<p>This thought sparked my mind when one of my profs said her son was a first-year at Swarthmore. Why would her son choose Swarthmore over a lesser-ranked school, such as LawrenceU, St. Olaf, or even Beloit? How does the rigor of lesser-ranked schools compare with the rigor of highly-ranked schools, such as Beloit vs. Vassar? </p>
<p>Just wondering…I love it at my school, btw.</p>
<p>The rankings (assuming you are talking US News) have nothing to do with academic rigor per se, as the methodology does not attempt to quantify “rigor.”</p>
<p>Swarthmore is much better known among LACs than the schools you have mentioned. Being on the East Coast is an asset for a lot of colleges in terms of general awareness, which in turn is a factor in the rankings, since they weigh “reputation” based on peer assessment and the opinions of high school guidance counselors.</p>
<p>One way you might explore the idea of how rigor influences student outcomes is to look at admissions into med school, law school, or PhD programs from various LACs. I am guessing you won’t find much difference between Beloit/Swarthmore/St. Olaf/Vassar/etc.</p>
<p>Rankings do not rank rigour, they rank academic prestige.</p>
<p>That’s not to say the rankings are meaningless, they are a worthwhile metric but it would be a huge mistake to think that lesser-ranked programs are lesser-ranked because they lack rigour.</p>
<p>This can vary enormously within a single university from program to program, class to class, teacher to teacher. One linear algebra teacher may spend the entire class focusing on proving the properties of this or that, which would be considered “rigourous” by a mathematician, but another teacher may spend the class focusing on a breadth of material and applications, which would be considered “rigourous” by a scientist or engineer.</p>
<p>Frankly, “rigour” just doesn’t show up on rankings, only academic prestige does, and that prestige is often founded upon the quality and quantity of research coming out of it, whereas the “rigour” in the classrooms is determined by the teachers, who may or may not be the researchers.</p>
<p>I’ve taken classes at 6 different colleges and universities, and I’ve observed a general correlation between selectivity and “rigor” measured in the quantity and quality of the work that’s expected. I’ll use math as an example because it’s easy to compare math assignments.</p>
<p>I took Real Analysis at Haverford College. Each problem set had ungraded “warm-up exercises” (easy), graded “problems” and optional “challenge problems” that we could substitute for the regular problems. The following year I graded Real Analysis at Bryn Mawr. Most of their problems were at the level of Haverford’s “warm-up exercises”, with occasional challenges at the level of Haverford’s “problems.” At the same time I took PDEs and Complex Analysis at Penn. Their homework problems were about as difficult as the ones at Haverford, but each weekly problem set was twice as long! </p>
<p>
I am guessing that Swarthmore students get into the most selective/prestigious graduate programs at higher rates than students from Beloit. I’d also expect Swarthmore students to win more national fellowships than students from Beloit. For example, the number of NSF fellowships awarded in 2012 to graduates of: </p>
<p>Swarthmore: 15
Vassar: 5
St Olaf: 4
Beloit: 0</p>
<p>So, b@r!um, you think that some schools are easier than others? Wouldn’t that be a bad thing if someone were wanting to get into a good grad school?</p>
<p>b@r!um, you might be surprised how well the “lesser-ranked” schools do. Beloit has been the top producer of students who go on to receive anthropology PhDs for the past 40 years and a big “feeder” for PhD programs generally. Continuing with the St. Olaf versus Swarthmore example, this might interest you…from the NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates.</p>
<p>Top Ranked Institutions, All Classifications
Mathematics and Statistics Doctorates Earned, 1991-2000</p>
<p>Unweighted Rank/Institution/#PhDs
1 Harvard U 120<br>
2 U of Cal-Berkeley 117<br>
3 MIT 98<br>
4 U of Chicago 67<br>
5 California Inst of Tech 58<br>
6 Princeton U 57<br>
7 U of Cal-San Diego 57
8 U of MI at Ann Arbor 55
9 Yale U 51<br>
10 Brown U 50<br>
11 St. Olaf College 48 </p>
<p>Weighted Rank/Institution/#PhDs
Institution Name #PhDs
1 California Inst of Tech 58
2 Harvey Mudd College 30
3 Reed College 44
4 MIT 98
5 U of Chicago 67
6 St. Olaf College 48
7 Pomona College 23
8 Rice U 40
9 St. John’s College (MD) 5
10 Grinnell College 18
11 NM Inst of Mining & Tech 7</p>
<p>Many colleges ranked far below Swarthmore by USNWR have higher (80%-plus) rates of acceptance into med school (Swat is 75%). And a lot of colleges you might not expect turn out as many or more Fulbright, Rhodes, and other scholars each year. As I stated above, the conventional rankings don’t measure student outcomes. A big part of the assessment is peer opinion, which tends to favor the east coast schools in the established pantheon of “elite” institutions.</p>
<p>Here is yet another example of how some lesser-known (mixed in with the better-known) schools do by one narrow measure (PhD undergrad origins):
Percentage of graduates getting a PhD
Academic field: ALL</p>
<p>PhDs and Doctoral Degrees: ten years (1994 to 2003) from NSF database
Number of Undergraduates: ten years (1989 to 1998) from IPEDS database </p>
<p>Note: Does not include colleges with less than 1000 graduates over the ten year period.
Note: Includes all NSF doctoral degrees inc. PhD, Divinity, etc., but not M.D. or Law.</p>
<p>1 35.8% California Institute of Technology<br>
2 24.7% Harvey Mudd College
3 21.1% Swarthmore College<br>
4 19.9% Reed College<br>
5 18.3% Massachusetts Institute of Technology<br>
6 16.8% Carleton College<br>
7 15.8% Bryn Mawr College<br>
8 15.7% Oberlin College
9 15.3% University of Chicago<br>
10 14.5% Yale University
11 14.3% Princeton University<br>
12 14.3% Harvard University<br>
13 14.1% Grinnell College<br>
14 13.8% Haverford College<br>
15 13.8% Pomona College<br>
16 13.1% Rice University
17 12.7% Williams College<br>
18 12.4% Amherst College
19 11.4% Stanford University
20 11.3% Kalamazoo College<br>
21 11.0% Wesleyan University
22 10.6% St John's College (both campus)
23 10.6% Brown University<br>
24 10.4% Wellesley College<br>
25 10.0% Earlham College
26 9.6% Beloit College<br>
27 9.5% Lawrence University
28 9.3% Macalester College<br>
29 9.0% Cornell University, All Campuses<br>
30 9.0% Bowdoin College
31 8.9% Mount Holyoke College<br>
32 8.9% Smith College<br>
33 8.8% Vassar College<br>
34 8.7% Case Western Reserve University
35 8.7% Johns Hopkins University<br>
36 8.7% St Olaf College
37 8.7% Hendrix College
38 8.6% Hampshire College<br>
39 8.5% Trinity University<br>
40 8.5% Knox College<br>
41 8.5% Duke University
42 8.4% Occidental College<br>
43 8.3% University of Rochester
44 8.3% College of Wooster<br>
45 8.3% Barnard College
46 8.2% Bennington College<br>
47 8.1% Columbia University in the City of New York
48 8.0% Whitman College
49 7.9% University of California-Berkeley<br>
50 7.9% College of William and Mary
51 7.8% Carnegie Mellon University<br>
52 7.8% New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology<br>
53 7.7% Brandeis University
54 7.6% Dartmouth College<br>
55 7.5% Wabash College<br>
56 7.5% Bates College<br>
57 7.5% Davidson College<br>
58 7.2% Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute<br>
59 7.2% Franklin and Marshall College<br>
60 7.1% Fisk University
61 7.1% Wheaton College (Wheaton, IL)<br>
62 6.8% University of California-San Francisco<br>
63 6.8% Allegheny College<br>
64 6.6% Furman University<br>
65 6.5% University of Pennsylvania<br>
66 6.5% Washington University<br>
67 6.5% Bard College<br>
68 6.4% Northwestern Univ<br>
69 6.4% Rhodes College<br>
70 6.3% Agnes Scott College
71 6.3% Spelman College
72 6.2% Antioch University, All Campuses<br>
73 6.2% Kenyon College<br>
74 6.2% University of Dallas<br>
75 6.1% Ripon College<br>
76 6.1% Colorado College<br>
77 6.1% Bethel College (North Newton, KS)<br>
78 6.0% Hamilton College<br>
79 6.0% Goshen College<br>
80 6.0% Middlebury College<br>
81 6.0% Erskine College
82 5.9% University of the South
83 5.8% University of Michigan at Ann Arbor
84 5.8% Drew University
85 5.8% Wake Forest University<br>
86 5.8% Tougaloo College<br>
87 5.8% Goucher College
88 5.7% Chatham College
89 5.7% Cooper Union<br>
90 5.7% Alfred University, Main Campus<br>
91 5.7% Tufts University<br>
92 5.6% University of California-Santa Cruz
93 5.6% Colgate University<br>
94 5.5% Colby College<br>
95 5.4% Bucknell University
96 5.4% Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
97 5.4% Concordia Teachers College<br>
98 5.4% University of Virginia, Main Campus
99 5.3% Sarah Lawrence College<br>
100 5.3% Southwestern University
</p>
<p>Note that level of rigor can vary tremendously within a given college.</p>
<p>For example, a state flagship like Berkeley can offer math courses ranging from Math 32 (precalculus) and Math 16A (calculus for business majors), which most would not consider to be very rigorous, to Math H104 (honors introduction to analysis), H113 (honors introduction to abstract algebra), H185 (honors introduction to complex analysis), and graduate level courses, which the vast majority of undergraduate students would want nothing to do with.</p>
<p>Looking at the entire selection of courses and majors, there are some majors that have reputations of being “hard” or “a lot of work”, while others have reputations of allowing a course selection that is quite easy (those who do major in those subjects but choose a more rigorous course load may have to suffer the stigma of being in a “basket weaving” major).</p>
<p>Even a school with a narrower range of selectivity, like Harvard, has a range of rigor. Harvard freshmen may be in various math courses Ma, 1a, 1b, 21a, 23a, 25a, or 55a in the first semester. Ma is a slow pace calculus course (Ma + Mb = 1a), while 55a has quite a reputation for being an extremely difficult math course.</p>
<p>One could note that less selective schools with relatively narrow ranges of selectivity may not offer the most rigorous honors courses found at state flagships and highly selective private schools. They may also offer more lower level remedial courses (e.g. in math, “intermediate algebra”, “college algebra”, etc.). But some courses like regular freshman calculus are likely to be fairly similar across schools of varying levels of selectivity.</p>
<p>In some other subjects, where courses and curricula are less standardized, a more selective school may put more material in a given course or sequence of courses. A top student at a less selective school may be able to partially mitigate this situation by taking overload schedules to compensate.</p>
<p>How is PhD productivity correlated with the rigor of the undergraduate coursework? Bryn Mawr has a relatively high PhD productivity rate, but the easiest coursework from all the colleges I have taken classes at. </p>
<p>I claimed that Swarthmore students could on average get into more selective PhD programs than Bryn Mawr students if they want to get a PhD; not that Swarthmore students attend (or want to attend) PhD programs in higher numbers<a href=“though%20they%20do”>/u</a>.</p>
<p>In fact, the easier coursework might be one factor why Bryn Mawr students are so motivated to seek a PhD; they might have a false impression of their own academic accomplishments. For example, I had classmates at Bryn Mawr who graduated magna cum laude with a 4-year BA/MA degree and then applied to PhD programs; but who dropped every single upper-level class at Haverford they ever enrolled in because they thought it was too hard.</p>
<p>Interesting barium… wonder how those Bryn Mawr grads are doing now in their PhD programs…</p>
<p>One other thing to note: community colleges are often non-selective and open-admission. They also offer course work for students attempting to transfer to four year schools, including the state flagship. So those particular courses may be more rigorous than those at low selectivity state or private four year schools in order to be approved for transfer credit at the higher selectivity schools like the state flagship. Of course, the rigor of those courses can also have a significant “weeding” effect. Other courses which are non-transferable may be significantly less rigorous.</p>
<p>“I claimed that Swarthmore students could on average get into more selective PhD programs than Bryn Mawr students if they want to get a PhD.”</p>
<p>b@r!um, how about some data to back up your speculation? I haven’t seen anything that speaks to the “top” PhD-granting institutions being more closely aligned with “top” undergraduate institutions. If you have, please feel free to share.</p>
<p>“How is PhD productivity correlated with the rigor of the undergraduate coursework?”</p>
<p>Your opinion about “rigor” is based on one thing: your personal experience in a limited number of classes at these colleges. Presumably people are not accepted to PhD programs unless they are deemed able to handle the work. Same goes for medical school, law school, and business school. One could argue that the transcripts of students from lesser-known undergraduate institutions require a closer look than those from the familiar and higher-ranked colleges and universities–especially for some of the reasons ucbalumnus mentions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That looks like it is actually PhD attainment as a percentage of bachelor’s degree class or something like that, not PhD undergraduate origins.</p>
<p>No surprise that LACs tend to show up high. They have fewer pre-professional majors and students, and probably not all that great on-campus recruiting due to small size and relative obscurity. So the PhD program option becomes more prominent there.</p>
<p>
PhD programs vary in selectivity, requisite undergraduate background and minimum standards to earn the degree. Someone might be overwhelmed in one department but doing fine in another department with lower expectations.</p>
<p>
Yes, my opinion is based on my own observations as a student and TA/grader, and on the observations shared by faculty and other students at the colleges I have attended, as well as colleges I have visited. Your opinion is based on what?</p>
<p>That looks like it is actually PhD attainment as a percentage of bachelor’s degree class or something like that, not PhD undergraduate origins.</p>
<p>It’s both, the ranking of PhD origin schools by percentage of graduating bachelors.</p>
<p>No surprise that LACs tend to show up high. They have fewer pre-professional majors and students, and probably not all that great on-campus recruiting due to small size and relative obscurity. So the PhD program option becomes more prominent there.</p>
<p>Indeed, compare apples to apples among better and lesser known schools.</p>
<p>
5 universities represented here (as a student and/or TA). I agree with this 100%. More selective colleges tend to have more demanding assignments, assign more pages of reading, grade papers to a higher level, etc. </p>
<p>Others note the same:
</p>
<p>I’m going to chime in on this as my first post. I went to a liberal arts school ranked in the 80s. Not community college, but not Yale. And I’m certainly not the smartest guy you’ve ever met, either. After graduation, both of my roommates went to ivy league grad schools, one md, one phd bio. After a while we met up and when they told me they TAd, the bio guy anyway, we had a discussion about the differences in curriculum and student body between their new institutions and our old one. I was shocked to find they said that the curriculum was just as rigorous for the undergrads as it was for us. They said the big difference was that 1) the students were a lot smarter 2) they were ALOT more motivated. At our crappy liberal arts school, the spread was just so wide. There were some smart kids, but there were also truly stupid ones. In fact, first semester senior year, at midterms 50% of freshmen were failing their intro science courses. I’m not sure, but, I doubt that happens at elite schools. </p>
<p>Now, they were comparing the hard sciences. I bet the humanities at my school were far less rigorous.</p>
<p>“Yes, my opinion is based on my own observations as a student and TA/grader, and on the observations shared by faculty and other students at the colleges I have attended, as well as colleges I have visited. Your opinion is based on what?”</p>
<p>Same as yours, pretty much: my own observations as a student at a highly regarded university; my partner’s experience as a student in several top-ranked PhD programs in two different fields; opinions shared by faculty friends and students who have taught at/attended other colleges, both prestigious and not; and colleges I have visited.</p>
<p>Mostly, I agree with what ucbalumnus has said–that rigor can vary greatly within a specific department of a specific institution. And many PhDs from “top” institutions are now teaching at “lesser” ones, where they are presumably pushing their students to superior educational attainment wherever possible. The fact remains that we don’t have a fact-based way to correlate rigor against selectivity. You can suggest that in general selectivity is correlated with rankings, but that might be a chicken/egg thing. And selectivity these days has a lot to do with inputs that have little to do with intellectual aptitude (ECs, “hooks,” and so on.) So we’re probably spinning our wheels trying to answer such a broad original question…don’t you think?</p>
<p>The bigger question is why does this matter, rbouwens? You like your school and you chose it for your reasons. Are YOU not being challenged? If not, that’s a problem. If you are being challenged and stimulated, then you’ve got nothing to worry about. These discussions of relative “rigor” never yield productive discussion, IMO. And they often foment vehement, ugly disagreement, IME. And for what? Why other people decided anything is not relevant. You have chosen a great school. Make the most of it.</p>
<p>I am surprised that this topic is so controversial. At the K-12 level, adjusting the pace and contents of a class to the students you are teaching is considered good pedagogy. Why would that be any different in college?</p>