Reply to Top ranked LACs vs top ranked universities

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[quote=Anonymous]OP here. Thanks for the feedback. Lots to tackle, and apologies for a lengthy response.

[quote]Just realize that the best for you is different than the best for someone else. And nothing makes you better than another human being.[/quote]
I don't disagree with you. My primary premise is that based on the evidence I've seen, I don't see a reason for there to be a fair equivalent between top LACs and top universities.

[quote] The best students in the country are not limited to National Merit Scholars.[/quote]
Of course not, but it's one of the best proxies out there.

[quote]Is introductory microeconomics better with 700 students or 20?[/quote]
The percent of classes under 20 at the top universities tends to be the same or higher than the LACs. Percent of classes under 20 at Columbia: 82.7%. Percent of classes under 20 at Amherst: 68%

[quote]They may be better at teaching than the best academic researchers.[/quote]
This is true, but my concern primarily lies in whether or not they are teaching the most current understanding of the field. One can be assured that universities will always be at the cutting edge. But LACs depend on generally tenured professors with little research and publication output. All the teaching in the world may not be so great if it's not what future destinations are looking for or applying.

[quote]Look at where the top LAC professors got their PhDs[/quote]
I know LACs are excellent PhD producers, and I'm certain that at one point Williams/Swarthmore/etc were top feeders to the best of the best. I'm talking about more recent statistics and only for the absolute best schools and fellowships like Rhodes. The top LACs are no longer doing as well for the very very best schools. It's only a comment on the top ranked programs- I'm sure they're still the top feeders for PhDs in general. The Swarthmore letter is here and the comment I defer to is this: "[i]Years back, every year or two a Swat grad went off to math grad school at a top place (Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley). This hasn’t been true in recent years and we want to change that[/i]." (Source: http://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/mathematics-statistics/MathGradSchool.pdf)

[quote]A slimmer set of course offerings may mean stronger fundamentals rather than too narrow specialization[/quote]
At some majors, there are only 20-30 courses offered, preventing students from finding the coursework of interest they may want. For instance, many LACs don't have courses in artificial intelligence or neural networks in their CS departments. Just the fact that universities offer around 50-100 courses means that students won't have to resort to picking at the bottom of the barrel to fulfill major requirements or give up what they're passionate about.

[quote]Only a small number of big companies do major on-campus recruiting[/quote]
Is this really true? Almost every top company I could think of from the top of my head recruited directly at the Ivies/Stanford/U'Chicago or at least was there for an employment fair. This was not the case at most LACs. Even "lesser-ranked" yet still top 25 universities had a ton of great companies visiting. It's just sort of common sense- why visit a school with only 2000 students when you could visit one with 6000 comparable students?

[quote]Yield is largely driven by the school's admissions strategy.[/quote]
That may be, which is why RD yields are particularly telling as they can't be manipulated by admissions. The RD yields at LACs are consistently lower than the universities, suggesting students aren't finding them as desirable.

[quote]Every college is a bubble of hormonal adolescents[/quote]
I've found that more residential experiences- and that includes schools like Yale- can make it particularly easy to step away from the real world.

[quote]not a single one of those markers has any significance on the actual quality of instruction a student receives at a school.[/quote]
You're correct. It may very well be that LAC graduates are more satisfied with their quality of instruction. I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest. But since this is a comparative point, it makes me wonder. How much of the satisfaction is coming from easier grading than that at top universities (gradeinflation.com highlights how grade inflated most LACs are)? How current is the teaching with the research interests these professors have that are pretty outdated? To give an example, for reference, one professor is a O'Chem professor is a pioneer of the QSAR technique, which is great but is not widely used these days.

[quote]You conveniently overlook some stats in favor of others.[/quote]
This is a fair criticism. Could you let me know what else I should consider?

16:13- thank you for sharing your perspective. I really appreciate it and it raises a lot of interesting points, such as how experiences can't really be boiled down to numbers. When did you graduate? My focus is on comparing top universities with top liberal art colleges today, so it'd be interesting to see if those points are true today.

The things I want to specifically address are:

"They weren't very interested in taking a risk."- I've actually been seeing evidence that it's students at the LACs who aren't taking risks or venturing outside their comfort zone.

" It wasn't a result of value added by an Ivy."-  I feel that being surrounded by the most accomplished researchers and students out there would invariably influence a student's ability to be a compelling candidate for the best graduate programs and fellowships. I'm willing to accept that the top LACs may have students who're just as smart as their top university peers. But here's my concern. You have applicant A from top LAC X. They graduate Phi Beta Kappa, do tons of research, etc- and are basically the top student in their field. But they don't have the comparative sense that the competition is pretty intense. Meanwhile, applicant B from top University Y is similarly accomplished, but has connections with leading scholars in the field to really obtain the most coveted research experiences and perhaps even dive into graduate level courses. When graduate schools look at who to admit, they don't care that applicant A is the best in their school but rather what A brings compared to B. This is why LACs are doing more poorly in sending students to the absolute best PhD programs out there- they just don't have the resources to make their students as compelling.

"You take the course sequence as it is offered and you can't jump around because not every class is offered every year." I've checked out several major requirements and they're pretty similar at LACs and universities. There is generally a lot of flexibility to pick a track or focus on a particular subset of courses, in addition to the required intro and core courses. Is it not the case that having only 2 courses to choose from in Medieval History at a LAC compared to 20 at a university when you have to pick 1 to study increases the risk that the LAC student isn't picking what they'd most desire?

"Yield? WTF? Yield has nothing to do with the quality of education. It's a bragging rights game for schools and alumni." As pointed out above, I think RD yields are telling of how applicants perceive their choices. It's not a factor which can be influenced by admissions. Note that this is RD yields, not overall yield.

"The Ivies give great financial aid, but most LACs can give us decent aid and the education and experience is better in my opinion." That's fair. But my comparison is with the top LACs, who don't have any merit available and will be as expensive as the top universities. 
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