The rigor of LACs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that most accredited colleges, LAC or otherwise, offer students more educational opportunities than they can take advantage of. I think that the quality of education any student at any college receives is determined more by the extent to which they apply themselves and take advantage of those opportunities than by the name of the institution awarding their diploma. Therefore, I think it is better to find the best college for a student, that will best motivate and facilitate that particular student, than to assume that some published ranking of “best” colleges will provide that particular student with the best outcome.

What a ridiculous statement. You're going to get a better education at Stanford or MIT than Williams.

Depends on the students learning style and what they are interested in learning. The tutorial system at Williams truly offers something no other American college can. Williams also has a leg up for any course that is taught seminar style (i.e. discussion based rather than lecture based).

My kid is getting a better education at a T15 LAC than I did at HYPSM.

Turns out personal attention and feedback from professors in small classes is waaaay better than large lectures and TA-led discussion sections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that most accredited colleges, LAC or otherwise, offer students more educational opportunities than they can take advantage of. I think that the quality of education any student at any college receives is determined more by the extent to which they apply themselves and take advantage of those opportunities than by the name of the institution awarding their diploma. Therefore, I think it is better to find the best college for a student, that will best motivate and facilitate that particular student, than to assume that some published ranking of “best” colleges will provide that particular student with the best outcome.

What a ridiculous statement. You're going to get a better education at Stanford or MIT than Williams.

Depends on the students learning style and what they are interested in learning. The tutorial system at Williams truly offers something no other American college can. Williams also has a leg up for any course that is taught seminar style (i.e. discussion based rather than lecture based).

My kid is getting a better education at a T15 LAC than I did at HYPSM.

Turns out personal attention and feedback from professors in small classes is waaaay better than large lectures and TA-led discussion sections.

When did you last attend an HYPSM, the classes these days are TINY. You were just a generation behind. They also can hire the best teaching faculty because of the prestige.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
When did you last attend an HYPSM, the classes these days are TINY. You were just a generation behind. They also can hire the best teaching faculty because of the prestige.

They hire them, then fire them rather than giving them tenure. Not the best way to motivate them to teach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When did you last attend an HYPSM, the classes these days are TINY. You were just a generation behind. They also can hire the best teaching faculty because of the prestige.

They hire them, then fire them rather than giving them tenure. Not the best way to motivate them to teach.

Examples? You sound bitter

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When did you last attend an HYPSM, the classes these days are TINY. You were just a generation behind. They also can hire the best teaching faculty because of the prestige.

They hire them, then fire them rather than giving them tenure. Not the best way to motivate them to teach.

Do you mean non-tenure track faculty? That is how all institutions work. You don’t accept a contract that says you will be at an institution for a short period if you want to be there long term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When did you last attend an HYPSM, the classes these days are TINY. You were just a generation behind. They also can hire the best teaching faculty because of the prestige.

They hire them, then fire them rather than giving them tenure. Not the best way to motivate them to teach.

Do you mean non-tenure track faculty? That is how all institutions work. You don’t accept a contract that says you will be at an institution for a short period if you want to be there long term.[/quotes]
+1 Harvard has lecturers. Pomona has lecturers. Princeton has lecturers. Williams has lecturers. They are often awesome, but that doesn’t mean we should grant all tenured positions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When did you last attend an HYPSM, the classes these days are TINY. You were just a generation behind. They also can hire the best teaching faculty because of the prestige.

They hire them, then fire them rather than giving them tenure. Not the best way to motivate them to teach.

Do you mean non-tenure track faculty? That is how all institutions work. You don’t accept a contract that says you will be at an institution for a short period if you want to be there long term.

No, I mean assistant professors on the tenure track:"Tenure at Harvard is very difficult to get, particularly promotion from within. From job offer to tenure offer, scholarship and teaching are intensely scrutinized. For young scholars hired into the tenure track and brought up from within, evaluation occurs in Harvard’s classrooms and among its academic circles. Of the 20 or 30 assistant professors who are hired into that track across the University each year, many will not make it through a full seven years to tenure review.

At the same time as junior faculty are moving up within the University, more senior scholars will be recruited from the outside. Though reputations and their own tenure positions have been earned elsewhere, ultimately these “stars from afar,” as Singer calls them, will compete with those closer to home for the same small number of positions."

Plus they're focusing more on research than teaching:

"Ideally, research and teaching go hand-in-hand—the great professor contributes to the scope of knowledge while at the same time dispensing it. But without a means to measure—and reward— teaching, students are often left with senior professors who conduct their classes with unconcealed distaste, rehashing old overheads compiled a generation ago, stifling the bothersome questions at office hours, and begrudging every minute stolen from the lab. There are, of course, the occasional geniuses whose level of research covers all defects and makes them essential hires even if their lectures are grunted and monotone. But geniuses are rare even among Harvard’s professoriat. The lay-professors ought to be skilled at teaching and research, but the Harvard’s current tenuring process hardly allows it. “I’m told often that teaching really matters but I don’t see a lot of evidence that being an exceptional teacher will result in a real reward here,” says Cox."

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/11/scrutiny-tenure-harvard/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that most accredited colleges, LAC or otherwise, offer students more educational opportunities than they can take advantage of. I think that the quality of education any student at any college receives is determined more by the extent to which they apply themselves and take advantage of those opportunities than by the name of the institution awarding their diploma. Therefore, I think it is better to find the best college for a student, that will best motivate and facilitate that particular student, than to assume that some published ranking of “best” colleges will provide that particular student with the best outcome.

What a ridiculous statement. You're going to get a better education at Stanford or MIT than Williams.

A better undergraduate education? Probably not. What would actually make you believe that you would get a better education at either school? The faculty aren't superior for undergraduate teaching than at a top SLAC. The resources aren't superior to a top SLAC. The student bodies are basically identical to those at a top SLAC. The class sizes are smaller at a top SLAC. The access to professors is actually better at a top SLAC. The access to research opportunities that are actually appropriate to level of experience are typically higher at a top SLAC. Overall a top SLAC provides a superior educational environment for student outside of those looking to study CS or engineering.

The research opportunities available are significantly less, and there's also much better undergraduate teaching at Stanford and especially MIT than at these SLACs for STEM subjects. I'm sorry, but you seem more biased than anything else; MIT is pretty much the gold standard for providing STEM education with significant depth and breadth, while also maintaining work that an undergraduate student can handle, often pushing more towards graduate level education in its problem sets and pedagogy. SLACs are great if you aren't sure you want to do STEM and need 1-on-1 to solidify your choice, but if you know what you're getting into, you have a much better experience and education coming out of Stanford or MIT.

The research opportunities an available for undergraduates is often better at a SLAC and they are active participants not a burden. As I have posted multiple times on DCUM my friend who is a full professor at Stanford is quite open about not having taught an undergraduate class in many many years. As he says “that’s not what I am paid for, I’m paid to run a lab”.

As to better teaching at Stanford or Harvard, the idea is laughable. The incentives aren’t aligned for great teaching; tenured professors aren’t rewarded for teaching and the grad students who carry the load also see it as a distraction from their real focus. So you end up with adjuncts and TAs, hardly great teaching.

Outside of CS and engineering you will get a far better foundation at a SLAC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very few LACs are anywhere near the rigor of top engineering universities. That's what happens when your school is mostly "soft" subjects.

Do you care to explain why when adjusted for size SLACs send a far higher percentage of their students to PhD programs than the schools which you obsessively adore?

The schools PP adores give their students the option to go into highly lucrative industry careers or grad school. With a LAC, there is pretty much no choice, so of course more go to grad school. That's not necessarily a success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very few LACs are anywhere near the rigor of top engineering universities. That's what happens when your school is mostly "soft" subjects.

Of course you have zero context for this statement and you are just pulling stuff out of you behind….butt whatever.

Just ignore this troll.

Having not attended a Reed/Swarthmore/etc I can't comment on those specifically but comparing workloads to my peers who went to those, my LAC not particularly known for intensity still provided me with plenty of work to keep me up all night. I ended up in the top 5 or so of my graduating class, so hard workers can work hard anywhere.

Maybe the difference is that the baseline is higher at the Reeds and Swarthmores of the country, whereas my peers in college could have probably skirted by and gotten Cs with lower effort than it would take to do so at Reed.

That's really the difference. I don't think Reed or Swarthmore students are getting a different math education than Pomona and Williams students; but, I think they probably expect a little more work for a B at the former than the latter.

Which is a shame, because Harvard, Caltech, UChicago, MIT etc undergrads are definitely getting a different math education.

https://old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/1gviqgo/differences_in_undergrad_math_programs/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When did you last attend an HYPSM, the classes these days are TINY. You were just a generation behind. They also can hire the best teaching faculty because of the prestige.

They hire them, then fire them rather than giving them tenure. Not the best way to motivate them to teach.

Do you mean non-tenure track faculty? That is how all institutions work. You don’t accept a contract that says you will be at an institution for a short period if you want to be there long term.

No, I mean assistant professors on the tenure track:"Tenure at Harvard is very difficult to get, particularly promotion from within. From job offer to tenure offer, scholarship and teaching are intensely scrutinized. For young scholars hired into the tenure track and brought up from within, evaluation occurs in Harvard’s classrooms and among its academic circles. Of the 20 or 30 assistant professors who are hired into that track across the University each year, many will not make it through a full seven years to tenure review.

At the same time as junior faculty are moving up within the University, more senior scholars will be recruited from the outside. Though reputations and their own tenure positions have been earned elsewhere, ultimately these “stars from afar,” as Singer calls them, will compete with those closer to home for the same small number of positions."

Plus they're focusing more on research than teaching:

"Ideally, research and teaching go hand-in-hand—the great professor contributes to the scope of knowledge while at the same time dispensing it. But without a means to measure—and reward— teaching, students are often left with senior professors who conduct their classes with unconcealed distaste, rehashing old overheads compiled a generation ago, stifling the bothersome questions at office hours, and begrudging every minute stolen from the lab. There are, of course, the occasional geniuses whose level of research covers all defects and makes them essential hires even if their lectures are grunted and monotone. But geniuses are rare even among Harvard’s professoriat. The lay-professors ought to be skilled at teaching and research, but the Harvard’s current tenuring process hardly allows it. “I’m told often that teaching really matters but I don’t see a lot of evidence that being an exceptional teacher will result in a real reward here,” says Cox."

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/11/scrutiny-tenure-harvard/

Liberal arts college professors still need to do ample research to advance to tenure, especially at WASP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that most accredited colleges, LAC or otherwise, offer students more educational opportunities than they can take advantage of. I think that the quality of education any student at any college receives is determined more by the extent to which they apply themselves and take advantage of those opportunities than by the name of the institution awarding their diploma. Therefore, I think it is better to find the best college for a student, that will best motivate and facilitate that particular student, than to assume that some published ranking of “best” colleges will provide that particular student with the best outcome.

What a ridiculous statement. You're going to get a better education at Stanford or MIT than Williams.

A better undergraduate education? Probably not. What would actually make you believe that you would get a better education at either school? The faculty aren't superior for undergraduate teaching than at a top SLAC. The resources aren't superior to a top SLAC. The student bodies are basically identical to those at a top SLAC. The class sizes are smaller at a top SLAC. The access to professors is actually better at a top SLAC. The access to research opportunities that are actually appropriate to level of experience are typically higher at a top SLAC. Overall a top SLAC provides a superior educational environment for student outside of those looking to study CS or engineering.

The student body - particularly the top 10% in any given major - are definitely not the same. They're drawn from a pool of the top couple dozen or so high school students in their respective fields - the ones who've already done most of the undergrad level curriculum (STEM) or are routinely engaging with primary sources, historiography, analysis, etc (humanities) and doing real, meaningful research (both).

Access to professors is just fine at Stanford and MIT - no top students are struggling to get research, and students have a greater range of areas to research within.

And since you left the door open for math, see the above comment. Other sciences are mostly the same.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When did you last attend an HYPSM, the classes these days are TINY. You were just a generation behind. They also can hire the best teaching faculty because of the prestige.

They hire them, then fire them rather than giving them tenure. Not the best way to motivate them to teach.

Do you mean non-tenure track faculty? That is how all institutions work. You don’t accept a contract that says you will be at an institution for a short period if you want to be there long term.

No, I mean assistant professors on the tenure track:"Tenure at Harvard is very difficult to get, particularly promotion from within. From job offer to tenure offer, scholarship and teaching are intensely scrutinized. For young scholars hired into the tenure track and brought up from within, evaluation occurs in Harvard’s classrooms and among its academic circles. Of the 20 or 30 assistant professors who are hired into that track across the University each year, many will not make it through a full seven years to tenure review.

At the same time as junior faculty are moving up within the University, more senior scholars will be recruited from the outside. Though reputations and their own tenure positions have been earned elsewhere, ultimately these “stars from afar,” as Singer calls them, will compete with those closer to home for the same small number of positions."

Plus they're focusing more on research than teaching:

"Ideally, research and teaching go hand-in-hand—the great professor contributes to the scope of knowledge while at the same time dispensing it. But without a means to measure—and reward— teaching, students are often left with senior professors who conduct their classes with unconcealed distaste, rehashing old overheads compiled a generation ago, stifling the bothersome questions at office hours, and begrudging every minute stolen from the lab. There are, of course, the occasional geniuses whose level of research covers all defects and makes them essential hires even if their lectures are grunted and monotone. But geniuses are rare even among Harvard’s professoriat. The lay-professors ought to be skilled at teaching and research, but the Harvard’s current tenuring process hardly allows it. “I’m told often that teaching really matters but I don’t see a lot of evidence that being an exceptional teacher will result in a real reward here,” says Cox."

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/11/scrutiny-tenure-harvard/

Liberal arts college professors still need to do ample research to advance to tenure, especially at WASP.

+1, people here really don't know much about the demands by top liberal arts colleges on faculty. Before tenure, 5-6 published articles/a book, high teaching loads, high service all factor into a pretty difficult job. Most top LACs have to give their faculty R1-level teaching loads, because they know how intensive this expectation to balance teaching and research is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When did you last attend an HYPSM, the classes these days are TINY. You were just a generation behind. They also can hire the best teaching faculty because of the prestige.

They hire them, then fire them rather than giving them tenure. Not the best way to motivate them to teach.

Do you mean non-tenure track faculty? That is how all institutions work. You don’t accept a contract that says you will be at an institution for a short period if you want to be there long term.

No, I mean assistant professors on the tenure track:"Tenure at Harvard is very difficult to get, particularly promotion from within. From job offer to tenure offer, scholarship and teaching are intensely scrutinized. For young scholars hired into the tenure track and brought up from within, evaluation occurs in Harvard’s classrooms and among its academic circles. Of the 20 or 30 assistant professors who are hired into that track across the University each year, many will not make it through a full seven years to tenure review.

At the same time as junior faculty are moving up within the University, more senior scholars will be recruited from the outside. Though reputations and their own tenure positions have been earned elsewhere, ultimately these “stars from afar,” as Singer calls them, will compete with those closer to home for the same small number of positions."

Plus they're focusing more on research than teaching:

"Ideally, research and teaching go hand-in-hand—the great professor contributes to the scope of knowledge while at the same time dispensing it. But without a means to measure—and reward— teaching, students are often left with senior professors who conduct their classes with unconcealed distaste, rehashing old overheads compiled a generation ago, stifling the bothersome questions at office hours, and begrudging every minute stolen from the lab. There are, of course, the occasional geniuses whose level of research covers all defects and makes them essential hires even if their lectures are grunted and monotone. But geniuses pare rare even among Harvard’s professoriat. The lay-professors ought to be skilled at teaching and research, but the Harvard’s current tenuring process hardly allows it. “I’m told often that teaching really matters but I don’t see a lot of evidence that being an exceptional teacher will result in a real reward here,” says Cox."

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/11/scrutiny-tenure-harvard/

Liberal arts college professors still need to do ample research to advance to tenure, especially at WASP.

Yes, and guess who actively participates with them in their research? Undergrads! This was the case with our Kid who got several scientific papers published from her undergrad SLAC research

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
When did you last attend an HYPSM, the classes these days are TINY. You were just a generation behind. They also can hire the best teaching faculty because of the prestige.

They hire them, then fire them rather than giving them tenure. Not the best way to motivate them to teach.

Do you mean non-tenure track faculty? That is how all institutions work. You don’t accept a contract that says you will be at an institution for a short period if you want to be there long term.

No, I mean assistant professors on the tenure track:"Tenure at Harvard is very difficult to get, particularly promotion from within. From job offer to tenure offer, scholarship and teaching are intensely scrutinized. For young scholars hired into the tenure track and brought up from within, evaluation occurs in Harvard’s classrooms and among its academic circles. Of the 20 or 30 assistant professors who are hired into that track across the University each year, many will not make it through a full seven years to tenure review.

At the same time as junior faculty are moving up within the University, more senior scholars will be recruited from the outside. Though reputations and their own tenure positions have been earned elsewhere, ultimately these “stars from afar,” as Singer calls them, will compete with those closer to home for the same small number of positions."

Plus they're focusing more on research than teaching:

"Ideally, research and teaching go hand-in-hand—the great professor contributes to the scope of knowledge while at the same time dispensing it. But without a means to measure—and reward— teaching, students are often left with senior professors who conduct their classes with unconcealed distaste, rehashing old overheads compiled a generation ago, stifling the bothersome questions at office hours, and begrudging every minute stolen from the lab. There are, of course, the occasional geniuses whose level of research covers all defects and makes them essential hires even if their lectures are grunted and monotone. But geniuses are rare even among Harvard’s professoriat. The lay-professors ought to be skilled at teaching and research, but the Harvard’s current tenuring process hardly allows it. “I’m told often that teaching really matters but I don’t see a lot of evidence that being an exceptional teacher will result in a real reward here,” says Cox."

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/11/scrutiny-tenure-harvard/

Liberal arts college professors still need to do ample research to advance to tenure, especially at WASP.

At any top SLAC.

There is nothing special about WASP relative to the 8 or so schools right behind it. Most are very wealthy even if not as wealthy as WASP and have student bodies with virtually the same profiles. Top SLACs in general provide a superior education model relative to univiersities.