Dartmouth vs UC Berkeley

hawkette
Wed, 13 Jun 2007 10:48:20 +0000

Alexandre,
You profess to being broad-minded and fair about colleges, but so often your postings appear to me that you are so only to the extent that the new ideas don’t threaten the position of your alma mater. This is understandable and human. But I truly am trying to be agnostic about what schools benefit from a methodology and trying to think about what is the most effective and relevant way to measure colleges and the undergraduate experience that they offer.

Some will claim that such a quest is for fools as there is no one-size-fits-all equation. To an extent, I would agree with this. Different people will favor different things and schools that are “weaker” overall may still be the right school for an individual student because the school is stronger in his/her major or it is a better “fit” or some other reason.

But I do believe that there are some absolutes and that these should supersede the arguments promoted by defenders of the academic status quo, particularly those who rely on reputations and individual bias to make judgments. What are some of the absolutes?


Having a stronger student body is preferred to having a weaker student body. All across the country (nearly all) Admissions Departments have accepted standardized tests, class rank and GPA (within the context of a curriculum) as the primary academic determinants for the acceptance of high school applicants. These are measurable and pretty accurate and they are broadly accepted and used. You can argue with the efficacy of such measures, but I suggest you take that up with the thousands of Admissions counselors currently using them.


There are also additional measures of student strength-NMS, 1500 scorers, Intel/Siemens winners, etc.


Having smaller individual class sizes is preferred to having larger class sizes. Taking a class of 100+ students taught by a TA is rarely preferable to taking a class with 20 students and a full-time professor. The class size issue has all kinds of implications beyond just the idea that there is a higher degree of personal attention, eg, ability to meaningfully interact with your professor AND your peers, increased familiarity of the professor with you, your interests, your needs and his/her greater potential to help you out in significant way either through learning opportunities (research, better understanding of the material) or post-graduate opportunities (grad school or work), etc.
Having more money to support students and faculty is preferable to not having enough money to accomplish institutional objectives. I hope that I don’t have to explain this one as having the resources available to support undergraduate students and making the commitment to do just that is often of great consequence in determining the quality and the outcome of one’s undergraduate experience. In my view, this is perhaps the most underrated and overlooked area of a college and yet potentially has the greatest impact on the quality of the undergraduate experience and the future of the school.
Having good teachers is preferable to having poor teachers. To me, this includes having teachers who are committed to undergraduate learning (does not mean they can’t also be dedicated to graduate learning-it’s just that I want teaching to be the focus and not research). Students/families are paying a lot of money to go to college these days and I argue that this investment deserves more attention (and respect) from the faculty. Having a research superstar on the faculty doesn’t do the students any good if the faculty member is always doing research or is uninterested in undergraduate learning.


There are other absolutes and perhaps other posters will have some to contribute, but I think you get the idea on how I arrive at my opinions about the key drivers for the most successful undergraduate experience.

I look forward to your response, but I ask that you formulate it without mentioning either U Michigan or UC Berkeley (or any school if possible). Take a step back from the defense of your school or any school and try to explain the process that you are using for determining America’s Best Colleges and state what measurable variables you include and why.