<p>or are they just telling the truth?</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/03/29/student_life_at_harvard_lags_peer_schools_poll_finds/[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/03/29/student_life_at_harvard_lags_peer_schools_poll_finds/</a></p>
<p>Maybe they just get more press.</p>
<p>A warning shot across the bow from a memo leaked by ally of Larry Summers? </p>
<p>This should make for great theatre.</p>
<p>Boy, wouldn’t the tabulated results of that survey be interesting reading for CC folk?</p>
<p>Here’s the list of COFHE member schools:</p>
<p> Amherst College
Brown University
Carleton College
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
Georgetown University
Harvard University
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
Trinity College
University of Chicago
University of Pennsylvania
University of Rochester
Washington University
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University</p>
<p>According to the article, this organization (COFHE) consists of “a group of 31 elite private colleges”.</p>
<p>Unless I counted incorrectly, it looks like there are some missing from the list above. We could make this another “ranking”. And have everyone guess who the other schools are, or should be…</p>
<p>Oops. The list I had was from the Rice athletic study. They left off the five all-female schools that are members of COFHE:</p>
<p>Barnard
Bryn Mawr
Mt. Holyoke
Smith
Wellesley</p>
<p>I think that rounds out the 31 schools.</p>
<p>additions:</p>
<p>Barnard
Bryn Mawr
Mount Holyoke
Smith
Wellesley</p>
<p><a href=“http://web.mit.edu/cofhe/[/url]”>http://web.mit.edu/cofhe/</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://web.mit.edu/cofhe/[/url]”>http://web.mit.edu/cofhe/</a></p>
<p>Penn and U or R aare not listed as part of the Consortium.</p>
<p>Noticed how all of the schools missing were womens colleges? wassup with that?</p>
<p>Bowdoin? Middlebury?</p>
<p>The first list I posted was the list of COFHE member institutions from the Rice University athletics report. The context was a group of peer instititutions from an athletic standpoint. For obvious reasons, the all-female COFHE members were not included by Rice in that context.</p>
<p>Sorry about any confusion.</p>
<p>Here is the complete list copied/pasted from the COFHE website:</p>
<p>Amherst College
Barnard College
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
Carleton College
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
Georgetown University
Harvard University
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Mount Holyoke College
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Pomona College
Princeton University
Rice University
Smith College
Stanford University
Swarthmore College
Trinity College
University of Chicago
University of Pennsylvania
University of Rochester
Washington University in St. Louis
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University</p>
<p>Ok, so the topic is “faculty and social life.” Seems to me the really interesting question here is, which are the 4 schools on that list scoring lower than Harvard among their own students? Kind of a funny article, making the headline all about Harvard when Harvard was not at the bottom of the list…</p>
<p>How about guessing which of the four schools scored below Harvard? I would have to say one would be JHU.</p>
<p>Yes, I too wanted to know what the four lower-ranked schools were, as that provides a reality check on the report. College kids rating their own college operate from the disadvantage of not personally experiencing some other other college for a head-to-head comparison.</p>
<p>Actually, the self-ranking system, without regard to what the experience might be like elsewhere, is standard methodology in the evaluation of health care, travel industry, etc. Which is why my initial question - if there is no particular reason to believe that Harvard students are more likely to grouse than others, the rating would have face validity. Scores are also tracked over time to spot trends - again, it is always possible that one generation of students would be more likely to grouse than others, but unlikely. Samples are very large - COHFE usually tries to include at least 40% of a class.</p>
<p>The Harvard folks clearly think it’s true, or they wouldn’t be attempting to act upon it.</p>
<p>(COHFE also conducts a Parents survey on parents satisfaction with education their offspring receive. It is a good source of information about parental income for any particular income, as well as helping colleges spot particular problems. I remember reading one last year in which Trinity performed particularly poorly - relative to the others.)</p>
<p>Okay, you reeled me in. I did a search at Dartmouth hoping ot find some information on these surveys. Maybe you cna find hte same information at your respective schools. </p>
<p>What I found in evaluation and research, was that</p>
<p>Every year, right before graduation, Dartmouth asks graduating seniors to complete the Senior Survey. The survey provides valuable information such as what students intend to do after graduation, their satisfaction with various aspects of the College, and an estimate of what they believe they have gained from the college experience. The results are carefully examined by various groups on campus.</p>
<p>In even-numbered years we use the Senior Survey developed by the COFHE consortium.</p>
<p>In odd-numbered years we use the College Student Survey developed by the Higher Education Research Institute. This instrument is the companion instrument to the CIRP First-year survey, and thus gives us very good information on how students have changed over four years. A pdf file of the 2003 CSS is available.</p>
<p>here are the links:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.dartmouth.edu/~evalres/senior.shtml[/url]”>http://www.dartmouth.edu/~evalres/senior.shtml</a></p>
<p>In 2003, Dartmouth graduates had the following plans:</p>
<p>51% went to work
19% went to grad school
4% did volunteer work</p>
<p>for Mini (because when he’s right)</p>
<p>Graduate and Professional School</p>
<p>The total proportion of graduates entering graduate school directly or intending to do so in one to five years increased by 17 percentage points from 2002 to 2003 (66% versus 83%). </p>
<p>That more students are entering graduate school directly this year than any of the previous four years partly explains this trend. </p>
<p>While 21% of graduates planned to do so in 2001 and 20% in 2002, fully one respondent in four (25%) reported entering graduate school directly in 2003. </p>
<p>Also relevant is the dramatic increase in students reporting that they plan to attend graduate school in 1-5 years.</p>
<p>While 47% of graduates indicated as such in 2002, more than half of respondents did so in 2003 (58%). </p>
<p>The 47% of respondents planning graduate school in 1-5 years in 2002 was a four-year low (52% in 2000, 51% in 2001). 13% undecided </p>
<p>The most popular degree pursued immediately for 2003 Dartmouth graduates is a masters degree (4.5% of students). </p>
<p>Roughly equivalent proportions of students pursued doctoral and law degrees (3.2 and 3.1% of graduates, respectively). </p>
<p>Slightly more than 2% of students pursued medical degrees immediately after graduating, while less than one percent of students pursued other degrees (0.5%).</p>
<p>Approximately one percent of students pursued a BE degree mmediately following graduation from Dartmouth.</p>
<p>First years</p>
<p>Conducted every fall term since 1966, this nationally administered survey provides data on the entire class of incoming first-year students and is completed at matriculation. Approximately 500 other colleges across the country contribute to this survey, and national results are available for comparison purposes from the Higher Education Research Institute.
The national results of the CIRP are available for the past several years. </p>
<p>Dartmouth has participated in the First-Year Survey since its inception, and regularly reports on how the College compares to national trends. The First-Year survey includes such questions as </p>
<p>1) frequency of participation in certain activities over the past year ( e.g. volunteered, felt overwhelmed, discussed politics), </p>
<p>2) self-ranked standings compared with peers on various traits (e.g. academic ability, popularity, creativity), </p>
<p>3) personal reasons to attend college, </p>
<p>4) stances on various personal beliefs (e.g. abortion, free speech, importance of raising a family), </p>
<p>5) perceived likelihood of engaging in certain activities in college (e.g. join a fraternity/sorority, join an athletic team, fail a course), and several other sections.</p>
<p>Happy reading.</p>
<p>It is interesting that the timing of the leaked document maximizes its impact. A coincidence? I don’t think so. This is not the work of an amateur.</p>
<p>Anyone know anything about how journalism works? Can the source of the leaked document control the use of the document, i.e. can the Globe publish/use any portion of the document it wishes or is it limited by an agreement with the source. If the source can’t control the document, why wouldn’t the Globe publish more information contained in the document?</p>
<p>Another interesting question, how did the Globe verify the document. Did it get Yale, Princeton or some other institution with a grudge <em>grin</em> to corroborate it? Or did the Harvard administration just openly confirm it when confronted?</p>
<p>I wonder who are the 4 that scored lower than Harvard.</p>
<p>perhaps its all about expectations going in…</p>
<p>a report at JHU found that half of their entering Frosh expect to have “an unsatisfactory student experience”, or conversely, only 50% expect a satisfactory experience, in comparison to their “normative group of peer institutions” where 67% expect to have a satisfactory experience…(Cooperative Institutional Research Program Frosh Study</p>
<p>its just a college, like any other college. people hold it to a ridiculous standard and expect it to be some kind of holy 3rd dimension where all their dreams will come true, and this is simply not true.</p>
<p>i for one am beyond sick of the harvard hype, and do not plan on going anywhere near it when i begin applying to colleges (ok maybe physically near it since i live in boston…but… you get the point).</p>
<p>One line from the article caught my eye–</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Just my D’s experience at Harvard so far (this is her second semester)–except for one class of 100, her classes have been small (8-30) and even the class of 100 was broken out into small discussion groups. So class size hasn’t been a problem. </p>
<p>But I have seen evidence of this “culture of avoidance” on her part. She doesn’t seem to have any desire to get to know her professors for the most part–the one professor that she thinks is interesting and that she wouldn’t mind meeting outside the classroom is a visiting one who doesn’t have regular office hours.</p>
<p>But she is loving her college experience. She loves her ECs and has time to do them; she loves the new friends she’s made in the dorm.</p>