<p>For one, a large percentage of top 20s (especially the newer among them) do not produce Nobel Laureates from their undergrad. programs (and 2 seems like a random number). They tend to have attended X prestigious school for a graduate program. 2nd, Emory only recently became particularly reputable and became a research university only in the 90s. 3rd, the student body is too skewed toward the professions and the interest in non-professional program scholarship has yet to catch up with the increased prestige of the university. Fortunately, we have pulitzer prize winners, astronauts, and plenty of others that are well accomplished. However, it is unfortunate that Emory doesn’t implement programs or a curriculum that inspires more people to go into academia, especially those interested in science. Fact is, Emory is not known for intellectuals at the undergraduate level. This is something we need to fix because we have the potential to be a school with a high level of scholarly inquiry that may indeed by a place that eventually does catch up with its prestige and produce a Nobel Laureate. However, the school has to reorient itself so that it creates and encourages big thinking and more of a life of the mind vibe on campus. This should be easy to create as we don’t have things like D-1 sports enveloping the social scene on campus. I would also imagine that implementing programs that foster creativity and innovation would help significantly. And also, some departments are in a “teach to please” phase that leaves students happy with their grades, but certainly does not inspire them to think deeper than normal about content. These critical depts. can help by being more rigorous and requiring this level of mastery and curiousity in its courses instead of constantly yielding to the whim of pre-professionals who need to keep their grades up. I’ve compared Emory to other very top institutions and it is definitely lacking here and too willing to bend over backwards to make students pleased with their grades without them having to do much work in many cases. Other schools give you very tough content, exams, and assignments that make you really engage the material, and then curve in the end. The tendency among many Emory professors is to water the coursework down below the student’s supposed ability so that they don’t have to curve. Often this involves eliminating or several reducing out of class assignments that allow students to grapple or struggle with material, keeping the reading load minimal, and making exams easier after giving a hard one (as opposed to holding ground on a standard until students get with the picture). There is also the fact that many science professors here still do completely multiple choice tests (especially in biology and neuroscience) despite their sections being significantly smaller than those at peers. Needless to say, these exams don’t really require a mastery of the material that may have resulted from serious engagement with it (many require “applied regurgitation” and no analytical skills). There are just all types of tactics to keep students happy with their superficial progress until they take, say, the MCAT. Students do poorly on it and leave the school uninspired by their coursework. However, one may claim that they did not seek inspiration (they sought a GPA) and got what they deserved. These people will be a solid majority at most top schools, but the problem at Emory is that the minority who do want to be inspired are not really supported by a system that has been molded to cater to those who do not want it. With that said, if you cherrypick coursework correctly so that you do take great courses and professors that force you to think deeply or even outside of the box, you can indeed be inspired. It just sucks when not that many of the peers in said classes are there for the same reason and do not share your level of interest. Anyway, Developing a “life of the mind” spirit takes a long time to develop. Even top schools like Duke and Cornell actually have been known to have trouble with this and both actually do have lots of students going into PhDs.</p>