Awesome schools for economics??

interesteddad
Thu, 05 May 2005 12:03:51 +0000

Conversely, if you make these adjusments, then you are prone to make a different set of false conclusions.

For example, you might overlook the fact that Swarthmore also has a “large” (the term has to be used loosely when talking about Swarthmore!) engineering program as well. By pulling that out, you miss the fact that Swat produces 35 future Engineering doctorates per 1000 undergrads (compared to 36 per 1000 at Georgia Tech).

Or, by disregarding the conservatory at Oberlin, you would fail to account for the significant “share of mind” that the music program occupies in terms of OVERALL student interest and institutional resources at Oberlin. A better way, IMO, to account for those differences is to look at these kinds of departmental lists across a wide range of departments. I haven’t done the “music and arts” llst yet, but Oberlin produces 66 doctorates per 1000 undergrads in those fields compared to 27 at Swarthmore, 22 at Yale, and 18 each at Smith, Carelton, and Wellesley, 17 at Amherst, and 15 each at Harvard and Williams. If we pulled the Conservatory out of the picture, we would miss the overall emphasis on music at Oberlin – one of its defining characteristics. Those points of emphasis cut both directions: they boost the numbers in those areas and divert interest/focus away from other areas.

I have seen a study done by a Williams professor that actually calculated PhDs as a ratio of number of majors at top LACs in the three broad academic divisions. That is a serious amount of work, but it wouldn’t be that hard to do, even on a department by department basis. Just use the ten-year totals and a ten-year average for number of majors at each school. I’ll be glad to e-mail you raw total spreadsheets if you want to get started!