Preliminary 2013 admissions data

[goldenboy8784]

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@Alexandre

Duke’s student to faculty ratio is measured using 6,664 students. According to the same CDS, Duke has 6,680 undergraduate students. In other words, Duke does not even include all of its undergraduate students

Come on Alexandre, Duke excludes 2/3 of its part-time students from the CDS as the form instructs the school to do so. Its clearly following the directions outlined here.</p>

<p>Here’s the quote directly from the document:</p>

<p>Report the Fall 2011 ratio of full-time equivalent students (full-time plus 1/3 part time) to full-time equivalent instructional faculty (full time plus 1/3 part time). In the ratio calculations, exclude both faculty and students in stand-alone graduate or professional programs such as medicine, law, veterinary, dentistry, social work, business, or public health in which faculty teach virtually only graduate-level students. Do not count
undergraduate or graduate student teaching assistants as faculty.</p>

<p>Duke had 6,657 full-time undergraduates and 23 part-time undergraduates in the Fall of 2011. According to the formula above, it would use 6,657+(1/3)*23 in the calculation which yields 6,664 exactly when you round down. There’s no discrepancy here.</p>

<p>As far as instructional faculty goes, Duke has 1,173 and if you subtract the 258 that are instructors in stand-alone graduate/professional programs, you get 915 total. Dividing 6664 by 915 yields us a 7/1 student to faculty ratio rounded down. Again, there’s no discrepancy here.</p>

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@Alexandre

But I am sure there are thousands of graduate students who are enrolled in programs such as the Arts an Sciences, Public Affairs, Engineering etc…, that are open to undergraduate students. (see sections B and I of Duke CDS for exact details)

LOL, why in the world would Duke count these graduate students as part of their overall undergraduate population? These graduate students aren’t enrolled in the same classes as undergraduates and they have a completely different curriculum to adhere to. A professor is capable of teaching one or two undergraduate classes as well as one small graduate section without sacrificing the personal attention he gives to each set of students. Professors are very efficient people who have been teaching classes for decades so they know how to manage their time well.</p>

<p>Alexandre, if we count graduate students as part of our overall total student figure, then we most count graduate students as faculty as well since they teach discussion sections. Would you be ok with that proposal? This would basically cancel out the extra number of students and faculty anyway.</p>

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@Alexandre

Still think I misjudge private schools goldenboy? You will have to forgive me if I do. I guess the deeds of CMC, Emory and GWU, along with the across-the-board blatant misreporting of faculty to student ratios have made me a cynic. Private universities do not choose to focus more on undergraduates, they choose to lie. It is a myth that private universities focus more on undergraduates. It is complete BS! I just happen to know it. Your propaganda won’t work. Members of the academic community and most of the intellectual elites know the truth. Soon, private universities will be exposed for their practices.

Alexandre, I disagree with the way you choose to include graduate students in the student to faculty ratio. The CDS never specifically states that you have to include doctoral students in Engineering and the Arts & Sciences as part of the overall student to faculty ratio and rightfully so. My time in an undergraduate classroom with other 18 year-olds plus my professor isn’t diminished by the fact that there are a few other doctoral students the faculty member also advises outside the classroom.</p>

<p>Faculty members have social lives in addition to all these duties. Its their choice how involved they want to be with their undergraduates, their graduates, or both. Since we can’t make generalizations among professors we don’t know, we must assume they can handle all the responsibilities on their plate.</p>

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@Alexandre

Huh? Goldenboy, are you being intentionally obtuse? Those lectures are not being spilt into smaller lectures taught by different faculty members or by the same faculty member but in different semesters. They are being split into smaller lectures taught by the same professor and in the same semester.

So, what’s your point? Having smaller classes facilitates more engaging discussions amongst all participants and holds the students more responsible for completing their required readings and problem sets. Its tough to enforce the same level of personal responsibility in classes with over 100 students where those enrolled can easily slip through the cracks and not show up to class and participate.</p>

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@Alexandre

Whether all the students are taught in the same classroom or in three separate classrooms, that professor can only handle a certain number of students before personal attention flies out the window!

Now we’re talking about class sizes so your point here is absurd. In the classroom setting, having fewer students allows that professor to spend a lot more time answering individual questions that students might have or going over additional material.</p>

<p>Are you seriously contesting that splitting a 2 hour lecture with 150 students into 3 sections of 50 students for the same 2 hour span is not beneficial to the student? That is utterly preposterous!</p>

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@Alexandre

Cal, Michigan, UCLA, UNC and UVa would all be ranked in the top 20.

It would take more than a few misrepresentations in the CDS to lift those 5 publics into the top 20. Whether you like it or not, universities like Wash U, Rice, CMU, Georgetown, and Vanderbilt attract stronger students than all those schools besides Berkeley.</p>

<p>It may not be fair but there’s not much you or I can do to change the infatuation with private universities that middle-class adults and their children have in the U.S.A. No one sees a UNC degree as being on par with Wash U.</p>