<p>^^ Here’s another “outcomes” link for Colgate (for biochemistry, not environmental bio):
<a href=“http://www.colgate.edu/distinctly-colgate/success-after-colgate/success-after-colgate-results?major=BIOC”>http://www.colgate.edu/distinctly-colgate/success-after-colgate/success-after-colgate-results?major=BIOC</a>
I see Colgate “placements” to Harvard, Yale, Hopkins, Cornell, Bristol-Myers Squibb. On the Hopkins side, I see (among the rest) placements to Baylor, Arizona State, and the Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine. </p>
<p>Of course, a college does not really “place” its students into graduate programs. College prestige may have some sway over admission committees for some graduate programs … but we don’t really have very good public data to assess those effects. When the impact of college selectivity/prestige on another major outcome, career earnings, has been examined carefully by social science researchers (Dale & Krueger 2002, 2011), it turns out that there really is no clear impact. It appears to be the selection effects of cherry-picking top students that leads to higher average earnings by alumni of elite colleges, not treatment effects of the educational program at those schools. <a href=“http://pragmatic.nationalinterest.in/2009/08/19/selection-effect-or-treatment-effect/”>http://pragmatic.nationalinterest.in/2009/08/19/selection-effect-or-treatment-effect/</a></p>
<p>Does the US News #12 national university exercise significantly stronger academic treatment effects than the #20 LAC with respect to graduate school outcomes? The NSF data on PhD production in the biological sciences does not show a significant difference in the rate of earned doctorates by JHU v. Colgate alumni. Let’s suppose for the sake of argument, however, that more JHU alumni are earning doctorates from “top” programs. To what academic treatment effects could we attribute that pattern? Do you think engagement with distinguished researchers at national universities like JHU makes a significant difference in grad school outcomes? The absence of that does not seem to be holding Oberlin or Reed students back from earning doctorates in high numbers from top programs. Now, maybe the opportunity for that engagement is more important in the biological sciences than it is for other fields, or greater at JHU than at other universities. If you believe that, then look carefully not at PR literature but at the enrollment numbers and instructors for undergraduate biology classes. In the JHU ISIS listings for 2013-14, I see courses with some very large enrollment limits (General Biology with 215 students, Biochem with 470, Genetics with 320, Cell Biology with 320, Human Brain with 300, Developmental Biology with 300, Stem Cells with 140). The named instructors include quite a few (McCarty, Pearlman, Roberson, Shingles, Fisher, Tifft, Horner, Zirkin, Norris, Perry, Wall, Bader, Zeller) who don’t show up on the list of Tenured & Tenure Track Faculty. They may be grad students, young post-docs, or lecturers who aren’t on a tenure track. They may be excellent teachers (or not), but they presumably don’t have more influence with graduate admission committees than a random PhD-holding biology professor at Colgate.</p>
<p>So if Hopkins alumni are earning significantly more doctorates from top biology programs than Colgate alumni - not that the data we’ve seen even shows that - it may be because Hopkins is attracting more talented, highly motivated students in this field, not because those students are working closely in small classes and projects with famous biologists. In that case, a talented, highly motivated student may do just as well to save $50K and choose Colgate. That is exactly the kind of conclusion Krueger & Dale reached about earnings differences.</p>
<p>Virtually all the Colgate biology instructors (other than a couple of supporting staff members) already have doctorates. They earned their doctorates (or did postdoc work) at perfectly reputable universities including: Simon Fraser, Michigan State, Duke, UConn, Indiana, Toronto, Stanford, Georgia (2), Emory, Harvard (4, Holm, Hoopes, Ingram, Watkins), UCSC, UVa, Washington State, Arizona State, Wisconsin, Florida, Clemson. Be aware that undergraduate school prestige is not necessarily a good indicator of specific graduate program quality. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the Colgate course listings I’ve found (<a href=“Course Offerings | Colgate University”>http://www.colgate.edu/academics/courseofferings</a>) don’t show enrollment sizes. According to US News/CDS data, 2.2% of Colgate classes have 50 or more students.
At Williams (which has a higher percentage of classes >= 50 than Colgate), the largest biology/biochemistry class had an average class/section size of 84 students in Spring 2014. At Oberlin (which has approximately the same percentage of classes >= 50 as Colgate), the largest biology course enrollment limit was 46 students in Spring 2014. </p>
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<p>In 2013-14, the Colgate Chair taught both the lecture and lab sections of “Molecules, Cells, Genes”, a 200-level course. The Hopkins Chair taught a 500-level “Research Problems” course (permission required and restricted to juniors/seniors only). If you are an exceptional Hopkins student and can get into that course, your interaction with the Chair in “Research Problems” may well be deeper and more meaningful than the Colgate student’s interaction with the Chair in his 200-level course. Otherwise, how likely do you think a random biology major would be to interact meaningfully with the Hopkins Chair compared to the Colgate Chair? This is the kind of question that a campus visit might help address. </p>
<p>Anyhow … welcome to the world of adult decision-making, where the hardest choices very often rest on imperfect information and conflicting advice. </p>