<p>Keep in mind that Princeton and Caltech has student bodies that are considerably smaller than the other 4 schools in the list. If I'm not mistaken, Harvard's overall enrollment is about 3 times greater than Princeton's and I'm sure the multiple is even greater for Caltech. Don't get me wrong, I completely agree that those six schools are by far and large the best schools for science in America but perhaps there are some small schools that are very strong (not quite as strong as these 6) that are overlooked because of their size?</p>
<p>Thanks interesteddad for the link to the Cech's essay.<br>
My interest is finding good places for undergraduate science education.I found reading the essay much more helpful than looking at more ranking lists!</p>
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I think these 6 universites, and only these 6, are super strong in sciences.
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</p>
<p>That's just silly.</p>
<p>For example, the President of Caltech, David Baltimore, won the Nobel Prize. Both he, and his partner in the Nobel Prize winning research, were chemistry major undergrads at a small liberal arts college.</p>
<p>Datalook, if you look at my orginal rating of top science programs, my Group I had 6 schools, the 6 schools you mention as having the most National Medal Of Science winners. But one must be careful when looking at awards. Those awards are more like a lottery. It's like judging a university by how many CEOs or Nobel Laureates it has produced. It is not a good measuresince less than 1% of the students at any university ever win the Nobel Prize or the National Medal of Science or become CEOs. Some excellent science universities like Duke and Northwestern have never had winners of the National Medal of Science. Some excellent science programs like Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Penn, UCLA and UCSD have only had 5-7 winners. A better measure of how good a science program is to look at what the bulk of the students accomplish, be it in the professional or academic world. I believe that the top 6 science programs would still be the same ones as my Group I universities...which happen to have produced the most National Medal of Science winners...but it is not an absolute measure.</p>
<p>Quote: "A better measure of how good a science program is to look at what the bulk of the students accomplish, be it in the professional or academic world. "</p>
<p>I agree with Alexandre. You can not use the PHD production rate to measure the quality of an undergraduate science program. This only measures the "academic" world. Many students at institutions with excellent science programs will decide to become professionals without even considering a PHD. Some of the best science students may pursue careers immediately upon graduation from an undergraduate program, and many more will pursue degrees such as MD's, DVM's, DDS's, etc.</p>
<p>"Which school is best in science..." that's nearly impossible to quantify, especially at the undergraduate level. The sciences are the one field where the quality of the faculty really does trickle down to the the student because it is so hands on. Any student seriously interested in the sciences will be conducting research, and big schools with big budgets (reserach universities) tend to attract the best scholars (before anyone argues with me, realize it's a monetary issue...labs can cost millions to run and most LAC's don't have the capital to provide these start up funds). Someone earlier said faculty quality really isn't that important because you will never work/see these people...that's just wrong. Big labs work on a heirarchical system with the Principle Investigator (the professor) at the top, a handful of post-docs, an army of graduate students, and for each grad student, usually an undergrad or two. It's the role of the grad students to do most of the hands on training of the undergrads, but the professor/PI is always lurking around and acts as an advisor to these undergrads. Also, you will constantly see your PI at lab meetings (usually weekly) and they can help fund trips to academic meetings (and write you great letters of rec). Lastly, you won't get into a lab without a little initiative (initiative goes a long way in the sciences) and the really good professor like to see that in students...so don't be afraid to write an email, or two, or three until a professor agrees to meet with you...but I digress.</p>
<p>I think the best way to quantify the quality of a department in the sciences is by looking at the number of publications on a per author basis, as well as the impact rating of the journals they publish in and how often those papers are cited (there are lots of crap journals and crap papers as you will all soon find out...not everyone publishes in Science and Nature). Using the National Academy as a predictor has one major flaw...it's an extremeley political organization. That's not to say that Academy members aren't the best of the best...they are, but many deserving researchers will never get in simply because of grudges and beefs with their colleagues (scientists usually have really big egos). The problem with looking at the amount of federal aid is that bigger schools, in general, get more money. Furthermore, schools with big medical programs will always get more research funding from the government. </p>
<p>Anyway, I'll see if I can dig up some interesting sites that show the publication quality of faculty at different universities in different fields. There are some really interesting finds. For instance, in my field--ecology and evolution--UC Riverside has more publications per faculty member in high impact journals than any of the other UC's.</p>
<p>Alright...just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>cheers,
CU grad</p>
<p>here's an interesting site on journal impact ratings for about 30 fields in the sciences, as well as authors and universities publishing in high impact journals...</p>
<p>cheers,
CUgrad</p>
<p><a href="http://www.sciencegateway.org/rank/%5B/url%5D">http://www.sciencegateway.org/rank/</a></p>