<p>I’m a physical scientist at Brown. There’s not a single piece of equipment that anyone I know has ever needed that is not available at Brown. There are some kinds of research we don’t have professors dong because of the nature of that research, for instance, we don’t have a powerhouse organic synthesis team at Brown because that requires 30+ graduate students in a single group and we don’t operate on that size, however, in terms of physical equipment-- we have all of it. The notion that there are rooms and devices missing which stop research from being productive at places like Brown is a RIDICULOUS notion typically passed from person to person who does not do science or has never been on campus.</p>
<p>What we do, we do extremely well without any equipment limitations. I’ve never opened a paper and read about some kind of research and said, “We can’t run this experiment because we don’t have X.”</p>
<p>The equipment issue is a strawman.</p>
<p>Example-- new professor is being courted by Brown, she does research that requires her own mass spec equipment that’s more sensitive than the one we own for everyone in the building to use. Brown chipped in over half the cost to buy a new one specifically for her (not including they normal money given to a professor to start their lab when they’re hired).</p>
<p>I like this definition of “elite” for purposes of this discussion. Let’s not let magazine editors in one city define forever the list of elite colleges for all places. In the place where you live, among the people you know, what colleges are impressive? </p>
<p>Here, among my circle of friends, the impressive college list would certainly include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, and a few others. Some are part of the eight colleges in the Ivy League sports conference </p>
<p>and some are not. Among liberal arts colleges, Carleton and Macalester are definitely impressive here, and I think most local people understand that Carleton would be the more impressive of those two elsewhere.</p>
<p>That definition isn’t bad, but as you demonstrated, it has huge local biases associated with it so it would make asking this question about the nation’s elite colleges impossible to answer.</p>
<p>That’s a conclusion that should be mulled over by the elite obsessed CCers-- elite, by that definition, is very different based on locality even within the US.</p>
<p>What all this shows is there is no universal definition of an elite college.</p>
<p>Even among the educated in NY and CA, Carleton and Macalester draw blank stares.</p>
<p>And while Berkeley is better know than many far more selective schools globally, one look at it’s admitted student stats vs. enrolled student’s stats shows you many of CA’s top students are headed to what they consider more elite colleges.</p>
<p>Top students in the States clamor for Brown and Dartmouth while they are unknown outside of small circles internationally.</p>
<p>Williams and Amherst are very top picks at elite East Coast prep schools and unknown at many strong public high schools.</p>
<p>Deep Springs, probably the hardest to get into of all, is unknown to 99.99999%.</p>
<p>So elite, simply, is in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>What is that suppose to mean? Johns Hopkins is considered elite in the world of medicine, that’s for sure. As a future doctor/health care administrator, all I care about is what my physician peers and professional colleagues think, not some joe smoe off the street that doesn’t even know how to spell “Johns Hopkins” properly. For my intended career profession, Hopkins arguably one of the top choices, so why not attend a school known to be a leader in it’s field. It’s more important than prestige overall because who cares about the reputation and ranking of the other 49 other majors and departments on campus… They are probably irrelevant to what you’ll do in the future.</p>
<p>You wouldn’t read about it because no one in their right mind continue that kind of research knowing its limitation. Also, because there aren’t professors or students doing research, the ones available are mostly fluff and usually a replication of a previous published research. This isn’t the chicken or the sex problem. It’s as simple as the school isn’t capable of churning out cutting edge researches.</p>
There are many organic synthesis groups all over the country doing research that has that kind of limitation.
That second line isn’t a sentence. And, what I think you’re saying, is utter nonsense. I was not referring to reading research papers written by people at Brown pointing out those limitations, I am talking about research papers I’ve read from other researchers. All of those experiments Brown has the equipment to run.
What is your area of expertise? Have you graduated from college yet? I ask because if you’re a prefrosh, and I suspect you are, you’re talking from a position where you do not have the ability to define what is cutting edge or quality research. As someone graduating with a degree in chemistry from Brown in a little less than two months who has taken almost all of the graduate material required for a master’s, I’m pretty sure that I know a little something about research. I’ve been doing original science research for seven years, and started my path down a career in science by placing extremely well in a national science research competition. In fact, this weekend I’m writing my thesis and have poured over no less than 100 articles across three or four disciplines. None of the experiments in any of these articles were beyond the capability of Brown research. Our continued production of cutting edge research flies in the face of your comments. We aren’t a powerhouse churning out cutting edge papers weekly because our pace is slower because more attention and focus is given to undergraduate education here and because we have higher dependency on undergraduate researchers who cannot make the time commitment graduate students do. But the actual quality of research at Brown is quite high, and beyond that, the equipment is FAR from the limiting factor here.</p>
<p>That’s the strawman-- that equipment has somehow hindered the ability for these places to churn out research. It’s nonsense. It’s simply human capital-- we don’t have as many bodies in laboratories whose singular focus is research.</p>
<p>I’d say the only truly elite American schools in my humble opinion, are HYPSM. No more, no less. Some colleges may have excellent facilities, others may have a rare student body, but none of the other colleges outside my group measure up to my definition of having both.</p>
<p>My nonsensical 2 lines post elicited quite a lengthy response. I win.<br>
So tell me, modestmelody, how many published papers have you had?
My sister had 2 in bio journal by the time she graduated from Berkeley. I doubt you had any despite having taken most of the requirements for the master’s & done researches for the past 7 years.</p>
<p>My research has been across two labs and I’ve only worked at this lab for the last 2. Had I stayed to do research last summer, we’d be at the point to publish this year. As of right now, it’s almost there but research is not predictable and the current results are slightly muddled. Working on my own project which is entirely undergraduate run makes gaining momentum a bit harder. We started our work in such a new area that neither of the two labs had any grant money dedicated to this research. The result of our research has led to an NSF grant and if the next few weeks go well before I graduated, I’ll have two publishable papers out of what I’ve done. If the results go another way, it’ll probably be six months of work that the next student does to bring us to the point of publishing.</p>
<p>I’m not assisting a few people on a few different projects, nor did I walk into a well-established project, rather, this is a brand new interdisciplinary research collaboration between a new professor at Brown in plant genetics and my professor in organic chemistry. It’s impossible to compare this situation to some others. Many of my friends are published and will be published.</p>
<p>middsmith, you clearly don’t know jack so I really shouldn’t debate you, but if you want to question the quality of education and preparation at these schools, then I’ll ask you this:</p>
<p>How come LACs produce far more PhDs than these supposed elite schools from their undergraduate classes? How come everyone I know who does chemistry at Brown and wants to go to graduate school has gotten into places like Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, Illinois, and UW-Madison (powerhouses for chemistry research)? Do these so-called super elite research centers accept students they don’t think are extremely well prepared?</p>
<p>modestmelody, it’s really not worth arguing about. If you’re relaxing after writing your thesis, as I am, nothing should bother you. I visited Brown recently for grad school and quite liked the GCB…just a suggestion! ;)</p>