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However, the context of my post was that AE continues to point out to applicants and parents that SC provides a better science education and one so much so that it deserves to be on a “separate tier”. In this setting, it’s absolutely reasonable to point out that HC’s science faculty, research and grant support has hit pinnacles that can’t be bettered. |
Can you prove this ridiculous statement? I doubt it. I hate to break it to you, but the onus is on
you, not me, to back up statements such as that one with some kind of objective measuring stick or authority. You just rattle off the names and quantities of grants and arbitrary faculty stats as though that's supposed to mean something. It means absolutely nothing, especially when you omit all grant information about Swarthmore or Harvey Mudd and hand pick what criteria you feel exemplifies undergraduate scientific excellence.
But, as has been pointed out time and again, Swarthmore produces more science Ph.D.s per student than Haverford, by quite a wide margin (18 per 100 compared to 11 per 100). This is from the very link you provided! Thanks for proving me right, I guess. Harvey Mudd produces more science Ph.D.s than either, though it only edges Swarthmore out by 1 science Ph.D. per 100 enrolled students. If someone is going to college with the goal of being a professional scientist someday, it makes sense to target those institutions with higher Ph.D. productivity.
And, let's not get things twisted here. I have certainly said I consider Haverford on a lower tier than Swarthmore, but in a general sense (and due almost entirely to two things: quality of student and endowment per student). You have said quite the opposite regarding the science departments, specifically. You've referred to Haverford as outstanding and Swarthmore merely excellent in this regard so you, too, are guilty of making there out to be a discernible difference in the two schools, implying one is on a lower tier.
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Regarding the PhD lists… it was designed by Thom Cech (head of the HHMI and not Reed College or ID) to argue that, as a category, small colleges can be considered as good as universities with preparing students for a research career if PhD production is used as a proxy for this. The list was meant to show no difference between types of schools. It’s not meant to show that one school performs better than another.
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OK, let me get this straight... the list was not meant to show that one school performs better than another, so I should just pretend there's no difference between 18 and 11?
All that said, here is another statistic that may interest you. The Swarthmore forum here at College Confidential has 11,670 posts. The Haverford forum has 2,545 posts. Maybe you could spend more time over there, where some traffic is apparently needed, and less time here trolling us with your tired, pointless arguments and needlessly driving up our post count.