What’s the educational difference between a highly-rated college and a good one?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Taught at William and Mary and faculty there get a lot more training in teaching, how to give good feedback on essays,how to help students improve their writing, etc. This is something that you don't see at a Research University.

My kids are all at SLACS and they have opportunities like the chance to attend a job talk and give input into department hiring decisions. At a research university, these activities are for grad students, not undergrad students.
THere are more undergraduate research opportunities, and funding for undergrad research usually. MacAlester has some huge percent of students getting NSF grants for grad school because so many of them co-author with faculty. Very unusual for undergraduates. We toured one college where they had a boat that natural resource majors used to gather samples, etc. Not sure you would see this for undergrads elsewhere.
In my opinion, you get better letters of recommendation from faculty at SLACS because they know your student more.
I go to academic conferences in my field and uniformly if a faculty member brings a student along and has them present their senior thesis, etc. this is someone who teaches at a SLAC, not an R1.

OK, I'll bite. What is the "huge" percentage of MacAlester students getting NSF grants for grad school? Less than 1%?

The vast majority of the NSF grad fellowships are awarded to R1 students (86%) . My DC just graduated from Stanford and 20% of the seniors in DC's major received NSF grad research fellowships.

https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2019/08/nsf-graduate-fellowships-disproportionately-go-students-few-top-schools

NP: Yes but SLACs have so few numbers enrolled, and relatively few STEM majors so they aren't going to show up in that kind of measure. If you go to a SLAC with a good STEM program and are a STEM major you have a strong chance of getting STEM phd and of getting a fellowship if you want to take that path. There may be less than 10 students at your school who want to. Sure, Stanford or other tippy top schools are going to have more, but given all the STEM majors at less stellar R1s, SLACs are a more viable route for many students.

You would need to divide number of graduate fellowships by number of undergraduates to get a common denominator.

I looked at the data behind the graduate fellowships and note that for 2020 among the R1 institutions in Virginia (where I live) UVA has 12, VT has 4, VCU has 3, and GMU has 0. William and Mary, which is not an R1 and has more limited research programs and a much smaller enrollment has 11. Swarthmore, which is considerably smaller than even William and Mary and has little funded research, has 9.

On a per undergraduate basis, if you take VCU as the base, VT has slightly more (1.1X) fellowship winners on a per capita basis, UVA has 6X as many, William and Mary has 14X as many, and Swarthmore has 45X as many. For the heck of it, I also looked up Stanford and it has over 37X as many, so not as many as Swarthmore on a per capita basis. Research intensity doesn't explain the numbers.

How many Swarthmore undergrads received an NSF grad research fellowship this year?

9 for 2020. https://www.research.gov/grfp/AwardeeList.do?method=loadAwardeeList

The students listed did not receive the NSF fellowship as a senior at Swarthmore. They received it after attending grad school somewhere else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taught at William and Mary and faculty there get a lot more training in teaching, how to give good feedback on essays,how to help students improve their writing, etc. This is something that you don't see at a Research University.

My kids are all at SLACS and they have opportunities like the chance to attend a job talk and give input into department hiring decisions. At a research university, these activities are for grad students, not undergrad students.
THere are more undergraduate research opportunities, and funding for undergrad research usually. MacAlester has some huge percent of students getting NSF grants for grad school because so many of them co-author with faculty. Very unusual for undergraduates. We toured one college where they had a boat that natural resource majors used to gather samples, etc. Not sure you would see this for undergrads elsewhere.
In my opinion, you get better letters of recommendation from faculty at SLACS because they know your student more.
I go to academic conferences in my field and uniformly if a faculty member brings a student along and has them present their senior thesis, etc. this is someone who teaches at a SLAC, not an R1.

OK, I'll bite. What is the "huge" percentage of MacAlester students getting NSF grants for grad school? Less than 1%?

The vast majority of the NSF grad fellowships are awarded to R1 students (86%) . My DC just graduated from Stanford and 20% of the seniors in DC's major received NSF grad research fellowships.

https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2019/08/nsf-graduate-fellowships-disproportionately-go-students-few-top-schools

NP: Yes but SLACs have so few numbers enrolled, and relatively few STEM majors so they aren't going to show up in that kind of measure. If you go to a SLAC with a good STEM program and are a STEM major you have a strong chance of getting STEM phd and of getting a fellowship if you want to take that path. There may be less than 10 students at your school who want to. Sure, Stanford or other tippy top schools are going to have more, but given all the STEM majors at less stellar R1s, SLACs are a more viable route for many students.

You would need to divide number of graduate fellowships by number of undergraduates to get a common denominator.

I looked at the data behind the graduate fellowships and note that for 2020 among the R1 institutions in Virginia (where I live) UVA has 12, VT has 4, VCU has 3, and GMU has 0. William and Mary, which is not an R1 and has more limited research programs and a much smaller enrollment has 11. Swarthmore, which is considerably smaller than even William and Mary and has little funded research, has 9.

On a per undergraduate basis, if you take VCU as the base, VT has slightly more (1.1X) fellowship winners on a per capita basis, UVA has 6X as many, William and Mary has 14X as many, and Swarthmore has 45X as many. For the heck of it, I also looked up Stanford and it has over 37X as many, so not as many as Swarthmore on a per capita basis. Research intensity doesn't explain the numbers.

How many Swarthmore undergrads received an NSF grad research fellowship this year?

9 for 2020. https://www.research.gov/grfp/AwardeeList.do?method=loadAwardeeList

The students listed did not receive the NSF fellowship as a senior at Swarthmore. They received it after attending grad school somewhere else.

How would you know? They can receive as a senior and apply it to graduate school elsewhere. They could also apply as a graduate.

[Anonymous]

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So many errors in this post it’s hard to respond, but most clueless is “same as at any private school”. Many SLACs have no TA’s. You really don’t have a clue, which is hilarious given that you accuse others of same. Looking forward to you not admitting your mistake.

I find it kind of funny. I went to a SLAC and was never taught by anyone other than a PhD. I also got small class sizes and had the expectation that I could reach out to my professors and expect a response. I jumped into calc 2 as a freshman and was struggling so my professor spent hours working with me 1 on 1- it wasn't unique

My kid’s LAC has soph-senior TAs for his small freshman classes. But otherwise I agree.

Is the TA the primary teacher? At a number of schools, a TA can be the primary instructor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So many errors in this post it’s hard to respond, but most clueless is “same as at any private school”. Many SLACs have no TA’s. You really don’t have a clue, which is hilarious given that you accuse others of same. Looking forward to you not admitting your mistake.

I find it kind of funny. I went to a SLAC and was never taught by anyone other than a PhD. I also got small class sizes and had the expectation that I could reach out to my professors and expect a response. I jumped into calc 2 as a freshman and was struggling so my professor spent hours working with me 1 on 1- it wasn't unique

My kid’s LAC has soph-senior TAs for his small freshman classes. But otherwise I agree.

Is the TA the primary teacher? At a number of schools, a TA can be the primary instructor.

No, I think they just help grade and help with logistical/tech stuff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have direct experience (you are/were a student, professor, parent of a student) with a top 25 national university or SLAC liberal arts program, how does the education materially differ from a run-of-the-mill college experience? I’m not talking about the school’s “network,” but the education itself. For example, how will the “product” of an English major educated at Princeton or Williams be different from that of a student at a US News 50-200 school. Put another way, if students at these different programs read the same books, how will their educations be different at the end of four years?

When I am asked this when I interview applicants, I say rigor. I graduated 20 years ago. When I went to graduate school, it was incredibly easy academically, and I credit the rigor of my undergrad. I honestly think that rigor at top-10 schools has decreased in the past 20 years, but on a relative basis, the expectations for the students will be higher both behaviorally (in class) and academically. Writing expectations will be significantly higher. There is also a lot more peer pressure to succeed and faculty/advising support. Virtually everyone graduated in 4 years. The school did everything they could do to get us to graduation in 4 years. We had everything we needed at all times to study, write, and learn. That was a much bigger focus than the social scene. Study first, socialize after.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

So many errors in this post it’s hard to respond, but most clueless is “same as at any private school”. Many SLACs have no TA’s. You really don’t have a clue, which is hilarious given that you accuse others of same. Looking forward to you not admitting your mistake.

I find it kind of funny. I went to a SLAC and was never taught by anyone other than a PhD. I also got small class sizes and had the expectation that I could reach out to my professors and expect a response. I jumped into calc 2 as a freshman and was struggling so my professor spent hours working with me 1 on 1- it wasn't unique

I am PP- I'd also like to say that professors were available to help if you just had a question but weren't really struggling. They weren't overwhelmed. They had time for everyone who had a question.