Reply to I go to a top LAC for history and stem. It is overrated.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ops statement for top phd placement is true for math and psychology, but not other disciplines. [/quote]

R1 top-ranked universities, whether public or private, are better for phD placement in Math, Physics, Chemistry, and all Engineering disciplines, for every LAC except the very top LACs (WAS). R1s that are mediocre do not show the same clear benefit in STEM phD placement over LACs, especially known academically rigorous T15 LACS. The R1 standard is not what it once was. [/quote]

Incorrect on a couple fronts. Only 3 of the top 10 and 7 of the top 20 (by rate) of STEM PhD feeders are R1s. Look at the far right column in below link.  Also, minor point but Williams and Amherst aren’t in the top 3 for LAC feeders to PhD programs, though they are top 10.

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[/quote]

This is just a list of the share of each school that goes on to receive a doctorate, though. It doesn’t really measure relative placement.

It’s a bit strange that boosters of a type of school that is accused of graduating kids that are less employable and that hiring managers haven’t heard of are so eager to highlight their high rate of kids going to PhD programs.[/quote]

If you are saying it would be nice to have full transparency on where everyone goes, sure, but I trust NSF PhD conferral rates more than anonymous statements about which ones are placing into "top" PhD programs.  For starters, there is no public repository that shows where exactly everyone goes. Also "top" is undefined. All funded PhD programs are highly selective, and one need not restrict their selection to a USNWR ranked T5 or T10 to have excellent career options.  Ultimately, if a student is considering going into a field that requires PhD-level training and expertise, it's sensible to be interested in undergraduate origin rates when selecting a college. (As an aside, the posts earlier in the thread suggesting readers look at Princeton's math dept ignored the issue that their undergrad origins are not displayed there, at least not publicly.)

There are all sorts of reasons why someone might be interested in getting a PhD, especially in STEM where the majority of recipients use their research to find a match in industry. A published PhD recipient with relevant research will often (but no one said always!) be a better fit to lead a commercial research program to invent some new technology or solution.

It's funny that when many posters talk about the greater fame of universities they are happy to point to their research prowess or rankings largely based on them, but when a student is actually interested in identifying the best educational route to do such research, the same poster acts like one is crazy to be interested in paths to graduate programs.  
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The problem is that you can’t distinguish here between LACs having high shares of PhD students because they are good at preparing kids for PhD programs versus having high shares of PhD students because other opportunities are more limited.[/quote]

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