I don’t see “a number of” errors in my rather guarded statements. Maybe one? See below.
It’s a little tricky to get a fix on Cornell’s enrollment, for our purposes, since the university comprises both “endowed divisions” and land-grant divisions. How big is “the Ivy League Cornell”? According to the school’s own figures ([Cornell</a> Factbook - Undergraduate Enrollment](<a href=“http://dpb.cornell.edu/F_Undergraduate_Enrollment.htm]Cornell”>http://dpb.cornell.edu/F_Undergraduate_Enrollment.htm)), Cornell’s “endowed divisions” comprise 8,392 undergraduates (including the school of hotem administration). According to Penn’s own figures ([Penn:</a> Facts and Figures](<a href=“http://www.upenn.edu/about/facts.php]Penn:”>http://www.upenn.edu/about/facts.php)), Penn’s undergraduate enrollment is 10,275. We can quibble about what to count, but I don’t understand how we’d come up with a 4K student spread in Cornell’s favor.
O.K., I’ll take your word that there’s a very high return rate. I certainly was not suggesting that students are lying on the survey. Only that some students may be more likely to return it than others. The bigger point is that, while you’ve raised good questions about the WSJ survey, you have not really replaced one data set that has “issues” with data that does not have its own limitations.<br>
Well, o.k., but this hardly justifies the dismissive tone you seem to take towards other schools (Wellesley, Oberlin). Those colleges seem to do a good job preparing their students for grad school (which is what the OP asked about). If Penn graduates are marching off in droves directly to Wall Street, more power to them.
Again, I think you’ve raised some good issues. The WSJ may have used an inaccurate enrollment figure for Penn; we could quibble about the choice of some of the 15 schools; it counts representation proportional to enrollment, not proportional to applications.</p>
<p>However, I think you are overstating its badness. Representation proportional to enrollment is one view; admit rate proportional to applications is another. Which one makes more sense? That would seem to depend on your purposes. Suppose only a tiny minority of school A’s best students apply to top schools, but have 80% acceptance rate; suppose a broader cross-section of school B applies to top schools, but has a 60% acceptance rate. Which school does a better job of motivating and preparing typical students for advanced study? I think the WSJ and HEDs data - allowing for limitations - do speak well for the performance of some small, relatively obscure LACs. Though more, better data would be nice.</p>
I wasn’t aware that parts of Cornell were Ivy and part were not. I must’ve missed that memo. :rolleyes:</p>
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On the contrary, we don’t know what the OP asked about. There are two possible interpretations.</p>
<p>1) How well do Brown, Dartmouth, and Penn do in placing their students into graduate business programs?
2) What is job placement like for graduates of Brown, Dartmouth, and Penn?</p>
<p>Business school is not like law school, medical school, or even graduate school. Students looking into places like Oberlin don’t need to worry about how well they supposedly “prepare their students for grad school” (or, more accurately, professional school). What they need to worry about is job placement. The average applicant to MBA programs has 5 years of work experience under his/her belt.</p>
<p>Until the WSJ separates the business “feeder school” data from other professional programs, the list is useless for this discussion.</p>
<p>“The Ivy League Cornell” is an expression, apparently semi-facetious, that I’ve seen in some of Ann Coulter’s screeds against Keith Olbermann. KO’s Cornell degree was in Communications (or some such), which apparentlly is hosted outside the “endowed divisions” of the university. It seems that some purists want to distinguish Cornell’s land-grant divisions (ag school etc.) from the “Ivy Leage” Cornell. I have no idea if this means ag school students cannot play on Cornell’s athletic teams, if they have to wear special insignia, a scarlet letter, or what.</p>
<p>Right, the first post was a little vaguely worded.</p>
<p>It is recognized by all there that the various colleges at Cornell have somewhat different focuses, admissions standards and criteria, and applicant pools. However, athletes at the various colleges there all play on the same sports teams, which are in the same league. </p>
<p>For most purposes, eg grad placement. the best reference for you to assess your chances would be by your particular college there, if this information is available. The same is likely true of other multi-college universities as well.</p>
<p>A Cornell Arts & sciences grad is not disadvantaged in applying to law school simply because there are people studying in other colleges there who are in specialized studies and will not be applying to law school. Only 1/3 of its undergrads matriculate to Arts & Sciences.</p>
I don’t think anyone was suggesting that. As I see it, some of us are grappling with a few issues that complicate any attempt to objectively answer the OP’s question (or related questions). Such as, how do you properly adjust the number of placements into grad/law/biz school for the size of each college? If Penn produces ~40 Ph.D.-earners from each graduating class, is that a big number or not compared to peer institutions?</p>
<p>"If Penn produces ~40 Ph.D.-earners from each graduating class, is that a big number or not compared to peer institutions? "</p>
<p>What is the point though?</p>
<p>Is your premise that a Penn grad who actually wants a Phd is somehow disadvantaged in achieving it, vs. had he/ she attended another school, simply because a larger than typical proportion of other students there have different goals than he does and will not be applying to Phd programs? </p>
<p>If the goal is simply to assess the relative overall nature of the student body, to see what proportion you might become pals with or something, that’s ok, but it seems like you’re trying to show someplace else is “better” simply on that basis.</p>
<p>The relevant question is: if you have that goal, and your own set of capabilities, will attending that school help promote your ambitions? to answer this, IMO it simply does not matter much whether other people attending there have different aspirations, or even if other people there are less capable than you are. If dozens of people from Penn are going on to get PhDs, then it seems to me there’s a good chance that you can do it too if you attend there and have the right stuff. A large number have gone down this road from there. Even if a large proportion of others there have a different fate.</p>
<p>The point is, there seems to be too much we don’t know and understand to render clear, confident answers to the OP’s slightly vague question. </p>
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<p>No.</p>
<p>My conclusion at this point is that among top schools, each has some hard-to-document mix of advantages and disadvantages in “grad placement”; the outcome for any individual presumably depends on what s/he makes of the advantages. Though I’d like to see more good data sharing and analysis. Maybe the Common Data Sets for example could say more about post-graduate outcomes. </p>
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<p>I would not put it quite that way, but I don’t think that’s a bad goal. Not to show that someplace is necessarily better in an absolute sense, but as a matter of personal “fit”. The “Ph.D. productivity” numbers for example may help some prospective students distinguish very academic/intellectual from more pre-professional schools (even if they say nothing about individual admissions odds if you choose one school or another).</p>
<p>I don’t believe that a given student’s job prospects will predictably change in an appreciable way based upon which of three peer institutions he/she chooses.</p>