I love Carleton but their econ program is not highly rated as other SLACs. I think Carleton is very distinct from other colleges, but are there any other LACs that come to mind when someone says Carleton? Thanks in advance.
So what goes into the ratings of econ departments at SLACS? If we knew what factors help generate a high rating in whatever list you are looking at, similar programs could be more easily found.
Carleton actually has a strong econ program with highly active faculty. I’ve seen pretty impressive research papers written by Carleton students that look like papers written by grad students at other programs.
BTW, in another post here on CC some commenters have listed top econ programs at universities. In at least one of those programs, students can complete all of their major requirements without being taught by a real tenure track faculty member. But it is listed as a top undergrad program presumably because of the reputation of faculty who only teach grad students.
If an important criteria for a good econ program is the percent of students who go on to PhD programs in economics, then Table 4 near the end of this document rates Carleton as one of the better SLACS. This is from 2006 and hasn’t been updated.
http://www.accessecon.com/pubs/VUECON/vu06-w11.pdf
Of course, you might have other criteria for determining a good program.
This economics department ranking bases its ordering on faculty publishing and states the analysis extends through October 2016:
https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.uslacecon.html
Though Carleton places 33rd above, you should regard the academic excellence of the college in its entirety as you come closer to your final decision.
That said, when I hear Carleton, I’d be likely to think of Oberlin, Grinnell, Kenyon and the NESCACs.
Others that come to mind may simply be those with similar selectivity to that at Carleton. Carleton appears roughly equal in this respect to Vassar and in the vicinity of Wellesley/Hamilton/Barnard and Davidson/Colgate in a recent year.
Scripps should appear with Davidson/Colgate above (see link).
In a sense that may be counter-intuitive to you considering your interests, for a school with a feel similar to that of Carleton, avoid those with a disproportionately high percentage of economics majors (in the teens or higher).
All of the top tier LACs will have good econ departments and will get you into top tier MBA programs and graduate schools for econ.
Rating LAC individual departments by faculty publication is silly - the whole point of an LAC is that the professors are there because teaching is their first priority.
If you love Carleton, go to Carleton. Or look at the other top LACs to see if you like one of them even more.
The Repec ratings cited above are based on the number of articles that professors choose to put on this particular online archiving system. Not every professor takes the time to do this, especially since Google Scholar puts a lot of this info together automatically.
On this, the authors of one such study commented as follows:
“Teaching the latest discoveries in class, supervising student thesis, and preparing students for graduate school are some of the teaching activities that may be enhanced by faculty research.”
(Hartley & Robinson.)
^ usage: theses.
Re #8, the below thread includes a detailed discussion of the strengths and limitations of available analyses of LAC economics departments:
By the benefits of even strict scholarly standards, some departments do appear by analysis to be perennially among the strongest in the nation.
The Philosophical Gourmet website has a great statement about undergrad education that I believe applies more generally across all fields:
*Many faculty at major departments did not do their undergraduate work at institutions with top-ranked PhD programs. The tenured faculty at Michigan, for example, includes folks who did undergraduate work at Wesleyan, Tulane, Oberlin, and John Carroll, among other places. The tenured faculty at Texas includes folks who did undergraduate work at Missouri, Michigan State, and UVA. There are eminent philosophers—who have held or now hold tenured posts at top ten departments—who did their undergraduate work at the University of New Mexico, Queens College (New York), and the University of Pittsburgh. It is possible to get good philosophical training in many undergraduate settings.
High school students interested in philosophy would do best to identify schools that have strong reputations for undergraduate education first. Only then, should they look in to the quality of the philosophy department…In general, when looking at the philosophy department of a liberal arts college or university without a graduate program, you should look at two things. (1) Does the department provide regular offerings in [core philosophical areas]?. You will need courses in most of these areas to be adequately prepared for graduate study, not to mention to get a serious education in philosophy. (2) Where did the faculty earn their PhD? The majority of the faculty at any good department should have earned PhDs from well-ranked programs.*
Your goal when selecting a college is to select a good all-around undergraduate experience; generally, places with strong academics in general will have solid programs in each area. Any ranking of research productivity is going to favor research universities but will ALSO favor colleges with more emphasis on research for faculty. For example, a college like Carleton is a small SLAC likely with a 2/2 load (meaning professors teach 2 classes every semester, which is comparable to a top research university). Other SLACs may have 3/2 or 3/3 loads; the professors may have a lower research output, but that’s because they spend more time teaching and interacting with undergrads!
Also, personally, I don’t think a ranking of research output is really that important for undergrads. Professors may spend more time mentoring students and teaching them the basics of scientific research, which means it takes longer to publish a paper - but is better for you.
However, I think in order to answer the question it’d be useful to know what it is you really like about Carleton. When I think of Carleton I think of other top liberal arts colleges - probably Macalester first, because of geography, but also places like Grinnell, Middlebury, Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, maybe Kenyon, Colorado, and Haverford. What are you looking for?
Regarding The Philosophical Gourmet, I’d say those comments most apply as a relevant caution against making comparisons across categories (i.e., universities to LACs). I wouldn’t say they apply particularly to intra-category analyses, such as that cited in #3.
I agree, but consideration of department strength can reasonably be a factor in this assessment when other aspects appear roughly equivalent.
I think he was trying to make both points - a comparison between LACs and universities and a comparison between elite colleges and non-elite ones. Note that when he made his list of universities that faculty have gone to for undergrad, he listed several of non-elite places (Mizzou, Queens College, John Carroll, Michigan State, University of New Mexico, arguably Pittsburgh) along several places that have reputations as elite places. I think his point is both that you can go to a place that is neither elite nor a research university and still get a great all-around education and go onto to get a PhD. My experience aligns with this; I went to a top 100 but not elite LAC and ended up in a top 10 program in my field, and my colleagues went to college at all kinds of undergrad departments - from very elite ones to regional public universities.
Besides, measuring the strength of an undergrad department is very difficult. Most rankings are for graduate departments, and the same things that are important there are not important for undergrads. The few rankings I’ve seen of undergrad departments take into account things that won’t matter to the average undergrad, like research output of professors or grants won or something. (Even an undergrad who wants to go to grad school doesn’t necessarily need to be concerned about that.) I have yet to see a good ranking that takes into account factors like teaching, mentoring, grants that are explicitly about undergraduate education (like grants to develop a class or purchase new materials for students rather than research grants), or even faculty quality and qualifications, breadth/depth of coursework offered, etc.
Thank you for all your comments!
I do know that basing rank on faculty publishing isn’t an accurate representation of the econ dept.'s strength, which is why I am beginning to reconsider Carleton. Originally, it was low on my list because of the #33 rank, and I also heard from people that Carleton doesn’t have a strong connection to Wall St. (Hmm…Minnesota and NY, I wonder why)
I am looking for a SLAC with a similar feel to Carleton (the people were the friendliest and professors are very invested in providing the best undergrad education for students, as they are ranked #1 for undergrad teaching and I witnessed that first hand when I visited). But I also want to consider a school with stronger ties to Wall St. primarily because I want to go straight into the workforce after college and go for a MBA a few years later. How strong is the alumni connection at Carleton with business?
I am not pursuing a graduate degree in economics.
I’ve also visited Hamilton and their open curriculum and relaxed atmosphere appealed more to me over Colgate’s preppy one, but I am still applying to Colgate.
I considered Grinnell and Oberlin, but the schools are a bit far for me. Yes, Carleton is probably farther, but it’s Carleton! I would go the distance for Carleton.
These schools would merit close consideration @penngirlpending :
Pomona
Amherst
Claremont McKenna
Hamilton
Middlebury
Bates
https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/infographics/top-feeders-mba-programs
Regarding Carleton, they appear as one of just several LACs with a close relationship to Harvard Business School in an undergraduate capacity (along with Amherst, Hamilton, Williams, Wellesley and Grinnell):
If you want to go straight to those crazy competitive Wall Street investment banking/consulting type jobs, the first LACs to look at are Amherst and Williams. They are probably the only two LACs that are considered “targets” for wall street recruiting in the way that the top Ivies, MIT, Stanford and Chicago are.
However, there are many other jobs on wall street (as they say, back office rather than front office) and for those, any of the very good LACs would work - including Carleton.
@ThankYouforHelp that assertion is simply not true. When LinkedIn ranked schools based on where the most Investment Bankers went to school. Amherst was among the top 20, as was Wellesley, and Middlebury. Williams didn’t make the top 25.
Here, it is the pathways of Econ graduates from Carlton