Private colleges are not immune from this issue. For example, Stanford had issues with enrollment in CS 106A exceeding the size of its largest classroom: CS106A enrollment reaches record high (and this was back in 2012)
Yes, and there are many people I know who equate “has a great (pick your sport) program” with “is a great school”.
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The cut throat reputation mostly comes from biology (pre-meds). EECS is direct admit, so there is no secondary admission to major to compete for. L&S CS does have secondary admission, but based on a pre-set GPA in courses which are not graded on a competitive curve.
My daughter’s best friend from high school is a sophomore EECS major at Berkeley. She is a wonderful, happy, collaborative and smart human being and has found her people there.
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I understand this. There is also competition for internships, jobs etc. Kids can help each other. Or not. UCB CS graduates some 1500 kids a year, L&S and EECS put together. So it is human nature to be unsure about where you will end up. And I am sure per capita opportunities will be more than at, say, Rutgers. Still there could be insecurity given the size of the class, and I hear it manifests itself in less than ideal behavior. People have strong feelings on this issue. I will not offer any further opinion on this.
My anti-TA bias has more to do with being taught by people who were just recently students themselves and who have no wider experience than being a student, now just at a higher level. That said, many full professors can be bad instructors and grad students can be very good at it.
I tend to focus not on LACs, but rather schools that direct most, if not all of their resources towards undergrads.
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I’m talking about schools that have top-line recognizability for being academically elite. My point is that, among the unwashed masses, only a small handful of schools have achieved that kind of Coca Cola and Kleenex level of brand awareness. That’s what that list was about.
I do believe that Duke has approached it, and not necessarily because of its basketball program, about which of course everyone knows, but as an elite academic institution. Let’s face it: they picked a great name to begin with. Vandy has that same ring to it. My position is that Rice doesn’t. That’s just my perception of course.
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@ucbalumnus there are statistics and there is a reality! I dont know any of those UCB economics people who do the salary surveys but I know at least a couple of 2020 graduates who make over 300k already at age 24. They do work really hard for that money though at their hedge funds (90+ hour weeks).
Stanford kids are mostly self taught. The classes are for grading and in most cases someone doing CS106A is way past that class and are just having fun. I would say about 75% of the class is that way and the other 25% actually need the TAs.
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Curious what the names of the firms are
The underlying message is even more disturbing - “unverified” information can boost a contender by 16 spots in the top 20 (let’s call that an 80% increase, based on n=20).
So currently, Columbia’s position is (deservedly) based solely on “verifiable/public/independent” info. That leaves one to wonder how much “boost” is currently built into higher 17 - and where would everyone be ranking on an apples-to-apples comparison? Might some drop back below Columbia again, or not?
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Why isn’t every college’s ranking based on “verifiable/public/independent” data?
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That is true I paid less for D18 at Clemson and D21 at Miami Ohio than I would have at Pitt or PSU. Lots of merit money for OOS students at some public schools. Had cheaper options with UDEL and Bama as well vs. Pitt and PSU.
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Hence the need for preceptorials/recitation sections…
Right. In other words, you don’t have an agenda; rather, you have valid and substantive reasons for your preference.
I don’t know why this, along with class size, is such a touchy point around here, but it is. All else being equal, I want the professor and I want relatively smaller classes. I’m not an inflexible person, nor do I hold that view solely for the sake of justifying what I like or for the nefarious purpose of being critical of the other model. I like what I like in large measure because of those two things. You change this forum to one about high school and nobody disagrees about these things.
I attended a research powerhouse, and I’ve been in a full 900 seat lecture hall with students watching over a monitor in the foyer. It simply isn’t ideal. My experience with TAs, OTOH, wasn’t particularly problematic, and a small few were more approachable, and some even explained things better, than the prof. So of course these aren’t absolutes. The downside to TAs for me was that they came and went, and my relationship with them to a person ended with that course. So, in the major and over a 4 to 5 year period, I got to better know and develop a relationship with faculty more often than I did with TAs.
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Without all the proprietary information, the outcome could be too predictable and static - thus less of a marketable annual product for the publisher.
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I’m with you…class size is important to me too. I had 400 students in my calculus classes. My son had 30. Our experiences were dramatically different.
At the end of the day we all believe that the choices we and our kids made were correct. Most of us made those choices looking at many things besides rankings, if rankings were figured in at all.
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I can honestly say my kids were barely aware of them. If they were to join CC, they would be in shock at the degree to which we all here slice and dice and parse all of the particulars that go into choosing a school.
There was probably some of sense of hierarchy among two of the three (the third truly did not care), but within the category of schools they were considering, they all pulled the trigger based on how they felt when they were on campus. “Can I see myself here or not?”
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All else being equal, I want to be taught by the rockstar lecturer who makes the material crystal clear and can keep me on the edge of my seat, and who wrote the book / invented the thing. If I can have smaller classes too, that’s nice.
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The average person in my parts definitely has never heard of Cal Tech, MIT, and most schools without big time sports.
The Ivy League some have heard of Harvard from movies but they don’t know the rest of the schools.
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It is a bifurcated education market I think. Probably a trifurcated market if you count the community colleges etc.
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