<p>our child is in (hooray) but we don’t know Haverford as well as some other schools. What do alums from Haverford tend to do? Any data or generalizations?</p>
<p>Congrats njfamily!</p>
<p>Of the 11 roommates I had over the course of my 4 years at HC (I’ve excluded the four people I haven’t heard about since graduation, but included myself in that number), we collectively attended the following grad schools: Berkeley Business, Columbia Law, Harvard Business (2), Harvard Education, Harvard Kennedy, Harvard Law, Univ. of Penn. Med (2), Yale Med, Yale PhD (2), and no grad school.</p>
<p>See this article:</p>
<p>[Haverford</a> College News Room](<a href=“http://www.haverford.edu/news/stories/18161/51]Haverford”>http://www.haverford.edu/news/stories/18161/51)</p>
1 Like
<p>What do alums tend to do?</p>
<p>I think the answer I can give, and I don’t mean to sound vague, is anything they put their minds to… I know too many examples of unexpected and rewarding paths friends/classmates have taken to state otherwise. Perhaps more specifically, clinical medicine, scientific research, education/academics, policy, legal, public service, and business are fairly popular. Often times, I’ve seen pretty creative combinations of these fields as well…</p>
<p>If you believe Hollywood, Haverford alums seem to be somehow involved with plots and conspiracies… Russell Crowe’s character in the upcoming movie “State of Play” and Dale Cooper, FBI detective in David Lynches’ “Twin Peaks.”
[The</a> Haverblog Russell Crowe](<a href=“http://news.haverford.edu/blogs/haverblog/tag/russell-crowe/]The”>http://news.haverford.edu/blogs/haverblog/tag/russell-crowe/)</p>
<p>Hey Casey, thanks for posting that link. (Thanks for keeping this forum alive with pointoforder). For students using this as a resource to weigh colleges, I think it’s important to emphasize that “rankings” such as these have to be interpreted carefully or will lead you down wrong paths… like I’ve seen on other threads where PhD productivity is the topic of interest. The PhD rankings were initially measured by a researcher at HHMI to prove that there is no difference between LACs and the ivies in terms of PhD productivity, as a proxy for who knows what… but it was never meant to argue that one school is somehow different or provides a better education as it doesn’t have the statistical power o do so. The units are measured in # alums with a PhD/1000 graduates… and the differences are pretty small, especially as PhD production is broken down by category as I’ve seen here on CC. It’s like ranking the world’s hottest cities… but the rankings fail to point out that the top 20 or so cities all have high summer temperatures between 106-109 degrees. In the case of the PhD rankings, if you’re in the top 20, it depends more on you. In the case of hot cities, it depends more on if you have access to air conditioning. :)</p>
<p>You can also look through some of my past posts where I listed prominent alumni in different career areas along with references. It’s meant to show that HC, although small, has connections in most career areas. It ranges from the current deans of faculty at Princeton to Williams, the Duke faculty member charged to lead the committee to evaluate academics/athletics after the Duke rape scandal, the head of Johns Hopkins Biomedical research program, the head of UNESCO, my classmate who was one of 3 artists highlighted in a retrospective of emerging American artists at the Smithsonian, the economics editor for the Wall Street Journal, the Chief editor for Harvard Business Review, GM of the Arizona Dimondbacks and Texas Rangers, Obama’s 1st judicial pick, the Director of Center for Constitutional Rights (Guantanamo litigation), the President of the Center for Individual Rights (sued U Mich Law School about affirmative action policy), Michael Jackson’s lawyer, Mayor of Las Vegas, The only “liberal” on Fox news Juan Williams, actor Dan Dae Kim, author Nicholson Baker (he wrote some of the racy books Monica Lewinsky gave to Clinton), founding chairman of the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment district… you get the pattern.</p>
<p>In addition, alumni in the last 10 years have included the chair of chemistry at MIT, chief editors for LA times and the NYT, dean of Stanford business School, Dean of Northwestern’s School or Journalism, President of Emory, CEO of NPR…</p>
<p>In terms of my area of interest (medicine), alumni include the 1st director of the Institutes of Medicine, the 1st director of the Harvard Framingham Heart Study (1st large prospective public health study conducted), the doctor who developed the test for Tay Sachs disease, the doctor who figured out Legionnaire’s disease, the Penn surgeon who developed intravenous nutrition back in the 1950’s, the doctor who started Harvard’s Department of Community Medicine… </p>
<p>[Maryland</a> to expand biotech tax credits, incubator program investments - Washington Business Journal:](<a href=“http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/06/16/daily11.html]Maryland”>http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/06/16/daily11.html)
[Beth</a> Cavener Stichter - Home](<a href=“http://www.followtheblackrabbit.com/index_main.htm]Beth”>http://www.followtheblackrabbit.com/index_main.htm)
[haverford</a> harvard business review - Google Search](<a href=“haverford harvard business review]haverford - Google Search”>haverford harvard business review - Google Search)
[Warren</a>, Vincent | Center for Constitutional Rights](<a href=“http://ccrjustice.org/about-us/staff-board/warren,-vincent]Warren”>Warren, Vincent | Center for Constitutional Rights)
[Lower</a> Manhattan Development Corporation](<a href=“http://www.renewnyc.com/AboutUs/board.asp]Lower”>Lower Manhattan Development Corporation)</p>
<p>Bio of Dr. Jonathan Rhoads
[Jonathan</a> Rhoads, MD](<a href=“http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1422501]Jonathan”>http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1422501)</p>
<hr>
<p>$hit… i put too much time in this… can somebody “sticky” this thread?</p>
<p>NJfamily - a typically excellent post by HC Alum. You would do well to go ahead and look thru Alum’s past posts, which contain a wealth of information/insight. My son and I did so prior to his admission/acceptance to Haverford earlier this year.</p>
<p>I was listening to NPR while carpooling to work last week and there was a story about this judge being held up in the Senate for confirmation because he canvased for ACORN after graduating from college… thought that was something a Haverford grad would do… and I was right.</p>
<p>[Senate</a> OK’s David Hamilton to be US appeals court judge | csmonitor.com](<a href=“http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/11/19/senate-oks-david-hamilton-to-be-us-appeals-court-judge/]Senate”>Senate OK's David Hamilton to be US appeals court judge - CSMonitor.com)</p>
<p>In the same vein, the head of GreenPeace in the 1980-1990s is an alum… :)</p>
<p>Very insightful post HC Alum, I came across the PhD productivity (in math & sciences) paper during my junior year but I realized that in small LACs the data is skewed by the small sample size. Also, the specific graduate programs, another factor of the strength of the undergrad education, was not mentioned. I am now perusing the departmental webpages of each school (mostly the top 20) to gauge their strengths through research and course offerings.</p>
<p>And chemistry chair at MIT, that’s impressive!</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Right. In conclusion, the take home point from that “research” is that people who are interested in the liberal arts can rest assured that going to a top college instead of a top research university does not make an impact on the chance of getting a PhD, with PhD production being a proxy for adequate undergrad preparation for a PhD. Doesn’t have the numbers and details as you’ve noted to say anything more.</p>
<p>Seeing this simple idea warped on CC into a college #2 vs #8 argument reminds me of 2 sayings I learned from researchers at RAND.</p>
<p>1) Numbers don’t lie but they can mislead.
2) If you torture the data enough, it will eventually confess.</p>
<hr>
<p>Research opportunities and course offerings are important to investigate. I’d also consider and ask about the number and quality of visiting speakers. Especially at a LAC where the # of faculty is already small (some schools smaller than others because of size and lack of real consortium arrangements), having visiting speakers is really important because it introduces LAC students to perspectives beyond the available faculty and also shows how ideas/theories learned in the classroom are being applied to cutting edge innovation. In this regard, college location is an asset worth noting.</p>