Reply to Penn or Williams for pre-med?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The per capita obsession is boring and the only thing people use for LACs. They never can present anything actually unique for the LAC experience. Most classes at top universities these days are small. You aren’t unique for taking a seminar class. There’s nothing interesting out of being able to do research with a professor- if anything, larger universities provide more access to research, because the classes aren’t that large and there’s a lot of research institutes and medical centers to be a part of the action.

I don’t dislike LACs. They’re great for the student who likes them. I just think the benefits are mostly overstated propaganda [/quote]

for mathy people, per capita is the only way to get a read on outcomes. saying Penn places more students in med school is not at all meaningful.

in this case, looks they both have strong placement. and sure, williams a little stronger. 15th in the country instead of 20 is possibly splitting hairs[/quote]
That’s my big issue though. It’s always a split hair situation when per capita is brought up. It’s only used because they want to get some “edge” when comparing an elite university to an elite college. There’s no actual value to it other than making useless points.[/quote]

Per capita is absolutely the correct way to look at it if you are trying to calculate personal odds, which is what someone interested in evaluating schools for pre-med quality is interested in.  [/quote]

Not if you don't account for the initial interests of the school. UPenn is a comprehensive university with 90+ majors, so the percent of pre-meds is smaller than at Williams.

To give an example, about 28% of Harvey Mudd students go on to earn a STEM PhD, compared to 12% of Pomona students. Harvey Mudd is a school where virtually everyone graduates with a STEM degree, and at Pomona, around 40% of their students do. So adjusting for just the proportion of STEM majors at both schools, said grads are almost equally likely to earn a PhD regardless of the institution. Mudd isn't twice as productive as Pomona, rather, Mudd has twice the interest in STEM compared to Pomona.[/quote]

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