<p>If you have to make a decision, should I pay $60k for this school vs $20k for this school, focus on the strength of the intended major makes a lot more sense and reduce the fuzzy factor. Both of my kids focused on the strength of their majors and the sholarships they receive for the specific school. Never about prestige. It worked out well for them.</p>
<p>“What does matter is the strength of your classmates and the type of academic environment they foster around you through their commitment to education. Wisconsin may have a stronger faculty than Brown but the latter school will have more academically accomplished students with a thirst for learning so you will be inspired to do greater things. That’s why Brown grads do much better in law school, medical school, and PhD admissions than grads of Wisconsin and virtually every other state school.”</p>
<p>Actually UW has far more grads getting PhDs and other grad degrees such as MDs.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13323/nsf13323.pdf”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/infbrief/nsf13323/nsf13323.pdf</a></p>
<p>@ennisthemenace </p>
<p>Brown can afford to be more selective than UW can…</p>
<p>But UW has plenty of stud students and people, as seen by the large research contributions and success in corporate America (currently 12 CEOs of major companies are UW grads).</p>
<p>So UW takes a slightly above average student body and produces greatness.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Brown leads all national universities in the production of hippies.</p>
<p>Hehe</p>
<p>(That said, I am a big fan of Brown University.)</p>
<p>Underrated: University of Massachusetts Lowell</p>
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<p>According to NSF statistics, Wisconsin alumni earned 1881 science and engineering doctorates in 2002-11. Brown earned 1181 science and engineering doctorates in 2002-11. Wisconsin enrolls approximately 28,900 undergrads; Brown enrolls about 6100. So, adjusted for institution size, Brown’s S&E PhD production rate is nearly 3 times larger than Wisconsin’s.</p>
<p>One could argue that from a public policy perspective, Wisconsin contributes more than Brown to the public need for scientists and engineers. That fact may well be under-appreciated on a forum like this. From the perspective of an individual student choosing a college, it may matter more that Brown seems to be much more successful at motivating and preparing individual students to complete PhDs in these fields. </p>
<p>It is fatuous to make such a per capita claim between two very different colleges–one that handpicks from the best students around the world and the other a public in a relatively small midwest state that has to take 75% from instate. Adjusting for size rather than selectivity is ridiculous. </p>
<p>“From the perspective of an individual student choosing a college, it may matter more that Brown seems to be much more successful at motivating and preparing individual students to complete PhDs in these fields.” I think this might be a case of correlation not causation. It wouldn’t surprise me if more students went to Brown with the initial desire to get a PhD compared to Wisconsin.</p>
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<p>However, many colleges much less selective than Brown also have higher PhD production rates than Wisconsin. For that matter, some of them have higher rates than Brown. Based on institutional yield ratios, schools in the top 50 include Reed, Grinnell, Case Western, Hillsdale, Lawrence (a Wisconsin college), Rochester, Hendrix, Brandeis, Beloit (another Wisconsin college), and Earlham, as well as all the Ivies except Penn. Wisconsin does not make the top 50. Keep in mind, too, that 45% of Wisconsin freshmen scored from 700-800 on the SAT-M. 45% of 28,900 Wisconsin undergrads is still more than double the total number of Brown undergrads (13005 v. 6100). </p>
<p>I’ve never seen a study comparing the PhD production rates of (a) students who graduate from highly selective schools with (b) students admitted to similar schools, but who graduate from less selective schools. That might be interesting. I don’t think we can assume that college admission selectivity is the major factor in PhD production rates. Other kinds of selection effects (as well as treatment effects) may come into play.</p>
<p>With regards to USNWR rankings, Brown is pretty underrated. As a politically conservative person, it pains me to say that, but I think their academic programs are pretty good; it’s just that USNWR weights stuff in a way that doesn’t play to Brown’s strengths. </p>
<p>@tk21769:</p>
<p>“I don’t think we can assume that college admission selectivity is the major factor in PhD production rates”</p>
<p>Huh? Why not? There’s a strong correlation between admission selectivity and academic excellence (of the students) and a strong correlation between getting a PhD and academic excellence (of a student). Why then do you doubt a correlation between admission selectivity and PhD production?</p>
<p>Obviously, some schools overperform, so given what we know of the inputs and outputs, we can safely say that Reed and Case are better at producing PhD’s than Brown (and in fact, many of the LACs are known for that), but how can you conclude from the inputs and outputs that Brown is better at producing PhDs than Wisconsin when only a small percentage of the kids who are attending UW-Madison could have gotten in to Brown? </p>
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<p>Of course, selection effect is not always distinguishable from treatment effect. Brown may have a higher rate of PhD production, but can we tell if it is due to better pre-PhD preparation (treatment effect) or due to being more selective at entry (selection effect)? The same goes for other metrics like graduation rates.</p>
<p>Other factors can also influence the PhD production rate. A school with more pre-professional majors and more students choosing them will likely have a lower PhD production rate than a similar school with fewer pre-professional majors and students choosing them. Wisconsin has pre-professional majors like agriculture, architecture, communication/journalism, education, family and consumer sciences, parks and recreation, health professions, and business, totalling about 30% of the bachelor’s degrees granted.</p>
<p>For a given pre-PhD student choosing between school X and Y, with intended major M, the question is, does school X or Y give the student better pre-PhD preparation (or are they approximately equal)? The question may not have an obvious answer if both X and Y have good departments in major M.</p>
<p>Wisconsin also suffers from the USNews methodology: top-20 in ARWU, top-40 in the world in the Times Rep rankings… yet just 41st among national universities according to US News? UW’s academic rep for undergrad is generally in the top 25 in the US… which means that other factors, which have very little to do with quality of teaching/education, are pulling UW south in US News’ Rankings Scripture. The same happens to most state schools.</p>
<p>There’s lies, damn lies, and statistics. Hehe </p>
<p>To my knowledge, ARWU and THE have much more to do with research production than undergraduate education, hence why schools such as Dartmouth and Brown are much lower on those rankings than on USNWR, and hence why a research powerhouse like Wisconsin ranks much higher on the former two than the latter.</p>
<p>Underrated: starting at a community college and then transferring to a four year school to complete one’s bachelor’s degree. This is often a way for students with mediocre high school records to turn themselves around and eventually have more choices of four year schools as junior transfers than they have as frosh.</p>
<p>Very true if they meet two conditions - 1.) the CC is quality and geared toward feeding students into the four-year system, not just providing certificates, 2.) the student is motivated enough to get out of what caused them to screw up HS in the first and doesn’t get pulled down the the less than serious students at the CC.</p>
<p>As they say, YMMV and students should pick their community college with as much care as they would pick their four-year school.</p>
<p>Overrated: Dartmouth (What do they even do in Hanover) </p>
<p>Underrated: State schools. I live in the northeast, where state schools are kind of seen as a last resort. People don’t realize that some state schools (UC Berkeley, UCLA, UMich, UNC) are better than most of the private schools than the kids around here attend. Even our flagship is better than a ton of private schools. </p>
<p>Alas, state schools near the price range of private schools if you’re OOS! (the value is then severely diminished). I would never pay $50k for UCLA instead of say, $60k at a small, strong, private liberal arts college.</p>
<p>Cal, UMich, UVa, UNC, UT-Austin, UCLA, and engineering@UIUC are a steal at in-state rates, however, and CA, MI, VA, NC, MI, and IL add up to a little over a third of the US population.</p>
<p>If you’re outside those states, NMF means half-tuition at USC, and if you’re good, you can get discounts from a bunch of LACs outside the top tier.</p>
<p>@Violet1996:</p>
<p>You go the Dartmouth for the network, not the education.</p>