mcpheevn

Hi everyone,

I would like to know what are the commonly graduate schools that Haverford science students (or those with strong science focus, I included the brackets because Haverford is a LAC), and particularly for chemistry enrolled in because I intend to major in chemistry in college. Please don't just list only the top schools because there might be be only one or two that get accepted to each of those schools and therefore will not be representative of all students. If possible, I would want to know the detailed distribution of graduate schools (how many students accepted into what school) for Haverford science major (again, esp. Chemistry).

I am seriously considering to apply ED for Haverford right now because I used to plan to apply ED for other strong science LACs (based on the graduate productivity: see the Oberlin 50 and nsf.gov - SRS Baccalaureate Origins of S&E Doctorate Recipients - US National Science Foundation (NSF)) such as Reed & Grinnell. However, I am having feelings that some of them are too quirky (read:hippie or indie) for my taste (this is a matter of preference and I don't mean to offend anyone). I feel that Haverford students, while equally hard-working, seem more laid-back and normal (please correct me if I'm wrong). And the fact that it is near Penn, in a consortium & the persuasions from the people on this topic also helped me be attracted more and more to Haverford.

Edit: I also have considered other strong science LACs such as Swarthmore & Harvey Mudd. They will definitely be on my RD list but for ED I think these school are harder to get into compared to Haverford, esp. for an international student with aid like me (I haven't looked at the numbers yet, if anyone has them please post here as well).

srrinath

not sure if i'm qualified to reply (the only 'credential' i have is extensive research over time but that's pretty much common of most responders on this forum).

anyway, the whole graduate school thing is largely dependent on a person. the thing about statistics is that they'll show you nothing. with top graduate schools, wherever you go, it'll always be the minority getting in. if you're looking for statistics on where the 'average' student from your choice schools get into, you're unlikely to find them simply because there's such a diversity of skills and employers/adcoms/etc that often you can't draw any sort of statistical correlation between two things.

having said that, which graduate schools you go to is largely dependent on your performance at an LAC and in some cases, what you do in an extracurricular basis while you're there. for the hard sciences (by that i mean pure phy/chem/bio and so on), having research internships and working research relationships with professors is really important and that's where being in an LAC will help you out. for two reasons:

(1) there aren't graduate students around to 'steal' research places from undergrads
(2) LACs are often small and communal and hence, it's easier to develop relationships with profs that'll help you get those research opportunities

i'm sure you know that haverford's sciences and its research opportunities are among the best in america and the percentage of them who go on to PhDs is also pretty high. however, notice that most of the time they won't give you stats on whatt graduate school a person would get into. that's because it's really hard to say. often, graduate admissions to the top programs are in the range of 10% and below (not too sure about chemistry but other fields are something like that). so you can rest assured that if you're going to get accepted/rejected, most times it won't be the quality of your undergrad classroom academics that is the key factor in keeping you in/out but rather the other (subjective and non-subjective) factors.

graduate schools also tend to pay more attention to standardized testing (in the case of sciences, i think it's the GRE) so once again what college you come from won't help you or hinder you significantly.

hope all that rambling helped.

dadx3

Most college departments will be able to give you a list of what their recent graduate majors are up to. I don't know for sure if Haverford's chem department has such a list available, but you could always ask. Try calling or emailing either the department secretary or department head.

Even at a top notch LAC like Haverford, the number of students going on for a PhD in chem is likely to be quite small. The chem department probably has 10-20 major graduates per year. Not all will go to grad school, and not all of those who go to grad school will go to grad school in chemistry. So you will have a small sample to deal with, and shouldn't consider any data you get as being reliably predictive.

archermom

D1 graduated with Class of '08 as chem major. She is now at BC and another chem classmate is at Stanford.

HC Alum

HHMI: Science Education Grants for Institutions

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s grants initiative to advance undergraduate scientific research is the largest privately funded educational initiative of its kind in the US. Awardees are selected in a competitive process with the judges being distinguished scientists and educators. Although the grants amount to “only” a few million each award cycle, winning a grant reflects outside reviewers’ opinions on the science program of each school. If you graduate as a science major from Haverford, you won't have to worry too much about name recognition in the sciences from people in the know.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute Grants to LACs 1988-current.

Haverford..........7,250,000
Swarthmore.......6,571,000
Wellesley...........6,400,000
Carleton............5,512,000
Bryn Mawr.........4,800,000
Wesleyan..........4,790,000
Williams............4,760,500
Grinnell.............4,312,009
Amherst............4,300,000
Pomona.............4,007,000
Bowdoin............3,250,000
Middlebury.........1,050,000

HC Alum

Assistant professor of astronomy and physics Beth Willman received $422,000 in NSF grants to support her path-breaking work on ultra-faint galaxies.

Haverford College News Room

Haverford Receives $1 Million from National Science Foundation to Purchase New Instruments. The instruments, which include three different kinds of microscopes and a high-tech cell sorting system, will strengthen research capabilities for faculty and students in the biology and physics departments.

Haverford College News Room

Kate Alfieri and Heather McMahon from the class of '10 were honored by the Protein Society for having the best undergraduate poster at the Society's annual symposium.

Haverford College News Room

William Phillips is a Group Leader at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Phillips won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997 (together with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and Steven Chu) for his contributions to laser cooling, a technique to slow the movement of gaseous atoms in order to better study them, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Haverford College: Calendar: Event Detail
(example of a guest lecturer students get by going to a LAC not in the middle of nowhere)

Mare_Crisium

I've heard a lot about Haverford's Biology and Chemistry programs, but how reputable is their computer science program. I know that the program has just been created recently, so I'm curious to hear more about it.

HC Alum

I posted something about computer science before but I can't find the link at the moment. You have to remember that it is also complementary with BMC's computer science program. If you check out their website, there's additional info. The Bi-co computer science program won a $1 million award I think 1-2 years ago.

Also, from what I understand, computer science projects can be coordinated with research with faculty in bio, chem, physics, astronomy, psych, econ, ect...

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Assistant Professor of Chemistry Casey Londergan has received an AREA (Academic Research Enhancement Award) from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences—the basic research arm of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)—for a project focusing on the structure and binding of proteins. The award provides Londergan with $202,355 for two years of work

Haverford College News Room

HC Alum

Another example of a superb guest speaker available to HC students because of its ideal location close to an urban center in the North East corridor. Double this given the speakers who visit BMC as well. Having individuals as these introduce new ideas and applications to students really enhances the academics students get in the classroom.

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"The HIV Lifecycle: From Discovery to Drug Development to Clinical Applications" Dr. Robert Doms
"The HIV Lifecycle: From Discovery to Drug Development to Clinical Applications" Dr. Robert Domshttp://www.haverford.edu/calendar/details/121232KINSC Hilles 109 2009-12-02T16:15:002009-12-02T18:00:00
December 2, 4:15PM
KINSC Hilles 109
Lecture by Dr. Robert Doms,M.D., Ph.D, and Chair, Department of Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania , supported by KINSC.


For More Info
Fran Blase
fblase@haverford.edu