<p>“But to imply that anyone pondering going through to a PhD will be worse off going to UCB over a LAC is just wrong.”</p>
<p>:) We have come a long way from the days when LACs got no respect!</p>
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<p>^^this is why USNews divided the top 50 in half; not because their curricula are all that different, but, because they didn’t want to hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth coming from every university that felt its deserved place was being usurped by a LAC.</p>
<p>They are different schools for different people. That should be pretty simple. Having two rankings is just fine.</p>
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<p>Vossron, well the NSF think your fav’ deserves some respect:</p>
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</p>
<p>Caltech, MIT, and … three LACs.</p>
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</p>
<p>Barrons, with all due respect, you should not attack ME for drawing false conclusions. In addition, your argument of “But to imply that anyone pondering going through to a PhD will be worse off going to UCB over a LAC is just wrong” is simply misleading --again.</p>
<p>For the record, I think we should compare the number of times you have openly dismissed the value of LACs and opined that they are some kind of second-class providers of education (with various degrees of subtility) to the number of times I have offered a negative opinion of Berkeley or UW-Madison. </p>
<p>Here’s the first reality: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>YOU do really believe that a school such as Berkeley or your own UW-Madison DOES provide a better avenue for education BECAUSE of their access to large labs, mega-dollars funding, and the presence of professors who are amazing researchers and writers.</p></li>
<li><p>YOU do not believe that LACs can match the large research universities.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Here’s the second reality:</p>
<p>Some people on this board feel a compelling need to almost constantly prop the value of public schools. How many threads have we had to read about Berkeley this or that, or Berkeley versus the world? How they are screwed here or there? How underrated they are by USNews? And then there are the listings such as the OP of this thread which started with: </p>
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</p>
<p>And, fwiw, there is a difference between us. I have been more than willing to give Berkeley and other large public schools their just desserts. Check what I have written about their graduate schools and the infamous rankings or prestige listings. On the other hand, you seem to believe that LAC’s are some weird combination of a finishing school and a community college, or even worse. At best, you’d say … Oh yeah, you can do that at a LAC, but … but …!</p>
<p>I have rarely even made many comments on LAC only related threads. For people wanting to go to them I have listed my favorites from time to time. I have NEVER said anyone going to a good LAC is at any disadvantage except they get less experience in handling certain situations and many LACs are not deep in areas like engineering, business, languages, etc.</p>
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<p>Funny, xiggi…you likely have started more threads about the UC system than I have. </p>
<p>Anytime a thread mentions Berkeley or other top publics in a good light, it turns into a ****ing contest.</p>
<p>A serious flaw with the NSF Baccalaureate Origins of S&E PhD recipents is that it uses the wrong denominator to control for the size of the school. It divides by bachelors awarded in ALL fields instead of just science and engineering fields. This places universities at a disadvantage because they offer programs in which a bachelors or masters is a highly marketable degree. In fields like education, business, nursing, and engineering there is less incentive to seek a PhD. It would be better to divide by the number of bachelors grads in S&E.</p>
<p>A second flaw is that it fails to control for overall student ability at the baccalaureate school. Is the PhD production due to the school’s ability to educate or to the student’s ability to learn? Public schools may be at a disadvantage because of their mission to educate a more diverse cross-section of students, especially in their home state.</p>
<p>I have tried to correct the flaws in the NSF study. I divided the 1997-2206 science and engineering PhDs by the sum of: (1) the number of S&E bachelors granted in 2002 and (2) the school’s SAT midpoint. </p>
<p>It isn’t perfect, but it is an improvement.</p>
<p>school, PhD production index controlling for field of study and student ability</p>
<p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology Private 0.519
Harvard University Private 0.486
University of Arizona Public 0.480
University of Massachusetts at Amherst Public 0.477
Cornell University, all campuses Public/private 0.410
SUNY at Buffalo Public 0.407
Princeton University Private 0.391
Stanford University Private 0.372
Yale University Private 0.357
California Institute of Technology Private 0.355
Brown University Private 0.337
University of Chicago Private 0.332
University of California-Berkeley Public 0.330
Duke University Private 0.320
Rice University Private 0.286
Oberlin College Private 0.275
Carleton College Private 0.273
North Carolina State University at Raleigh Public 0.269
Swarthmore College Private 0.255
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor Public 0.250
College of William and Mary Public 0.240
University of Rochester Private 0.229
University of Pennsylvania Private 0.229
Dartmouth College Private 0.229
University of Virginia, main campus Public 0.228
Wesleyan University Private 0.227
Johns Hopkins University Private 0.221
Carnegie Mellon University Private 0.215
Williams College Private 0.211
University of California-San Diego Public 0.209
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Public 0.207
Northwestern University Private 0.205
Reed College Private 0.203
Case Western Reserve University Private 0.201
Trinity University Private 0.199
Columbia University in the City of New York Private 0.199
University of California-Santa Cruz Public 0.196
Grinnell College Private 0.194
University of Wisconsin-Madison Public 0.194
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Private 0.193
Harvey Mudd College Private 0.192
University of California-Davis Public 0.190
Wellesley College Private 0.186
University of Notre Dame Private 0.181
Pomona College Private 0.172
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Public 0.172
University of California-Los Angeles Public 0.171
Brandeis University Private 0.170
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University Public 0.163
Bryn Mawr College Private 0.161
Vassar College Private 0.159
Haverford College Private 0.156
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities Public 0.153
Pennsylvania State University, main campus Public 0.151
Amherst College Private 0.151
University of Texas at Austin Public 0.150
Brigham Young University, main campus Private 0.150
Rutgers the State University of New Jersey New Brunswick Public 0.149
Franklin and Marshall College Private 0.148
Macalester College Private 0.147
Georgia Institute of Technology, main campus Public 0.146
University of Colorado at Boulder Public 0.143
Purdue University, main campus Public 0.141
Boston University Private 0.140
University of Maryland at College Park Public 0.136
University of Florida Public 0.131
University of California-Santa Barbara Public 0.128
Bowdoin College Private 0.127
University of California-Irvine Public 0.126
Occidental College Private 0.126
Bates College Private 0.120
Texas A&M University, main campus Public 0.118
University of Washington-Seattle Public 0.118
Kalamazoo College Private 0.117
Michigan State University Public 0.116
Iowa State University Public 0.113
Ohio State University, main campus Public 0.109
Indiana University at Bloomington Public 0.102
Earlham College Private 0.100
Lawrence University Private 0.096
Beloit College Private 0.094
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology Public 0.089
Whitman College Private 0.085
Hendrix College Private 0.077
St John’s College (Annapolis, MD) Private 0.029</p>
<p>Barrons wrote:</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Really? The data indicates otherwise.</p>
<p>I wonder what these rankings would look like if one examined only the honors students at these large universities. I suspect a public education in an honors program at some of these universities would look pretty impressive.</p>
<p>“Is the PhD production due to the school’s ability to educate or to the student’s ability to learn?”</p>
<p>It’s obviously both, so why use only one factor?</p>
<p>“by the sum of: (1) the number of S&E bachelors granted in 2002 and (2) the school’s SAT midpoint”</p>
<p>The sum of different units? How about dividing by both?</p>
<p>vossron-</p>
<p>I divided number of phds by (number of S&E bachelors + SAT).
That controls for both S&E bachelors and SAT, I think.</p>
<p>Regarding your first question, my index tries to capture how much the school itself contributes to S&E PhD production.</p>
<p>Collegehelp. A friendly suggestion.</p>
<p>I agree with your impulse to use S&E grads as a denominator and to figure in the effect of SAT midpoint as a proxy for value added. But by using the sum in the denominator you unfairly penalize small institutions. For example an institution with 100 phd’s and 500 S&E grads and midpoint of 1500 give you an index of .05. But a smaller institution with 50 Phd’s and 50 S&E grads with the same midpoint yields a ratio of .032. Clearly the smaller institution is doing a better job of producing PhD’s.</p>
<p>A better measure might be to first divide by the number of S&E grads. Then take these ratios and multiply them by some weighting factor ( such as 1600 divided by the SAT midpoint) that would account for the value added.</p>
<p>good suggestion, dfb</p>
<p>I am still troubled by the fact that we are including engineering in the denominator. Scholls without engineering programs or with smaller engineering programs are at an advantage.</p>
<p>I could limit to science only but I don’t have the 1995-2005 PhD production for science only. Does anybody know where I can get the most recent PhD production figures for science alone (or for any discipline that is Arts and Sciences)?</p>
<p>Before I do this again, I’d like to see if I can identify a denominator that all schools have in common. I am open to suggestions.</p>
<p>collegehelp, am I reading your latest list correctly, that MIT comes out on top when controlling for science and engineering grads and SAT midpoint?</p>
<p>That really surprises me.</p>
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<p>That’s correct, molliebatmit.</p>
<p>My spreadsheet is on a different computer, but I will double-check tomorrow.</p>
<p>I need to correct my formula, though. There is a bias in favor of large schools because I controlled for SATs incorrectly and possibly a bias against schools with engineering programs.</p>
<p>That’s pretty cool. I would have thought MIT’s dominance would be pretty well accounted for by the large number of S&E students by itself, let alone average SAT.</p>
<p>(Of course, I’m an MIT alum who will ideally have a PhD about 3.5-4 years from now. 
So clearly the numbers reflect my career path well.)</p>
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<p>Actually, MIT wouldn’t even be close to the top producer of science/engineering/math PhDs per 100 undergrad math/science/engineering majors.</p>
<p>13.9% of all Swarthmore grads got PhDs in math/science/engineering over the most recent 10 year period. But, only 37.5% of Swarthmore grads major in math/science/engineering (on average).</p>
<p>That means that about 37% of all Swarthmore math/science/engineering majors went on to get a PhD. (Rough numbers).</p>
<p>That would be nip and tuck with CalTech’s 36%.</p>
<p>Here is a ranking using the method suggested by dfb in post #53.</p>
<p>I first divided science/engineering PhDs by the number of science/engineering bachelors grads in 2002. Then I multiplied by 1600/SAT midpoint.</p>
<p>The data for Trinity does not look right. It is a serious outlier.</p>
<p>Caltech and MIT still look good.</p>
<p>I am still not satisfied with this ranking but will post it for discussion. I think it would be an improvement if I could restrict the PhD count to science only and the bachelors graduates to science only (or to some other field that universities and LACs have in common). That would create an apples-apples comparison between LACs and universities. Better yet would be to have the SATs for just those students but that infor is not available.</p>
<p>Still, it is a better research design than the NSF’s.</p>
<p>Trinity University 3.79
University of Massachusetts at Amherst 2.24
SUNY at Buffalo 1.64
California Institute of Technology 1.55
University of Arizona 1.54
Harvey Mudd College 1.40
New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology 1.23
Swarthmore College 1.20
Reed College 1.12
Carleton College 1.11
Grinnell College 1.01
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 0.95
Haverford College 0.95
Oberlin College 0.91
Harvard University 0.88
Bryn Mawr College 0.87
Princeton University 0.86
Rice University 0.82
Pomona College 0.81
University of Chicago 0.81
Williams College 0.78
Earlham College 0.76
Yale University 0.75
Wesleyan University 0.71
Brown University 0.69
Amherst College 0.69
Stanford University 0.68
Kalamazoo College 0.67
Macalester College 0.66
Wellesley College 0.65
Franklin and Marshall College 0.64
Duke University 0.64
North Carolina State University at Raleigh 0.61
Cornell University, all campuses 0.61
Beloit College 0.59
Occidental College 0.59
Lawrence University 0.58
Vassar College 0.57
Hendrix College 0.57
Dartmouth College 0.55
Case Western Reserve University 0.53
College of William and Mary 0.53
Bowdoin College 0.52
Brandeis University 0.52
University of Rochester 0.51
Bates College 0.50
University of California-Berkeley 0.47
Johns Hopkins University 0.46
Carnegie Mellon University 0.45
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 0.39
Whitman College 0.39
Columbia University in the City of New York 0.38
University of Virginia, main campus 0.37
University of Pennsylvania 0.37
University of California-Santa Cruz 0.37
Northwestern University 0.36
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor 0.36
University of Notre Dame 0.33
University of California-San Diego 0.32
University of California-Davis 0.30
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 0.29
University of Wisconsin-Madison 0.28
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 0.28
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 0.26
University of California-Los Angeles 0.25
University of Colorado at Boulder 0.24
Georgia Institute of Technology, main campus 0.23
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 0.23
Rutgers the State University of New Jersey New Brunswick 0.23
Brigham Young University, main campus 0.23
Boston University 0.23
Purdue University, main campus 0.23
Pennsylvania State University, main campus 0.22
University of Texas at Austin 0.22
University of California-Irvine 0.21
University of California-Santa Barbara 0.21
University of Maryland at College Park 0.20
University of Florida 0.19
Michigan State University 0.19
Iowa State University 0.18
University of Washington-Seattle 0.18
Texas A&M University, main campus 0.18
Indiana University at Bloomington 0.17
Ohio State University, main campus 0.17
St John’s College (Annapolis, MD) 0.14</p>