Columbia or Duke?

confidentialcoll
Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:06:09 +0000

The Life Sciences table at PHD PRODUCTIVITY suggests that Columbia does well at undergrad prep is this area.



this is a pathetic means to compare colleges. The goal of colleges should not be to drive students into phd programs who then waste their lives as academics. The idea of a phd frankly appalls me, and in any good college only a small proportion of students should ultimately go back into academia and become professors. A ton of people at Columbia who could easily go on to get phds do not do so, because they go to professional school, get lucrative jobs, start a business etc, this is the case at many top national universities. What the rankings might reveal is partly a lack of professional school placement / good job placement that is pushing more people to get phds, as opposed to the college creating the greatest thinkers. It might reveal the academic predilection of the student body rather than their academic/intellectual abilities (which is more important).

I don’t know why LACs are so adamant about pushing these phd rankings, as they could be taken as either a negative or positive.