If I get accepted to emory oxford, I am pretty sure I will go there. However, I am slightly worried because I’ve heard that Emory students think of Oxford as a backdoor. If you are currently attending the main campus, do you know how the main campus people usually think about Oxford? Do oxford students get along with main campus students?
@atlantatata It’s well known on the two campuses that Emory College students regard their Oxford counterparts as extremely sexy and charismatic.
My daughter is on the Oxford campus with friends from her hs on main campus. Once you are accepted, I think the “back door” thing doesn’t come in to play - you are all going to be classmates together junior year so it is assumed you are up to the task. If anything, the stereotype seems to be that Oxford students tend to be more studious and often hold more leadership positions than main campus students.
@chemmchimney Oxford College has a reputation for being more academically challenging than Emory College.
Just compare the writing/research loads in Oxford’s INQ courses - whether in the natural sciences or liberal arts - to give one example. There is also an absence of curve based grading, which can be particularly brutal in the natural science courses where you have to average a 93 or 95 to get an A and the class average is in the 70s or lower.
Oxford’s smaller campus does make it easier to get involved in the school community.
So @chemmchimney both stereotypes are true.
@BiffBrown : I think minus the INQ style courses, the natural sciences are more reminiscent of schools like say, Vanderbilt where the vast majority of students take teachers that just write the exams so that they come out to a high 70/low 80 average, so that there is no need for a curve. Even in INQ classes (or Oxford courses in general), it looks like if they were to give a difficult exam, the grade would be buffered by many other assignments, something not true on main campus, hence the use of a curve by most instructors who do choose to give challenging exams. With that said, the higher graded workload of courses does mean that more time on task is required in an Oxford course. Smaller classes make this possible. It seems like they learn more in introductory courses though (no surprise, the elite LACs typically run intro natural sciences courses like it as well and it obviously has impact as the SLACs produce a disproportionate amount of STEM PhDs).
Apparently math and physics at Oxford on the other hand, are lot more serious (as opposed to just different) than main campus.
“Apparently math and physics at Oxford on the other hand, are lot more serious (as opposed to just different) than main campus.”
Why do you say this?
@BiffBrown : For less quantitative subjects, you can only do but so much to be rigorous in an intro. course, but you can technically do a lot more in a math or physics class, especially in a small classroom setting. For example, the physics professor there runs both a 140/150 and tends to give a set of regular problems (like web assign) along with much longer problems (that can take a week). I have heard the same about math classes, especially beyond calculus 1 or so. Many more teachers getting creative with teaching there. Main’s math department has super high enrollment and serves too many joint majors and other sciences so they have to employ graduate students more heavily in addition to visiting professors ( this to proliferates as a solution to high enrollments). Main campus really only “serves” the majors outside of the core (linear algebra, Diff. Eq., multi, foundations). Oxford, as an LAC type campus doesn’t have to really serve any constituent (department/pre-profession) so it makes sense to see many more instructors taking more liberties. Also, students are just less likely to resist if a) there is only one option (instructor) and/or b) it isn’t some requirement for their joint major. Instructors (in math, graduate students and research faculty for most part) on main do not have time to deal with possible resistance to rigorous demands. Main gets rigorous natural science instructors due to the strength of the lecture track in them (most rigorous instructors are lecturers on main).
In physics(where I think maybe only Bing and the astronomy instructor are lecturers) and math, lecturers are not as powerful and have an extremely heavy teaching load, which isn’t really a problem until the courses they teach are hardly related to each other (like you may see a lecturer teaching 2-3 sections of a core course another section of a core course, and some upper division electives). Emory main campus is not the only one like this. Other schools (even elites) with extremely high enrollment in math have a similar thing going on… Physics on main is nothing like life sciences as it hardly has any majors relative to it so the lower divisions, including the calc. based course are really just service courses that they water down. The return on making them rigorous and stimulating is pretty low (whereas chemistry instructors that run a more challenging courses may convince some to join the major).
A lot of calculus and politics goes into determining the level of freedom given to teachers in certain departments.