those who are seeking Nobel laureate professors, Chapman University has a Nobel laureate professor who also teaches UG in Economics.</p>
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<p>I agree as well. But perhaps the # of nobel prizes a university has can give some indication of the quality of the program. Nobel prizes are typically won by top faculty. Top graduate students and future top faculty want to work with established top faculty as well. And this cycle continues on and on. This, for example can be seen with Terrance Tao at UCLA. He recently won the Fields medal, and had, i believe, the top graduate student in number theory come to work with him.</p>
<p>I think it’s hardly coincidental that MIT has a top linguistics program and that it’s associated with Noam Chomsky; or that Berkeley’s philosophy program has a strong Continental philosophy focus, and it was associated with Foucault; Or that UCLA’s philosophy program is associated heavily with philosophy of language. That’s due, no doubt, to having many eminent philosophers of language on its faculty including Rudolph Carnap, David Kaplan, Keith Donnellan, Kit Fine, and so on. Even UCLA’s current strong subprogram of philosophy of mind is probably due in a large part to having Tyler Burge on its faculty. (who i expect to win the Schock prize soon.)</p>
<p>So, like i said, i don’t disagree with you. But i don’t think it’s a coincidence that Johns Hopkins is strongly known for being a pre-med school, and it has like 16 nobel prize winners on its faculty in medicine. (nearly 45% of all of its nobel prizes.)</p>
<p>Nobody has been able to show that a higher number of Nobel or top-ranked departments translates to better undergraduate research experience. Furthermore, some schools that appear on this list haven’t been doing great in terms of producing Fulbright or Goldwater winners. While it’s also debatable whether they are indicative of undergrad research, I’d think the relationship between Nobel and undergrad research is more tenuous. </p>
<p>[Barry</a> M. Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Program: 2011 Goldwater Scholars](<a href=“http://www.act.org/goldwater/sch-2012.html]Barry”>http://www.act.org/goldwater/sch-2012.html)
[Top</a> Producers of U.S. Fulbright Students by Type of Institution, 2011-12 - International - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“Top Producers of U.S. Fulbright Students by Type of Institution, 2011-12”>Top Producers of U.S. Fulbright Students by Type of Institution, 2011-12)</p>
<p>Rankings alone would not mean much if the schools don’t have strong support system for undergrad research and if it’s difficult for students to know professors well.</p>
<p>^ In other words, Northwestern doesn’t do well in this measure, so I’m gonna talk about availability of undergrad research instead.</p>
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<p>Actually, i retract my OP. I think this forum is filled with both types actually. Two UCB’s, for example (ChemEGrad and alumnus), couldn’t be more different on their focus. The former is a die hard for his alma mater; the latter is much more focused on helping undergraduates.</p>
<p>Yeah, upon reflection, this forum has several types of people that frequent it. People interested in LACs, People interested in research universities, and people interested in helping students in their college search. What i think all have in common is their interest in college’s prestige. The third group (respectively,) i think, is specifically focused on guiding undergraduates away from thinking that the prestige of their universities will determine their life prospects. And guiding them towards financially feasible universities.</p>
<p>UCB,</p>
<p>Northwestern is ranked #8 in economics according to USN and just got a Nobel winner last year. It’s not like I am doing Northwestern any favor by telling people to look beyond department rankings.</p>
<p>Chicago lists 5 Nobel prize winning economists on the current faculty.
3 of these have appointments to the College (James Heckman, Robert Lucas, and Roger Myerson). I was able to find 3 undergraduate courses in the current online catalog taught by Nobel laureates.</p>
<p>At least 3 John Bates Clark medalists are current faculty (Kevin Murphy, Steven Levitt, and James Heckman). Steven Levitt is a co-author of Freakonomics, a John Bates Clark medal winner, and also a winner of the Quantrell award (Chicago’s highest recognition for excellence in undergraduate teaching.)</p>
<p>I count 26 economists on Chicago’s undergraduate faculty (not including emeritus professors). I wonder if any other school has a higher percentage of Nobel and JBC economists among current undergraduate faculty?</p>
<p>Pay attention to average class sizes (and other indicators of student-faculty engagement, if you can find them). Approximately 78% of Chicago’s classes have fewer than 20 students. Only 4.7% have 50 or more, which I believe is the smallest percentage of any major research university.</p>