where would Williams and Amherst rank in the ivy league..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:this thread has done amazing damage to the already declining relevance of LACs. fascinating to see

Not as much damage as your idiotic comments have done to your reputation

the irony when talking about reputation and LACs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how people here casually act as if the majority of the world has terrible colleges for teaching, since most countries have no need or reasons for LACs. Research universities are the best model everywhere else and universities like Oxford, Cambridge, ETH Zurich, PSL all operate without needing to be tiny colleges with little research opportunity.

The model is different. Germany for example, all universities are state-funded. In many countries they have teaching faculty that are more focused on teaching the undergraduates. Their research universities' experience resembles more of a liberal arts education.

In US, the professors are a lot more focused on writing grants, and managing their postdocs and graduate students. It's more like a sweat shop if you ever worked in a lab, the owner (the professor) has to spent a lot of time working in "his" or "her" own shop. Teaching is a side kick.

The issue is that the ivies, which are the topic of interest, are nothing like sweat shops, with the exception of maybe Cornell. Professors do teach, often quite small undergraduate courses.

[Anonymous]

LACs are easier. That's really the difference. They make it nearly impossible to fail a class and teach well enough for students to thrive, but they aren't looking to grade for the best students. Very few top researchers graduate from top LACs, a disproportionate amount went to the best research universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how people here casually act as if the majority of the world has terrible colleges for teaching, since most countries have no need or reasons for LACs. Research universities are the best model everywhere else and universities like Oxford, Cambridge, ETH Zurich, PSL all operate without needing to be tiny colleges with little research opportunity.

The model is different. Germany for example, all universities are state-funded. In many countries they have teaching faculty that are more focused on teaching the undergraduates. Their research universities' experience resembles more of a liberal arts education.

In US, the professors are a lot more focused on writing grants, and managing their postdocs and graduate students. It's more like a sweat shop if you ever worked in a lab, the owner (the professor) has to spent a lot of time working in "his" or "her" own shop. Teaching is a side kick.

The issue is that the ivies, which are the topic of interest, are nothing like sweat shops, with the exception of maybe Cornell. Professors do teach, often quite small undergraduate courses.

I think PP was talking about colleges at large and around the world. If you narrow it to ivies particularly Harvard sure it may be different.

If you ever been to a Harvard biology lab, the professor routinely manages anywhere 30-50 people. Grants, staff management, conferences, school politics ...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LACs are easier. That's really the difference. They make it nearly impossible to fail a class and teach well enough for students to thrive, but they aren't looking to grade for the best students. Very few top researchers graduate from top LACs, a disproportionate amount went to the best research universities.

What?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how people here casually act as if the majority of the world has terrible colleges for teaching, since most countries have no need or reasons for LACs. Research universities are the best model everywhere else and universities like Oxford, Cambridge, ETH Zurich, PSL all operate without needing to be tiny colleges with little research opportunity.

The model is different. Germany for example, all universities are state-funded. In many countries they have teaching faculty that are more focused on teaching the undergraduates. Their research universities' experience resembles more of a liberal arts education.

In US, the professors are a lot more focused on writing grants, and managing their postdocs and graduate students. It's more like a sweat shop if you ever worked in a lab, the owner (the professor) has to spent a lot of time working in "his" or "her" own shop. Teaching is a side kick.

The issue is that the ivies, which are the topic of interest, are nothing like sweat shops, with the exception of maybe Cornell. Professors do teach, often quite small undergraduate courses.

My spouse was a professor at MIT. Of course he taught small classes but his promotion are not based on teaching - just research and funding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, I guess. But with such extraordinarily selective schools, who really cares?

Williams and Amherst, and many other SLACS, are fantastic schools but they would rank lower than any of the Ivies in a head to head competition due to the lack of comparable science and engineering resources. They aren't really comparable which is why they are separately ranked.

Totally agree. Williams and Amherst can't compare with the ivy league because virtually all of them are much larger research institutions. The academic resources of Princeton/Harvard/Cornell/Penn are light years ahead of Williams and Amherst.

And most of it has nothing to do with undergraduate study.

I'd say having access to massive research institutes and facilities is pretty helpful in undergrad. DS does research at the school of Medicine and hasn't a day taken a course in the med school. Some people just use their resources better than others.

Do R1 research universities have higher medical school acceptance rates than SLACs or higher percentages of students getting advanced degrees in STEM? NO.

Agree.

If you go outside the very very narrow range of HYS or WASP. The second tier lacs (T5-T10) have much much better results than the second tier R1 research Us (Chicago WashU Emory Duke). JHU is an exception in R1 Us, but you know JHU. Your DC has to work 10x harder there.

Medical acceptance rate is one thing. The more problematic issue is the weedout rate, which is invisible.
At liberal arts colleges the weedout rate is extremely low. Same for HYS.

Once you go down to the second tier R1 research Us, the weedout rate is much higher. Half of the incoming class at WashU want to pursue premed. By sophomore, half of the premed kids are weeded out by Orgo.

In contrast, weed out rates at the second tier LACs like Wellesley, Haverford, Bowdoin, Barnard are much lower (near zero).

This is wishful thinking and certainly isnt true in business/finance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how people here casually act as if the majority of the world has terrible colleges for teaching, since most countries have no need or reasons for LACs. Research universities are the best model everywhere else and universities like Oxford, Cambridge, ETH Zurich, PSL all operate without needing to be tiny colleges with little research opportunity.

The model is different. Germany for example, all universities are state-funded. In many countries they have teaching faculty that are more focused on teaching the undergraduates. Their research universities' experience resembles more of a liberal arts education.

In US, the professors are a lot more focused on writing grants, and managing their postdocs and graduate students. It's more like a sweat shop if you ever worked in a lab, the owner (the professor) has to spent a lot of time working in "his" or "her" own shop. Teaching is a side kick.

The issue is that the ivies, which are the topic of interest, are nothing like sweat shops, with the exception of maybe Cornell. Professors do teach, often quite small undergraduate courses.

My spouse was a professor at MIT. Of course he taught small classes but his promotion are not based on teaching - just research and funding.

Well he is also a professor at MIT…which isn’t of discussion as it’s a research institute that has a very different focus than Harvard or Yale college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, I guess. But with such extraordinarily selective schools, who really cares?

Williams and Amherst, and many other SLACS, are fantastic schools but they would rank lower than any of the Ivies in a head to head competition due to the lack of comparable science and engineering resources. They aren't really comparable which is why they are separately ranked.

Totally agree. Williams and Amherst can't compare with the ivy league because virtually all of them are much larger research institutions. The academic resources of Princeton/Harvard/Cornell/Penn are light years ahead of Williams and Amherst.

And most of it has nothing to do with undergraduate study.

I'd say having access to massive research institutes and facilities is pretty helpful in undergrad. DS does research at the school of Medicine and hasn't a day taken a course in the med school. Some people just use their resources better than others.

Do R1 research universities have higher medical school acceptance rates than SLACs or higher percentages of students getting advanced degrees in STEM? NO.

Agree.

If you go outside the very very narrow range of HYS or WASP. The second tier lacs (T5-T10) have much much better results than the second tier R1 research Us (Chicago WashU Emory Duke). JHU is an exception in R1 Us, but you know JHU. Your DC has to work 10x harder there.

Medical acceptance rate is one thing. The more problematic issue is the weedout rate, which is invisible.
At liberal arts colleges the weedout rate is extremely low. Same for HYS.

Once you go down to the second tier R1 research Us, the weedout rate is much higher. Half of the incoming class at WashU want to pursue premed. By sophomore, half of the premed kids are weeded out by Orgo.

In contrast, weed out rates at the second tier LACs like Wellesley, Haverford, Bowdoin, Barnard are much lower (near zero).

This is wishful thinking and certainly isnt true in business/finance.

I am not familiar with finance. Sorry, don quixote, find someone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LACs are easier. That's really the difference. They make it nearly impossible to fail a class and teach well enough for students to thrive, but they aren't looking to grade for the best students. Very few top researchers graduate from top LACs, a disproportionate amount went to the best research universities.

This isn't an LAC thing. Average GPAs at Brown, Harvard, etc. are around 3.8+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Princeton alum, I don’t fully understand most of the comments in this thread, and it’s making me consider that most people here haven’t actually been to the schools they’re critiquing. Unless someone was a research associate, it was very rare a Princeton lab didn’t have undergraduates in it. These days, it’s very easy to access research, and the institution will throw money at the undergrads to do so. I felt my professors were amazing at teaching and they were also some of the best researchers in the world. I don’t know many people who would disagree.

I don’t think anyone on this thread has suggested WASP-B should be above HYPSM.
More to the point, it does not sound like you know what Columbia, Cornell and Penn, say, are really like— let alone the Berkeleys of the world. Have you been?

WASP-B doesn't exist. Just stop the nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Princeton alum, I don’t fully understand most of the comments in this thread, and it’s making me consider that most people here haven’t actually been to the schools they’re critiquing. Unless someone was a research associate, it was very rare a Princeton lab didn’t have undergraduates in it. These days, it’s very easy to access research, and the institution will throw money at the undergrads to do so. I felt my professors were amazing at teaching and they were also some of the best researchers in the world. I don’t know many people who would disagree.

I don’t think anyone on this thread has suggested WASP-B should be above HYPSM.
More to the point, it does not sound like you know what Columbia, Cornell and Penn, say, are really like— let alone the Berkeleys of the world. Have you been?

WASP-B doesn't exist. Just stop the nonsense.

?

[Anonymous]

I haven't read this whole thing but it is hysterical watching the Ivy obsessed lose their minds when people question the superiority of their sacred cows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I haven't read this whole thing but it is hysterical watching the Ivy obsessed lose their minds when people question the superiority of their sacred cows.

I feel like people here have been pretty reasonable. On the LAC side, there's chat gpt/ai bots answering questions. I think most rationale people know that Williams/Amherst are below the ivy league. It's common sense, but people will troll and push back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, I guess. But with such extraordinarily selective schools, who really cares?

Williams and Amherst, and many other SLACS, are fantastic schools but they would rank lower than any of the Ivies in a head to head competition due to the lack of comparable science and engineering resources. They aren't really comparable which is why they are separately ranked.

Totally agree. Williams and Amherst can't compare with the ivy league because virtually all of them are much larger research institutions. The academic resources of Princeton/Harvard/Cornell/Penn are light years ahead of Williams and Amherst.

And most of it has nothing to do with undergraduate study.

I'd say having access to massive research institutes and facilities is pretty helpful in undergrad. DS does research at the school of Medicine and hasn't a day taken a course in the med school. Some people just use their resources better than others.

Do R1 research universities have higher medical school acceptance rates than SLACs or higher percentages of students getting advanced degrees in STEM? NO.

A few things to this response.
My kid has no interest in medical school. It just happens to be extremely useful resource for him to explore his research interests. Medical schools provide a lot of interested computational, biophysical, and statistical research projects that an LAC wouldn't be able to replicate.

Now to your second question, per capita, it depends on the cohort of students. Students with higher incoming stats are going to be more likely to end up getting into medical school. Only 1 Lac is in the top 10 for feeding students into medical school per capita and it's Amherst. 1/2 the Ivy League is in the top 10. Comparing school acceptance rates is meaningless when some schools really gatekeep and delay students from applying to medical school to keep their high acceptance rate publicity. I'd say the data is pretty clear that if you have to choose between Harvard or Yale versus Williams or Amherst for medical school, the former is the wiser decision if it's a true tossup. I especially wouldn't underrate going to a college in Boston, the hub for biotech and medical research in the country.

Well, there are over 2X as many National Universities as National LACs (USNWR). There are 2X as many National Universities to National LACs in the top 30 College Transitions top per capita feeder schools, so it is proportionate.

But another thing to consider is some schools, most notably some National Universities (e.g. JHU) have a disproportionate percentage of pre-med students, which skews the numbers.