<p>Kenyon College has strong science programs. While most people think of Kenyon as an English school, the science programs are also very good. They recently renovated all of the science buildings (in the last 7 years or so) and the facilities are very nice. There are lots of opportunities to work in labs and gain research experience (starting your first or second year) due to the small number of students in the departments. As a science student, I have received a lot of individual attention, help, and guidance. Also, the largest introductory science class is chemistry with around 40 students (I think it may be one of the largest, if not THE largest class in the school). Since even the introductory classes are small, the professors know every student’s name so there is no way to get lost in the crowd.</p>
<p>When Grinnell renovated its science facilities, it put them all in one building, to increase inter-disciplinary learning and interaction. The facility is brand new (within a few years) and is top-notch. It is named after Robert Noyce, founder of Intel, and a Grinnell grad.</p>
<p>I’ll throw Wesleyan’s name in again, as it has a fairly unique advantage. It is a liberal arts college, yet does have a small PhD program (14 PhDs awarded at the recent commencement). This results in the research opportunities of an LAC (professors relying on undergrads to do actual work, not just clean glassware), but because the professors do have grad students working alongside and during the summer, the research is of the quality one might find at a full-fledged research university.</p>
<p>You get the best of both worlds.</p>
<p>coureur: Yes, the typical definition of an LAC is under-grad only, but the Carnegie Foundation, which is responsible for classifying institutions, has put Wesleyan in the “Baccalaureate College” category (in other words, an LAC, the same as Amherst, Bowdoin, etc.), and it is the only school in this category to offer PhDs. Wesleyan is a fully residential, undergrad focused school, but it runs a small grad program on the side.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure how much official status or authority Carnegie Foundation has to decide these things. It looks all very self-appointed to me. And Wesleyan itself apparently uses a different classification method, because it calls <em>itself</em> a University. I prefer to take Wesleyan’s word over that of the Carnegie people.</p>
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<p>Which could also describe several other Universities - such as Princeton.</p>
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<p>Not to nitpick, but Wesleyan was actually founded as “Wesleyan University” a full 130 years before it ever offered a single graduate program. Similar (or opposite, rather) to Dartmouth College never changing its name to Dartmouth University, Wesleyan jumped the gun and called itself a University when it was actually founded as a college without a single graduate program.</p>
<p>Amherst – the first undergrad college to offer a Neuroscience degree has it all. Williams just opened a new science building a couple of years back. </p>
<p>Can’t go wrong with either.</p>
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<p>You’re right, they jumped the gun, but now the reality has caught up with the name.</p>
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<p>Dartmouth clings to the “college” designation for historical reasons. In the early 1800s the state of New Hampshire tried to seize control of Dartmouth, and they set up a bogus, parallel administration called “Dartmouth University.” The dispute was argued all the way to the US Supreme Court where Dartmouth College won and kept control. So they will always reject the hated “university” name since it recalls their opponent in that unsuccessful take-over.</p>
<p>But no question that Dartmouth is functionally a university. They have a PhD program, an engineering school, a business school, and the third-oldest medical school in the US.</p>
<p>I know it’s been mentioned before, but Carleton has a great science program as well. I believe that it has one of the higher numbers of physics and computer science majors out of all LACs, behind only Harvey Mudd andmaybe one other school (I can’t remember which it was). I’m a potential bio major and the profs I’ve had so far have been great; I’ve also heard great things about the chemistry department, although I haven’t taken Organic Chemistry yet. The majority of people I know are (probably) science majors, and there’s a deent amount of pre-med kids.</p>
<p>The Bio and Environmental study abroad programs are also usually the most popular programs in the school, and are reputed to be phenomenal (I’m going to be studying marine biology in Australia next year, for example).</p>
<p>I think it’s great that coureur thinks Wesleyan is a university in more than name; doubtless, there are many people in Middletown who would be very gratified to know their reputations outside the classroom and studio, have preceded them even to this august forum. :)</p>
<p>However, <em>most</em> people still think of Wesleyan as an LAC just as <em>most</em> people (especially, outside Hanover) still think of Dartmouth as a university.</p>
<p>^^Most people don’t think of Wesleyan as an LAC because most people don’t think of Wesleyan at all. It’s well regarded in academic circles, and I’m sure its alumni love it, but nationally it’s not that prominent.</p>
<p>Grinnell spends an enormous amount of its large endowment on the sciences. It’s like a small LAC with the resources and opportunities of a large university. It also ranks very high in production of PhDs and overall academic rankings. I’d definitely recommend you put it on your list.</p>
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<p>Okay, now you’re just being contentious. First you question the credibility of the Carnegie Foundation to create definitions that don’t sit well with your idea of conventional wisdom; then, you question the very existence of conventional wisdom itself. Maybe, we should stop and call this the Coureur Confidential Forum – the initials could stay the same.</p>
<p>and, besides, I’m not even sure you’re correct in your underlying assumption: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/wesleyan-university/1151552-wesleyan-news-5-23-2011-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/wesleyan-university/1151552-wesleyan-news-5-23-2011-a.html</a></p>
<p>^^Hey, the Carnegie Foundation is as credible as anyone else with a school classification list. But it was stated in another post (#23) that they are some sort of <em>official</em> arbiter of these questions. Who declared them to be the official authority? That’s what I question about Carnegie.</p>
<p>In contrast to whatever factors Carnegie is apparently looking at, one key defining criterion of an LAC that is endlessly promoted and boasted about by LAC boosters here on CC and elsewhere is that they do NOT award PhDs. It’s all about the undergrads and no doctoral or professional degrees are granted - or so we are constantly told. </p>
<p>So my whole point in all this was to put Wesleyan’s relatiively high level of research funding in proper context. It’s leading the LACs. Great. But by at least one key defining characteristic it’s not leading the LACs because it’s really a small university. And that’s great too. I like small universities. But you sort of <em>expect</em> a small, PhD-granting university to have more research funding than a true LAC. And Wesleyan is living up to that expectation.</p>
<p>I’ll add my voice to the chorus about Carleton. The class of 2013 just announced their majors and, again, the sciences and math/CS remain better represented than almost any other non-technical school, LAC or university, in the country. Biology, the Physical Sciences, Math/CS/Stats now EACH represent about 10-15% of a graduating class. Biology is the #1 declared major this year, chemistry #4. The total number of chem, physics and geology majors is typically greater than that seen in schools 3-4 times its size.</p>
<p>PhD productivity remains among the very top few in the country. Carleton was profiled in the Chronicle of Higher Education a few years ago for the support offered women in the sciences, “A Hothouse for Female Scientists”:</p>
<p>apps.carleton.edu/news/assets/10242_Web.pdf</p>
<p>[Voice</a> - Carleton College’s Alumni Magazine](<a href=“http://apps.carleton.edu/voice/2006summer/feature5.php]Voice”>http://apps.carleton.edu/voice/2006summer/feature5.php)</p>
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<p>Coureur, that would make some sense, if you had a cohort group of “small universities” to base that expectation on. Exactly what universities are you comparing Wesleyan with?</p>
<p>^^There are lots of small universities. I’m not the august Carnegie Foundation, so my classifications carry no “official” weight, but I consider a Small University to be a school that has an undergrad enrollment of roughly 5000 (or less) and offers doctoral or professional degrees or both.</p>
<p>Within the category you can further sub-classify by size if you want. At the larger end of the Small University spectrum are schools such as Dartmouth, Princeton, and William and Mary. Mid-sized Small Universities would include schools such as Wesleyan, Univ. of the Pacific, and Butler. And at the small end you find tiny schools like Caltech or Willamette. There are more but you get the idea.</p>
<p>I think you’re being fairly inflexible with your definitions, but to each his (or her) own. Everyone at Wesleyan considers themselves to be attending a liberal arts college, for that’s what it is - an LAC with a small grad program on the side (with no professional schools or separate graduate schools to speak of, just some programs in the sciences and ethnomusicology).</p>
<p>Do you consider Trinity College (CT) to be a university as well? It just awarded 554 bachelor degrees and 42 graduate degrees last Sunday. Wesleyan awarded 719 bachelor degrees and 92 graduate degrees (14 of which were PhDs, and 45 of which were part-time MALS’s).</p>
<p>I think that it’s not the presence of grad programs that distinguishes an LAC from a university, its the ratio. </p>
<p>Edit: Every single school you mentioned has separate graduate schools, except Wesleyan.</p>
<p>Most of the schools you mentioned have undergrad:grad ratios much smaller than Wesleyan. Is this ambiguous? Of course! The presence of a single graduate student does not change an LAC to a university (and many LACs have a smattering of grad students), but you do have to draw the line somewhere. I think when you begin to get into the gray area, you have to ask, how does the school represent itself? Wesleyan considers itself a liberal arts college, so it should be considered as such by others.</p>
<p>Coureur is clearly grasping at straws to prove a point. The University of the Pacific has about 2,000 postdocs and a medical school. I couldn’t find any reference to Butler as a recipient of NSF money. Williamette comes closest to Wesleyan in terms of scale, but, barely registers as a recipient of federal research dollars (400 thousand dollars in FY08). So, even on this preposterous level, Wesleyan is still exceeding expectations.</p>
<p>Going strictly by insitutions pulling in roughly the same amount of federal research money, Wesleyan compares quite well with several <em>bona fide</em> universities or university affiliated faculty, including the CUNY Graduate Center, Fordham, Clark, and Arizona State.</p>
<p>Interestingly, Coureur doesn’t mention Tufts, a fellow NESCAC member, or Bucknell or Colgate (the latter another LAC with graduate students and which has included the phrase “university” in its name since its inception.) Nice job though. It was good for a few giggles. :D</p>
<p>*Arkansas State.</p>
<p>[Best</a> Liberal Arts Colleges - A List of 20 of the Best Liberal Arts Colleges](<a href=“http://collegeapps.about.com/od/collegerankings/tp/20-best-liberal-arts-colleges.htm]Best”>Top 30 Liberal Arts Colleges in the U.S.)</p>