Anonymous wrote:Having attended both a liberal arts college (AWS) and large research universities for my graduate degrees, I would strongly encourage my own children to at least look at LACs for undergrad.

Ditto.

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Anonymous wrote:Who is this repeat poster who keeps talking about AWS? It's Amherst and Williams. That's it. Swarthmore doesn't get nearly the same level of recruiting. Heck, the Claremont Colleges and Bowdoin/Middlebury do better.

Are you confusing Swarthmore with Skidmore? Because only someone with very little knowledge of LACs would exclude Swarthmore from the top 3.

I never denied that. But Swarthmore gets nowhere near the recruiting Amherst or Williams do. First off, it's small for a LAC. Secondly, most of their grads aren't pre-professional. Swarthmore is not recruited by the top consulting firms like Amherst, Williams, and Pomona are.

If you want to make an example about the best LACs for career prospects, it would not be AWS. It would be AW, maybe Bowdoin and Middlebury, and the Claremonts for West Coast recruiting.

Where are you getting your info? I hope its not from some random source like College Confidential. It strikes me that Swarthmore is a pretty easy recruiting place for many companies, given its easy proximity to NYC and DC. Also, if you look at the college counseling website, about 25% of the class ends up in consulting, business, or some other related field. Econ is a very popular major there. Anecdotally, when I was a student there, your usual consulting firms all visited Swat (McKinsey, E&Y, Bain, etc.), and a fair number of my classmates ended up at HBS or Stanford BS.

When did you go to swat? I can tell you as of Swat class of 2014, getting into BCG, McK, or Bain was extremely hard and took lots of leg work by kids that wanted to break in. It isn't the same pipeline that a dartmouth or even Brown kid would have.

My sister had to work the alum network hard to get stuff. It paid off (see my post from a few weeks ago about 'strong alum networks') because swatties look out for one another but there isn't the on campus formal linkages with the top firms that you find at Williams or Amherst.

Banking is a bit different - a number of swatties at GS for example from my sister's peer group but that's also a function of bulge brackets taking a lot more kids in general than MBB consulting.

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Anonymous wrote:It's also highly likely that a kid who goes to a college like Harvard or Chicago or Hopkins hoping to learn to write well and think critically will get to know at least a few professors well. Most professors are eager to share their intellectual passion with students who are interested in learning.

Actually, that's not what I hear from the students I know currently at Harvard and Chicago.

I guess we know different kids.

At any research university profs will focus on grad students.

Not true -- I've been the undergrad, the grad student, and the prof in a number of such universities and that's not what I've seen or experienced in any of them. It's not what I'm seeing as a parent either.

Nor, as a prof, have I seen anything that indicates that kids who go to LACs end up with better writing or critical thinking skills. Seems to depend more on the student than the school. And it's not the case that the best teachers gravitate to LACs. So many other factors determine which available job is most attractive one.

Yes, some good teachers (and some good researchers for that matter) get lost in the tenure process at major research universities. But by focussing less on research, LACs don't necessarily tenure better teachers. No one's measuring (and other faculty rarely observe) how well profs teach. They're looking at student reviews, and what students like in a course (or about a professor) may or may not involve learning to write well or think critically. So we're back to student satisfaction is the goal of LACs -- not a superior education.

As a fellow prof (at a Research I), I have to respectfully disagree. I think that some of your experience comes from your own abilities and trajectory. Most undergrads at universities are not going into academia, so they are not going to catch the attention of profs, nor are they particularly interested in getting to know faculty better. You were also probably a really good student, as most PhDs and professors were; we often went into academia because we were really good students. Also, as a parent, you have likely transferred skills--intentionally or not-- to your own children about how they can make full use of the faculty at the university. I would say that about 95% of my students never visit me during office hours; but, I am fairly confident that my own kids will very likely seek out their professors during office hours because they have believed since birth that this is what students are supposed to do. Having attended both a liberal arts college (AWS) and large research universities for my graduate degrees, I would strongly encourage my own children to at least look at LACs for undergrad.

Anonymous wrote: No one's measuring (and other faculty rarely observe) how well profs teach. They're looking at student reviews, and what students like in a course (or about a professor) may or may not involve learning to write well or think critically. So we're back to student satisfaction is the goal of LACs -- not a superior education.

Measuring quality based on customer satisfaction is standard practice.

Anonymous wrote:OP, while I appreciate your thoroughness (and I wonder how you have so much time on your hands) not a single one of those markers has any significance on the actual quality of instruction a student receives at a school.

+1

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Anonymous wrote:It's also highly likely that a kid who goes to a college like Harvard or Chicago or Hopkins hoping to learn to write well and think critically will get to know at least a few professors well. Most professors are eager to share their intellectual passion with students who are interested in learning.

Actually, that's not what I hear from the students I know currently at Harvard and Chicago.

I guess we know different kids.

At any research university profs will focus on grad students.

At top research universities as a phd student you get very little time even with your own advisor. More than a random undergrad for sure, but accessibility is very limited.

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Anonymous wrote:It's also highly likely that a kid who goes to a college like Harvard or Chicago or Hopkins hoping to learn to write well and think critically will get to know at least a few professors well. Most professors are eager to share their intellectual passion with students who are interested in learning.

Actually, that's not what I hear from the students I know currently at Harvard and Chicago.

I guess we know different kids.

At any research university profs will focus on grad students.

Not true -- I've been the undergrad, the grad student, and the prof in a number of such universities and that's not what I've seen or experienced in any of them. It's not what I'm seeing as a parent either.

Nor, as a prof, have I seen anything that indicates that kids who go to LACs end up with better writing or critical thinking skills. Seems to depend more on the student than the school. And it's not the case that the best teachers gravitate to LACs. So many other factors determine which available job is most attractive one.

Yes, some good teachers (and some good researchers for that matter) get lost in the tenure process at major research universities. But by focussing less on research, LACs don't necessarily tenure better teachers. No one's measuring (and other faculty rarely observe) how well profs teach. They're looking at student reviews, and what students like in a course (or about a professor) may or may not involve learning to write well or think critically. So we're back to student satisfaction is the goal of LACs -- not a superior education.

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Anonymous wrote:It's also highly likely that a kid who goes to a college like Harvard or Chicago or Hopkins hoping to learn to write well and think critically will get to know at least a few professors well. Most professors are eager to share their intellectual passion with students who are interested in learning.

Actually, that's not what I hear from the students I know currently at Harvard and Chicago.

I guess we know different kids.

At any research university profs will focus on grad students.

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Anonymous wrote:Who is this repeat poster who keeps talking about AWS? It's Amherst and Williams. That's it. Swarthmore doesn't get nearly the same level of recruiting. Heck, the Claremont Colleges and Bowdoin/Middlebury do better.

Are you confusing Swarthmore with Skidmore? Because only someone with very little knowledge of LACs would exclude Swarthmore from the top 3.

I never denied that. But Swarthmore gets nowhere near the recruiting Amherst or Williams do. First off, it's small for a LAC. Secondly, most of their grads aren't pre-professional. Swarthmore is not recruited by the top consulting firms like Amherst, Williams, and Pomona are.

If you want to make an example about the best LACs for career prospects, it would not be AWS. It would be AW, maybe Bowdoin and Middlebury, and the Claremonts for West Coast recruiting.

Where are you getting your info? I hope its not from some random source like College Confidential. It strikes me that Swarthmore is a pretty easy recruiting place for many companies, given its easy proximity to NYC and DC. Also, if you look at the college counseling website, about 25% of the class ends up in consulting, business, or some other related field. Econ is a very popular major there. Anecdotally, when I was a student there, your usual consulting firms all visited Swat (McKinsey, E&Y, Bain, etc.), and a fair number of my classmates ended up at HBS or Stanford BS.

Agree with this. I also graduated from Swarthmore, and a bunch of kids from my class were recruited by the likes of Goldman, JP Morgan, McKinsey. There were also quite a few that went on to work for the World Bank. There were definitely a ton of recruiting events so I'm not sure where PP gets his/her info from. I took the engineering route so I didn't really go to these things; I will admit though that engineering companies largely ignored us. Most engineering majors in my class went on to a PHD program. A bunch went into finance. A few of us actually became engineers.

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Anonymous wrote:It's also highly likely that a kid who goes to a college like Harvard or Chicago or Hopkins hoping to learn to write well and think critically will get to know at least a few professors well. Most professors are eager to share their intellectual passion with students who are interested in learning.

Actually, that's not what I hear from the students I know currently at Harvard and Chicago.

I guess we know different kids.

Really depends on major and even area of interest within the major. And the kid's personality/drive. I had a very close relationship with one professor at Harvard who later became my thesis advisor. I was later told that that professor doesn't advise undergraduate theses! Well, he did mine.

Probably also depends on how smart/interesting the undergrad is!

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Anonymous wrote:It's also highly likely that a kid who goes to a college like Harvard or Chicago or Hopkins hoping to learn to write well and think critically will get to know at least a few professors well. Most professors are eager to share their intellectual passion with students who are interested in learning.

Actually, that's not what I hear from the students I know currently at Harvard and Chicago.

I guess we know different kids.

Really depends on major and even area of interest within the major. And the kid's personality/drive. I had a very close relationship with one professor at Harvard who later became my thesis advisor. I was later told that that professor doesn't advise undergraduate theses! Well, he did mine.

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Anonymous wrote:Who is this repeat poster who keeps talking about AWS? It's Amherst and Williams. That's it. Swarthmore doesn't get nearly the same level of recruiting. Heck, the Claremont Colleges and Bowdoin/Middlebury do better.

Are you confusing Swarthmore with Skidmore? Because only someone with very little knowledge of LACs would exclude Swarthmore from the top 3.

I never denied that. But Swarthmore gets nowhere near the recruiting Amherst or Williams do. First off, it's small for a LAC. Secondly, most of their grads aren't pre-professional. Swarthmore is not recruited by the top consulting firms like Amherst, Williams, and Pomona are.

If you want to make an example about the best LACs for career prospects, it would not be AWS. It would be AW, maybe Bowdoin and Middlebury, and the Claremonts for West Coast recruiting.

Where are you getting your info? I hope its not from some random source like College Confidential. It strikes me that Swarthmore is a pretty easy recruiting place for many companies, given its easy proximity to NYC and DC. Also, if you look at the college counseling website, about 25% of the class ends up in consulting, business, or some other related field. Econ is a very popular major there. Anecdotally, when I was a student there, your usual consulting firms all visited Swat (McKinsey, E&Y, Bain, etc.), and a fair number of my classmates ended up at HBS or Stanford BS.

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Anonymous wrote:It's also highly likely that a kid who goes to a college like Harvard or Chicago or Hopkins hoping to learn to write well and think critically will get to know at least a few professors well. Most professors are eager to share their intellectual passion with students who are interested in learning.

Actually, that's not what I hear from the students I know currently at Harvard and Chicago.

I guess we know different kids.

"The most competitive PhD programs and fellowships are primarily taking applicants from the Ivies and peer schools. There is a letter written by a Swarthmore professor about how no one has been admitted to a top 5 math PhD program from Swarthmore in recent years, whereas Swarthmore had a consistently excellent track record in the past. This is the case at Williams too- none of the recent math grads are getting into the best PhD programs. I also took a look at where the graduates from the best clinical psychology programs (which is extremely selective) attended college, and saw mostly the Ivies, Stanford, and UChicago."

No. Swathmore may have problems, but some LACs are very wellknown in STEM fields.

I went to Reed college (a small west coast LAC) and all 11 math majors my senior year were admitted to top graduate programs. I went to Stanford. Many of my friends were Bio or Chem majors and everyone who applied got into medical school or graduate school. Per capita, I think Reed is #4 in post grad placement of any college or university in the US.

Anonymous wrote:It's also highly likely that a kid who goes to a college like Harvard or Chicago or Hopkins hoping to learn to write well and think critically will get to know at least a few professors well. Most professors are eager to share their intellectual passion with students who are interested in learning.

Actually, that's not what I hear from the students I know currently at Harvard and Chicago.