University of Pittsburgh vs Grinnell College

[Anonymous]

More Pitt students go on to earn Ph.D.s than Grinnell students.

https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-phd-programs

Grinnell students go on to Ph.D.s at a higher rate, of course, which is what PP’s link shows. But which is more of an “academic powerhouse” depends on whether you value absolute numbers (which favors Pitt) or percentages (which favors Grinnell).

[Anonymous]

Is the kid going to college to study and learn? Or does she/he need a big city for more shops, bars and restaurants, to have a good social, bar and dance clubs life? I went to a liberal arts college similar to Grinnel and appreciated the lack of too many distractions off campus. Not to mention, the Midwest is generally cheaper for most things, unless you are loaded and don't care about the $$$.

[Anonymous]

Pitt is a much better choice and I don't care about ranking. Pitt has name recognition to more people and a better program for his studies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the kid going to college to study and learn? Or does she/he need a big city for more shops, bars and restaurants, to have a good social, bar and dance clubs life? I went to a liberal arts college similar to Grinnel and appreciated the lack of too many distractions off campus. Not to mention, the Midwest is generally cheaper for most things, unless you are loaded and don't care about the $$$.

PP. Pittsburgh is cheap "like the Midwest" while not being in the Midwest. It is Rust Belt.

[Anonymous]

I’ve been to both campuses.

Pitt offers the city and a highly respected science-oriented school.

Grinnell obviously has the better ranking and a loyal alum group (I know several graduates of various ages along with a few professors who teach there). It’s a solid school yet the town is so, so dull. One small highlight is the Louis Sullivan bank.

This would be a hard choice because the prestige of Grinnell might be hard to give up. But then you have the depressing winters and boring town.

Pitt also has terrible winters, but there is way more to do whether you like sports, travel, or the arts.

If your student is a strong one, they are going to do well at any school they attend. That’s the bottom line.

[Anonymous]

What a random measurement - seriously - alphabetically Grinnell is higher rank than Pittsburgh or University of Pittsburgh.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://publichealth.pitt.edu/academics/bachelors-program

Clearly, U Pitt offers superior academic, internship, and social opportunities than does tiny, but wealthy, Grinnell College.

Also, the students at Grinnell tend to be far left liberals. Tolerance of opposing viewpoints and political leanings may be an issue for the non-woke.

Grinnell is an academic powerhouse and regularly included in the top ~10 schools for generating future PhDs. Pitt isn’t in the top 100.

https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/institutional-effectiveness-research-assessment/Doct%20Rates%20Top%20100%20Tot%20Sci%20Rankings%20-Summary%20to%202022.pdf

FIRE ranks Pitt as “below average” in free speech and Grinnell as “slightly below average” (17 spots ahead of Pitt.)

https://www.thefire.org/sites/default/files/2024/09/2025%20College%20Free%20Speech%20Rankings%20Report%20FINAL.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Peer group:
Grinnell: 1480, 51% submitting
Pittsburgh: 1360, 50% submitting

Grinnell's median and percent submitting are on par with schools like BC, UVA, W&M, BU, WFU, etc. while Pittsburgh's stats are closer to Virginia Tech's.

Grinnell has about 400 students per class. You’d better hope they’re all top notch because there’s no one else for miles.

Pitt has about 4500 students per class. You could just hang out with the top 10% at Pitt and have a larger peer group than the entire school at Grinnell.

+1

People often forget that big schools often have 1,000 or 1,7000 top students who also had offers from T20 but the public school gave them major merit.

What that means is your potential cohort of high achievers is nearly the same or even larger at a public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More Pitt students go on to earn Ph.D.s than Grinnell students.

https://www.collegetransitions.com/dataverse/top-feeders-phd-programs

Grinnell students go on to Ph.D.s at a higher rate, of course, which is what PP’s link shows. But which is more of an “academic powerhouse” depends on whether you value absolute numbers (which favors Pitt) or percentages (which favors Grinnell).

In the context of an individual selecting a college, rates are implied because data at the level of an individual is more relevant. That’s why it would be odd to say Arizona State’s graduating class starting salary regularly surpasses Princeton’s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Peer group:
Grinnell: 1480, 51% submitting
Pittsburgh: 1360, 50% submitting

Grinnell's median and percent submitting are on par with schools like BC, UVA, W&M, BU, WFU, etc. while Pittsburgh's stats are closer to Virginia Tech's.

Grinnell has about 400 students per class. You’d better hope they’re all top notch because there’s no one else for miles.

Pitt has about 4500 students per class. You could just hang out with the top 10% at Pitt and have a larger peer group than the entire school at Grinnell.

I am a Pitt grad. That's exactly how it feels. There are plenty of top of the class students. Anyway, college is mainly about what the student themself puts into it, not the credentials of the people seated behind the student in the lecture hall. Btw, I left PSU Honors College for Pitt because University Park was not a fun place...too isolated, too socially focused on watching sports and drinking, and the Honors Program was too slanted towards guys & engineers at that time. I hear they have fixed it. But I really think it makes a big difference to be in a city where you can escape from an undergrad monoculture.

I also think it's true that many SLACs have low national brand awareness and they do best in their home regions. That doesn't mean they aren't good schools - it means no immediate recognition bump from an HR person/employer unless tapping the alumni network or in region.

I also feel Pitt will have more internship and research opportunities. The scale of a major research university is much different.

As opposed to state schools? I have 0 dog in this fight as an Ivy grad, but even you’d have to concur that most Pitt grads end up right back in the rust belt/Pennsylvania area? This is just how colleges work unless you are recruiting from across the world like Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Peer group:
Grinnell: 1480, 51% submitting
Pittsburgh: 1360, 50% submitting

Grinnell's median and percent submitting are on par with schools like BC, UVA, W&M, BU, WFU, etc. while Pittsburgh's stats are closer to Virginia Tech's.

Grinnell has about 400 students per class. You’d better hope they’re all top notch because there’s no one else for miles.

Pitt has about 4500 students per class. You could just hang out with the top 10% at Pitt and have a larger peer group than the entire school at Grinnell.

+1

People often forget that big schools often have 1,000 or 1,7000 top students who also had offers from T20 but the public school gave them major merit.

What that means is your potential cohort of high achievers is nearly the same or even larger at a public school.

This is highly unlikely to be true. The T20 yield rates are quite high and it just seems like speculation to boost public school recognition. Pitt certainly has fine students, but they aren’t Ivy level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The only person who determines if a PhD is wanted is the student themselves.

I would phrase it as "Students who might want to get PhD's have a greater likelihood to matriculate at a SLAC" rather than an institution generates them.

I realize that a student can be moved to pursue a PhD by an excellent undergrad education. But it's more likely a compounded legacy effect and that the type of person who welcomes high contact academics will become a PhD.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9755046/#:~:text=Nearly%20a%20quarter%20(22.2%25),D.

"faculty are up to 25 times more likely to have a parent with a Ph.D. Moreover, this rate nearly doubles at prestigious universities and is stable across the past 50 years. Our results suggest that the professoriate is, and has remained, accessible disproportionately to the socioeconomically privileged, which is likely to deeply shape their scholarship and their reproduction."

The PhD data refutes the earlier claim that Pitt has superior academics. It certainly does not. PhD programs are among the most selective and favor rigorous academic prep. Now, a good argument can be made that so do law and med programs, but there isn’t a central authority publishing undergrad origin for all law or med school graduates the way there is for PhD earners, which is monitored by the NSF. (Grinnell does say they med school acceptance rate is about 66%, couldn’t find an equivalent measure for Pitt.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP...I also hear the job market is rough for a lot of PhD faculty.

The most lucrative PhD's, based on quick Googling, seem to be in fields that SLACS aren't known for.

The most lucrative phds are in liberal arts subjects, don’t have undergrad major counterparts typically (pharmacology, clinical psych), or are engineering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP...I also hear the job market is rough for a lot of PhD faculty.

The most lucrative PhD's, based on quick Googling, seem to be in fields that SLACS aren't known for.

Like math/CS?

Grinnell ranks 21st. Pitt not in top 100.

Or maybe engineering?

Grinnell (w/o undergraduate engineering!) ranks 76th, Pitt 83rd.

https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/institutional-effectiveness-research-assessment/Doct%20Rates%20Rankings%20by%20Broad%20Disc%20Fields.pdf

As a side note, only about 30% of PhDs stay in academia. It’s much more common in industry than a generation ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Peer group:
Grinnell: 1480, 51% submitting
Pittsburgh: 1360, 50% submitting

Grinnell's median and percent submitting are on par with schools like BC, UVA, W&M, BU, WFU, etc. while Pittsburgh's stats are closer to Virginia Tech's.

Grinnell has about 400 students per class. You’d better hope they’re all top notch because there’s no one else for miles.

Pitt has about 4500 students per class. You could just hang out with the top 10% at Pitt and have a larger peer group than the entire school at Grinnell.

I am a Pitt grad. That's exactly how it feels. There are plenty of top of the class students. Anyway, college is mainly about what the student themself puts into it, not the credentials of the people seated behind the student in the lecture hall. Btw, I left PSU Honors College for Pitt because University Park was not a fun place...too isolated, too socially focused on watching sports and drinking, and the Honors Program was too slanted towards guys & engineers at that time. I hear they have fixed it. But I really think it makes a big difference to be in a city where you can escape from an undergrad monoculture.

I also think it's true that many SLACs have low national brand awareness and they do best in their home regions. That doesn't mean they aren't good schools - it means no immediate recognition bump from an HR person/employer unless tapping the alumni network or in region.

I also feel Pitt will have more internship and research opportunities. The scale of a major research university is much different.

As opposed to state schools? I have 0 dog in this fight as an Ivy grad, but even you’d have to concur that most Pitt grads end up right back in the rust belt/Pennsylvania area? This is just how colleges work unless you are recruiting from across the world like Harvard.

Pittsburgh is a great place to land.

[Anonymous]

Did I miss the part where OP say their kid wanted a Ph.D.?