Do you consider the professors’ qualifications when helping your child deciding which colleges to apply to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Land the helicopter.

It’s a parent’s responsibility to guide their children, and the fact that you’re here on a college forum tells us you are one of the drone.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend with a PhD from Cambridge who teaches at a small private college in the deep south. He and his wife wanted to have a large family and they loved having the opportunity to buy a cheap house where you can walk to work. You never know where someone might choose to teach.

[Anonymous]

SLACs generally have much higher teaching standards of their hires

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend with a PhD from Cambridge who teaches at a small private college in the deep south. He and his wife wanted to have a large family and they loved having the opportunity to buy a cheap house where you can walk to work. You never know where someone might choose to teach.

Why couldn't they have a large family in the UK?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SLACs generally have much higher teaching standards of their hires

Nope. Nice try, though.

[Anonymous]

I wonder if engineering is different. One of my kids friend’s parents advised the kids to consider schools that were not necessarily the highest rank but had top faculty in research that the kids were interested in pursuing. He did this and ended up loving it and getting into a top ranked graduate school for engineering. Did really well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if engineering is different. One of my kids friend’s parents advised the kids to consider schools that were not necessarily the highest rank but had top faculty in research that the kids were interested in pursuing. He did this and ended up loving it and getting into a top ranked graduate school for engineering. Did really well.

Engineering is a different world. The best programs rarely coincide with a US News list of best universities.

[Anonymous]

Nope. Just because you have knowledge doesn't mean you can teach. Doesn't mean you show up to your office hours.

[Anonymous]

huh?

[Anonymous]

Do you mean beyond the PhD? This is not a real question, right? Do you understand how colleges are staffed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For grad school yes, but would not for undergrad. Unless maybe you could pinpoint someone who does high quality research with undergrads in a small department at a slac.

Regarding undergraduate education:

PhDs, even from mediocre universities, generally know way more than they need to in order to teach UNDERGRADUATE courses.

There is so much competition for tenure-track positions that people with doctorates from top universities often end up taking full-time positions at institutions far down in the US News rankings.

All of which just MIGHT start to point towards the unthinkable: of all the differences among undergraduate colleges (weather, size, sports, urban/rural/suburban etc.) could it be that the spectrum of faculty quality is one of the smaller? In other words, what if there is no tangible difference between the folks teaching undergrads at Old Dominion and those teaching undergrads at Colgate? If so, then this hair splitting over the difference in faculty quality between Michigan & UVa, Williams & Middlebury, BC & BU might be really ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a professor and you really shouldn’t. The most famous ones are often very bad teachers, and the best teachers aren’t usually famous. The professors who focus on mentorship are what you want for your student, and that is deeply varied by individual and not by school.

Thank you. Just to share a bit of background — we had some negative experiences with public elementary schools, so we eventually moved our children to private schools. The smaller class sizes allowed for more individual attention, which we really appreciated. However, I’ve still noticed that the quality of teachers can be hit or miss.

The biggest difference between public schools or private schools seems to be the students themselves — families who choose private schools tend to be more engaged in their children’s education (families who genuinely care about their children’s overall development, not just their test scores.) and as a result, the students are generally more well developed and can navigate well (again not just test grades or cramming for no reasons).

I’m wondering if it’s similar in college — that is, the quality of teaching may still vary, but the real difference lies in the students.

This is not even close to what you asked in your original post.

[Anonymous]

If you envision the classroom experience as dependent on both professors and students, then you may be interested in the Princeton Review's survey-based information on this attribute:

Best Colleges for Classroom Experience | The Princeton Review https://share.google/6bwdMGpH0NG47dB3X

[Anonymous]

I think there are two situations that come to mind in which you might look at professors. First, many people on this board care about whether the professor is teaching or whether a TA is teaching. Second, those rare students who know exactly what they want to major in, why, and what they want to do next. Those types of students might consider who they would hope to study with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SLACs generally have much higher teaching standards of their hires

Nope. Nice try, though.

Wrong. SLACs are much more invested in undergraduate teaching than universities. The incentives for excellent teaching at research universities are simply not a priority compared to publishing. Tenure and promotion are never determined by how well one teaches at a research university. Atrociously bad teaching might put someone out of the running (but even then, a superstar researcher might be given a pass on the teaching, unless there's something like a Title IX violation), but in reality mediocre teaching with solid publications (and not pissing off anyone on the P&T committee) are what are required for tenure and promotion at an R1. Superior teaching with mediocre publications will *never* result in the granting of tenure at a research university.
At SLACs, however, the incentives for tenure and promotion are tied to student teaching and student outcomes. There is a huge emphasis on nurturing undergraduates and making sure that students don't slip through the cracks. Excellent students at SLACs are mentored and taken under the wings of observant professors. (At the tippy top SLACs, faculty are also publishing in top journals and winning prestigious grants.)