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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Besides the course rigor, do you also look into their research areas or industry connections? Thank you.

No. If you focus on Ivy/T20private, T5LAC, or one of the top 5 publics, the work is done for you, all professors to get the job there have to be top notch.

[Anonymous]

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.

This a million times. The best teaching professor in my department wouldn't be known by anyone. The ones that were well known in the field were awful. If the class hadn't been so small, it would have been worth skipping class and just muddling through the textbook a little longer. We did have one professor who was well known, did some really cool cutting edge research, and was a great teacher. Those professors are few and far between though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

A provocative insight

My DS focused on the nature of the curriculum and class sizes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.)

Do you ever stop your endless SLAC boosting? This is all just utter nonsense.

[Anonymous]

I think people are confusing different learning goals.

One goal might be pedagogy. Your child needs or desires to be taught and inspired. If this is the case then, yes the best teachers are usually not the most productive or cutting edge researchers.

Another goal might be research or scholarship. Your child needs or thrives on difficulty and is capable of self teaching. Your child has a strong idea of what they want to pursue. If this is the case then, yes the best professors may be at various schools you haven’t considered yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.)

Do you ever stop your endless SLAC boosting? This is all just utter nonsense.

I'm a tenured professor at an R1, and the above is accurate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.)

Do you ever stop your endless SLAC boosting? This is all just utter nonsense.

I'm a tenured professor at an R1, and the above is accurate.

Sorry, hit send too soon. It is true that teaching does not count much at all for promotion and tenure at R1 universities. Many, many professors urge their children to apply to SLACs for undergrad because we all accept that the teaching quality is generally and consistently higher at SLACs. Clearly, research universities have their place and undergraduates can have excellent teaching experiences at large research universities, but that is incidental. Also SLACs do not rely heavily, if at all, on TAs for undergraduate teaching, whereas it is not uncommon for universities to farm out undergraduate teaching -- sometimes substantially -- to graduate students.

[Anonymous]

I’m a professor in the University of California system, and the comments above track. Many faculty really do care about undergraduate teaching and mentoring, but the reality is that we are not incentivized to make it a priority. I’ve seen colleagues go up for tenure with 7 years of consistently terrible teaching evaluations, and the number and quality of publications is still, ultimately, what determines the outcome. You’ll get the best teachers at a slac or through honors programs at large publics. The sad reality is that many of the graduate teaching assistants (social sciences and humanities) are reading the assigned texts for the first time themselves, so it really isn’t conducive to deep learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Land the helicopter.

This!

[Anonymous]

I seconded the U of California professor above and the few posters before it, as a tenured STEM professor in an SEC school. Majority of my colleagues did their Ph.D. at t20s in their respective majors, but it was hard enough to get tenure-track positions that they accepted positions at my t100. Some among us are passionate about classroom teaching, some less so, but we all understood that being terrible in end-of-semester student evaluations isn't going to prevent us from getting tenure and promotion. It's the grants/contracts, publications, external letters, graduation of Ph.D. students, and services that count. A lot among us do good-to-excellent research and provide undergraduates with opportunities to join our research projects. Some of our outstanding undergraduates went on to t10 graduate schools due to having worked on these projects and gotten superb recommendation letters from us. But classroom teaching unfortunately took a back seat to many of the things that we do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Besides the course rigor, do you also look into their research areas or industry connections? Thank you.

No. If you focus on Ivy/T20private, T5LAC, or one of the top 5 publics, the work is done for you, all professors to get the job there have to be top notch.

Top notch at research, not necessarily at teaching. I teach at a T20 and we barely consider undergraduate teaching when we hire, we only really care about research.

SLACS are different, and I will encourage my kids to go to one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Good lord I don't know where to start!

+1. My thoughts exactly

[Anonymous]

Double posting to note that I spent 5 years teaching at a SLAC before moving to a private T20. My first job really did care significantly about teaching. I personally also care about my undergraduate teaching and think I still do a good job of it, but at my current job no one who’s evaluating me for promotion cares.

I’m in the humanities, the calculation is slightly different in at least some of the sciences, because SLAC research labs are necessarily smaller and have more limited resources. But the trade-off is that you get much more direct mentoring from the professor (as opposed to grad students and postdocs).

For OP, I’d add that student quality matters, of course. If my kid’s options are Yale and Bennington, I’d probably advise them to choose Yale because the other students will be be smarter. But Yale v Swarthmore? I’d push for Swarthmore every day.

Of course my kids will probably end up at Ohio State just to rebel against my advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Double posting to note that I spent 5 years teaching at a SLAC before moving to a private T20. My first job really did care significantly about teaching. I personally also care about my undergraduate teaching and think I still do a good job of it, but at my current job no one who’s evaluating me for promotion cares.

I’m in the humanities, the calculation is slightly different in at least some of the sciences, because SLAC research labs are necessarily smaller and have more limited resources. But the trade-off is that you get much more direct mentoring from the professor (as opposed to grad students and postdocs).

For OP, I’d add that student quality matters, of course. If my kid’s options are Yale and Bennington, I’d probably advise them to choose Yale because the other students will be be smarter. But Yale v Swarthmore? I’d push for Swarthmore every day.

Of course my kids will probably end up at Ohio State just to rebel against my advice.

Wow ! Ridiculous statement.

Between Yale & Swarthmore, either could be the better option for a particular student, but it depends upon many specific factors and not on some generalized, closed-minded way opinion.

The exposure to a wider variety of brilliant students, professors, and a greater breadth & depth of academic & social options as well as greater career opportunities leans heavily in favor of Yale University over Swarthmore College, but a particular student might find the smaller school more attractive for specific reasons.

[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 statement is not totally unreasonable, but needs to be tempered a bit in order to be considered accurate.

Even great teachers will be limited by their students' ability and motivation.