Cornell 22nd in top 50 list - folks going on to PHDs in Science

Interesting - Top 50 Schools that Produce Science PhDs

As a Swarthmore grad and with family having gone to Oberlin and other small colleges _ I chose to encourage my kids to go to small liberal arts schools for undergrad education. May be something to that not sure - maybe just emotional and personal attachment. 28 of the 50 are clearly small L.A. colleges - not counting specialized places like Cal Tech, RPI, MIT, or larger places like Dartmouth ...

Lynn O'Shaughnessy
Only three state universities cracked the top 50 PhD list and only two of them are well known: University of California, Berkeley, and College of William & Mary. The third is a head scratcher: New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology!

All the other schools on the top 50 list are private institutions. What I found most interesting (but not surprising) is that the majority of these schools — 28 of them — are liberal arts colleges.

Students who attend liberal arts colleges enjoy many advantages that students at large public and private universities often don’t. At liberal arts colleges, there is typically a far greater chance for undergraduate research. Classes are routinely small.

Thought might be an interesting topic for discussion. (?)

I can buy the classes are smaller and more interaction with professors part, but I don't see how opportunities for undergraduate research are greater at a small liberal arts college. It may be easier for the college to encourage undergrads to do research there, but there are so many more labs with more diverse opportunities for research at a larger research university. I certainly had no trouble doing research for 3 years at Cornell, and I doubt I would have at any of the big state schools with strong research programs.

Why can no one spell Rensselaer correctly? I guess that I just did.

ursusminor
Why can no one spell Rensselaer correctly? I guess that I just did.

It's not hard at all to spell. R-P-I.

KeithK

ursusminor
Why can no one spell Rensselaer correctly? I guess that I just did.

It's not hard at all to spell. R-P-I.

The Potsdam contingent usually spells it R-I-P.

It is even more interesting when you look at the actual data:
[www.nsf.gov]

There is a huge difference between the top few schools and the rest of the top 50.

Note also that if you look at the actual numbers of PhDs awarded, Cornell trails only UC-Berkeley (of the schools on the Top 50 list).

Why is it that no one can spell "procrastinating" correctly?

Maybe because people coming out of small liberal arts colleges with a science major know their degree really isn't worth that much.

I'm one of those people that graduated from a small liberal arts college, Trinity College (now VERY pricey college!) who went on to earn her PhD.

What I liked about the small school experience was the small class sizes, the professors actually knowing my name and taking an interest in what I wanted to do in life. This was in many of my classes, not just the science ones. I had a history professor who offered to write recommendations for me even though I was applying to grad programs in molecular biology, not English/Irish history. It was this small class atmosphere that allowed me to thrive; I know I would have been lost at school where I was one of 400 kids in the intro Biology class, and really would have struggled through Organic Chemistry (of which I'm having bad flashbacks about due to the story this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry).

Even though the scope of the research is different than at a large research university, I was able to work on a research project, and also serve as a teaching assistant for several laboratory and lecture classes; the latter would have been difficult to do at a large university. I started college with the goal of getting a MD and specializing in forensic medicine, however, my experience teaching and working on a research project both at Trinity and also at the UCONN medical school got me thinking about pursuing a PhD and teaching.

While at Cornell and the University of Oregon, the labs I worked in had undergrads working in the labs, but it seemed that those positions were hard to get (this was in molecular biology/plant biology) and that the students had to knock on a lot of lab doors to find a lab that would take them.

Anyways, just my two cents worth and how my liberal arts experience got me to Cornell and hooked on Cornell hockey .

ursusminor

KeithK

ursusminor
Why can no one spell Rensselaer correctly? I guess that I just did.

It's not hard at all to spell. R-P-I.

The Potsdam contingent usually spells it R-I-P.

That is the correct spelling. Not our fault your jersey company puts the letters on wrong every year.