<p>I would like to know more about the numbers in post #17. 1.) Are graduate teaching assistants included in the S/F ratios? 2.) How are large lecture classes with tutorial sections counted? For instance, is a lecture class of 200 counted once in the over 50 category and then multiple times in the under 20 category, if all students are also assigned to small tutorial sections?
I wonder if these numbers actually present a very complete picture of a typical student’s typical experience with class size.</p>
<p>333,
A handful of colleges will play games so tread cautiously, but most play it straight. My understanding is that the TAs are not included as faculty in these counts. A related statistic is the % of classes with TAs. Some colleges will report this, but many do not. Only the LACs are the ones you can be sure about-TAs are very rare there. </p>
<p>Also, my understanding is that discussion sections of larger classes are not included in the class size data. I suggest that you go look at the class size data in any Common Data Set. They break out the Section and Sub-Section data. The Section data is what gets reported to USNWR and other data aggregators.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>1) grad students are not to be included, though there is certainly room for a bit of fuzziness involving the classification of internal abd (all but dissertation) phd candidates who have been hired in a semi-formal teaching capacity. as i stated before, however, graduate STUDENTS are (incorrectly) not being counted in many of the posted s/f ratios and are correctly being counted in others, so its very much an apples to oranges statistic.</p>
<p>2) class size reports are going to depend pretty significantly on how the university codes its courses. </p>
<p>for example…</p>
<p>at one school chem lab might be part of a four credit course with 25 students;
at another there might be a three credit lecture with 500 students and 20 separate one credit labs;
at a third there might be ONLY 20 coded labs (with a required lecture); and
at a fourth there might be a 500 student lecture with 20 lab sub-sections.</p>
<p>the first school would report, say, 20 sections with 25 students;
the second would report a 500 student course and 20 courses with 25 students;
the third might–like the first–report 20 sections with 25 students;
the fourth would report only a 500 student lecture.</p>
<p>of course, the student experience in the last three scenarios is going to be identical and, unless the labs are counted as sub-sections, the school offering a small classroom experience for the course proper isnt seeing much of an advantage over those utilizing a large lecture format. (and before anyone goes there, whether there is an educational advantage is beside the point.)</p>
<p>
Judging by the fact that the OP posted several such ratios and then asked “Did I miss anyone?”, I think that’s exactly what they wanted.</p>
<p>One part of the picture we’re missing here is the enrollment pattern in required and introductory compared to upper-level courses. What’s the average size of Core classes at Chicago and Columbia? What about Calculus, Econ 101, or Organic Chemistry at Michigan or Wisconsin v. Yale or Haverford?</p>
<p>@noimagination: Yes, I’m very happy with the responses. I got what I asked for and more. I had no idea that S/F ratio can lead to such interesting discussions. Post #17 sums it up. I missed Caltech and Princeton, thanks for the responses.</p>
<p>ccc999, my wife who went to Berkeley undergrad graduated after 5 years. She took a year at a partner university abroad whilst she was at the College of Arts & Letters. She graduated from Berkeley with flying colors.</p>
<p>RML,
Did she pay for 4 or 5 years of college?</p>
<p>Number of students per faculty from IPEDS 2008 (US Department of Education)</p>
<p>5 Princeton University
5 Stanford University
6 California Institute of Technology
6 Columbia University in the City of New York
6 Yale University
7 Emory University
7 Harvard University
7 Northwestern University
7 Pomona College
7 Swarthmore College
7 Sweet Briar College
7 Washington and Lee University
7 Wellesley College
7 Williams College
8 Amherst College
8 Bennington College
8 Bowdoin College
8 Claremont McKenna College
8 Connecticut College
8 Dartmouth College
8 Grinnell College
8 Harvey Mudd College
8 Haverford College
8 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
8 Principia College
8 Rice University
8 Smith College
8 Vassar College
8 Washington University in St Louis
8 Whitman College
9 Agnes Scott College
9 Barnard College
9 Bryn Mawr College
9 Carleton College
9 Denison University
9 DePauw University
9 Goucher College
9 Hamilton College
9 Lawrence University
9 Middlebury College
9 Mount Holyoke College
9 Oberlin College
9 Reed College
9 Sarah Lawrence College
9 Southwestern University
9 University of Richmond
9 Vanderbilt University
9 Wabash College
9 Wells College
9 Wesleyan University
9 Willamette University
10 Bates College
10 Beloit College
10 Brown University
10 Bucknell University
10 Clark University
10 Colby College
10 Colgate University
10 Davidson College
10 Dickinson College
10 Drew University
10 Duke University
10 Franklin and Marshall College
10 Hanover College
10 Hollins University
10 Kenyon College
10 Macalester College
10 Millsaps College
10 New College of Florida
10 Occidental College
10 Rhodes College
10 Skidmore College
10 Trinity College
10 Union College
10 Wheaton College
11 Bard College
11 Brandeis University
11 Carnegie Mellon University
11 Centre College
11 College of the Holy Cross
11 Colorado College
11 Cornell University
11 Furman University
11 Georgetown University
11 Gettysburg College
11 Gustavus Adolphus College
11 Hobart William Smith Colleges
11 Hope College
11 Illinois Wesleyan University
11 Johns Hopkins University
11 Lafayette College
11 Mills College
11 Muhlenberg College
11 New York University
11 Pitzer College
11 Randolph-Macon College
11 Scripps College
11 Sewanee: The University of the South
11 Spelman College
11 St Lawrence University
11 St Mary’s College of Maryland
11 The College of Wooster
11 Thomas Aquinas College
11 University of Chicago
11 University of Miami
11 University of Puget Sound
11 University of Southern California
11 Virginia Military Institute
11 Wake Forest University
11 Wheaton College
11 Yeshiva University
12 Albion College
12 Allegheny College
12 Birmingham Southern College
12 Case Western Reserve University
12 College of William and Mary
12 Earlham College
12 Hendrix College
12 Knox College
12 Presbyterian College
12 Southern Methodist University
12 St. Olaf College
12 University of Denver
12 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
12 University of Notre Dame
12 University of Rochester
12 Ursinus College
12 Wofford College
13 American University
13 Augustana College
13 Austin College
13 College of Saint Benedict
13 Fordham University
13 Juniata College
13 Kalamazoo College
13 Lehigh University
13 Ohio Wesleyan University
13 Stevens Institute of Technology
14 Boston College
14 George Washington University
14 Pepperdine University
14 Rutgers University-New Brunswick
14 Saint Johns University
14 Tufts University
14 Tulane University of Louisiana
14 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
14 Worcester Polytechnic Institute
15 Boston University
15 Clemson University
15 Marquette University
15 Purdue University-Main Campus
15 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
15 Saint Louis University-Main Campus
15 Syracuse University
15 Texas A & M University
15 University of Pennsylvania
15 University of Pittsburgh-Pittsburgh Campus
16 Baylor University
16 University of Iowa
17 Miami University-Oxford
17 Michigan State University
17 Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus
17 University of Delaware
17 University of Washington-Seattle Campus
17 Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
18 Auburn University Main Campus
18 Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus
18 Indiana University-Bloomington
18 The University of Texas at Austin
18 University of California-Los Angeles
18 University of Colorado at Boulder
18 University of Georgia
18 University of Maryland-College Park
18 University of Missouri-Columbia
18 University of Virginia-Main Campus
19 Iowa State University
19 Ohio State University-Main Campus
19 University of Connecticut
19 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
19 University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
20 The University of Tennessee
20 University of California-Berkeley
20 University of California-Davis
20 University of Florida
21 SUNY at Binghamton
22 Brigham Young University
22 University of California-Santa Barbara
22 University of Wisconsin-Madison
23 University of California-Irvine
23 University of California-Riverside
24 University of California-San Diego
24 University of California-Santa Cruz</p>
<p>^Definition of student-faculty ratio from US Department of Education:</p>
<p>Variable Description
Student-to-faculty ratio - Total FTE students not in graduate or professional programs divided by total FTE instructional staff not teaching in graduate or professional programs. </p>
<p>Total FTE students is equal to the number of full-time students plus 1/3 the number of part-time students (Fall enrollment component). </p>
<p>Graduate or first-professional students enrolled in graduate or professional programs such as medicine, law, veterinary, dentistry, social work, or public health, in which faculty teach virtually only graduate-level students (often referred to as “stand-alone” or “independent” programs) are excluded from both full-time and part-time counts. </p>
<p>Total FTE instructional staff is equal to the number of full-time instructional staff to 1/3 the number of part-time instructional staff (Human Resource Component, EAP section). </p>
<p>Instructional staff include employees whose primary function/occupational activity is primarily instruction or instruction/research/public service and are not medical school employees. </p>
<p>Instructional staff teaching in graduate or professional programs such as medicine, law, veterinary, dentistry, social work, or public health, in which faculty teach virtually only graduate-level students (often referred to as “stand-alone” or “independent” programs) are excluded from both full-time and part-time counts.</p>
<p>Cal has a 90% graduation rate, Michigan has an 88% graduation rate, UVA has a 93% graduation rate</p>
<p>According to the latest US Dept of Ed statistics (the 6-year rate)</p>
<p>They fluctuate depending on which entering class you are talking about.</p>
<p>That sounds about right. I assume the larger a class is amongst elite universities, the lower the graduation rate.</p>
<p>Size should have nothing to do with graduation rates. That’s why they use percentages.</p>
<p>Grad rates are usually highly correlated with selectivity and wealth/financial aid.</p>
<p>Michigan has one of the better track records among publics when it comes to graduation within 4 years. At Michigan, an additional 18% graduate after 4 years. At Harvard, an additional 10% graduate after 4 years. At Cal, an additional 24% graduate after 4 years. At some publics, the % who graduate after 4 years is 30-40%. </p>
<p>I think there is less financial pressure to graduate “on time” (within 4 years) at publics. By the way, for programs with internships and co-op, “on-time” means 5 years.</p>
<p>I noticed that several of the engineering type schools, like Georgia Tech, tend to have big differences in the 4 v. 6 year graduation rate - something which is very reasonable, considering the higher class loads required for engineering majors.</p>
<p>Good point. Berkeley and Michigan also graduate lots of engineers. UVA not nearly as many. Engineering nearly always takes longer to complete over liberal arts.</p>
<p>another important factor which has not been discussed is the increasing trend for students to take one year to study abroad. My guess is that although some credit is given for the foreign studies, many students might need another year to graduate in order to catch up to the particular requirements of their major.</p>
<p>Pepperdine would be one example of this, with something like 50% of the students studying abroad at one point or another during their undergraduate years.</p>
<p>[Study</a> Abroad | Admission | Pepperdine University](<a href=“http://www.pepperdine.edu/admission/studyabroad/]Study”>http://www.pepperdine.edu/admission/studyabroad/)</p>