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<p>Is this really true? I would like to see evidence that Caltech’ers really do make the highest salaries in engineering, especially compared to places like MIT or Stanford.</p>
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<p>Is this a relevant point? When you said that the rankings don’t take size into account, I take you at face value, which means that it doesn’t matter whether Caltech is big or small, it only matters whether it is good or not. </p>
<p>You have quoted the USNews peer rankings, which are derived from evaluations of department by departments. It’s not clear to me that this ranking would be either biased for or against large departments. Hence, it’s not clear to me that Caltech deserves any ‘extra’ credit for being a small school. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Caltech is bad. Indeed, I think Caltech is very good. What I am saying is that I don’t see a clear case for pointing out the size issue. So what if Caltech is competing against programs that are dozens of times its size? I don’t know that that necessarily has anything to do with the peer rankings, unless you are insinuating that there is some sort of conspiracy happening where departments will mark down small schools. I would think that these departments would know better than that.</p>
<p>Yes, Ben, actually I do have a question–given that there are some people who might want to come to Caltech to major in biology, why do you insult them by insinuating that it is not a hard science?</p>
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<p>Uh, really? Which ranking are you talking about? You formerly quoted the peer rankings. It’s not clear to me that the peer rankings are influenced by size. </p>
<p>Now if you’re talking about the general USNews rankings, it’s also not clear to me that this ranking is influenced by size either. For example, if the USNews undergraduate ranking was influenced by size, then Berkeley, UCLA, and Michigan would be dominating the rankings. Instead, these schools regularly complain that USNews is actually BIASED against big schools. Indeed, the #1 school in USNews is Princeton, which is a tiny school.</p>
<p>It would be safe to say that USNews rankings are informed by factors that are related to size, wouldn’t it?</p>
<p>Rheasilva, it’s not clear to me that that’s the case. If anything, USNews seems to be biased. Like I said, at least as far as the undergraduate ranking is concerned, many people contend that USNews is actually biased in FAVOR of small size. This actually forms much of the crux of the complaints that public schools have about USNews.</p>
<p>I was talking primarily about the big NRC rankings, where total citations are taken into account. Also, there are economies of scale in research. A big place like Berkeley can afford to run projects that smaller places can’t (and hire hundreds of postdocs and staff), so the fact that Caltech can compete (and come out on top) in national reputation surveys is, I think, pretty impressive.</p>
<p>rhea –</p>
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<p>I’m quite sorry, I certainly didn’t mean any offense. In my mind, somehow physics and chemistry are more quantitative and theoretical than biology in its present incarnation. I just looked it up in wikipedia and realized the soft sciences are things like psychology 
(In my mind, “hard” means “a lot of math”. Biology today has relatively little math, though it’s getting better.)</p>
<p>But, in all seriousness, biology (as distinct from biochemistry) is somehow just making transition from a loose collection of empirical regularities to a more broadly theoretical discipline. You shouldn’t take offense at this, but relish it. That means you might still have a chance to develop the theory and be to your field what Newton and Pauling were to theirs. : )</p>
<p>“Biology today has little math?” You’ve clearly never done bioinformatics research… The field of DNA analysis is COVERED with math.</p>
<p>Admiral – you have to understand that in my spare time I study tensor products of vector bundles and the like, so my standard for “math” is pretty high. When you look at the algebraic geometry done in string theory vs. the fairly elementary statistics, combinatorics, etc., in biology, bio is not yet a truly mathematical discipline. I just think people are pretty quick to point to arithmetic and claim that biology has reached the peak of mathematical sophistication.</p>
<p><em>pokes the vainglorious (and happy) crabbit</em> :p</p>
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<p>But you didn’t cite the NRC rankings. You cited the USNews departmental peer rankings. It’s not clear to me that these rankings are in any way biased towards big departments. </p>
<p>Also, let’s consider what you just said carefully. You say that there are economies of scale in research. I have no opinion about this, but let’s say it is true. If it is true, then Caltech should rightfully be dinged for being small. After all, if there really are economies of scale, then the fact that Caltech is too small means that it doesn’t get to enjoy those economies of scale, whereas the big schools do. You might say that that’s not a “fair” advantage in that if Caltech was bigger, it would be able to enjoy these economies, but it doesn’t really matter whether it’s fair or not. The only thing that matters is who has the advantage. </p>
<p>For example, a big reason why Shaquille O’Neal is such a good player is because he’s so much bigger and taller than most other players. It’s not “fair” that he enjoys this advantage, but it doesn’t really matter whether it’s fair or not. When I need to form a good basketball team, I want a good player, and whether that player is good because of “unfair” advantages is irrelevant to me. Similarly, when I want to get my PhD, I want to choose the place that has the best opportunities for research going on, and it doesn’t matter to me whether one school has an “unfair” economy of scale over another. </p>
<p>Again, let me reiterate. I don’t know if economies of scale exist in research. what I am saying is that if that is true, then Caltech should rightfully be dinged by the NRC and other rankings for being too small. What it would mean is that Caltech would be an even better school than it is now if it got bigger. If it chooses not to do that, fair enough, that’s it’s prerogative, but that means that it’s forfeiting any economies of scale. </p>
<p>Look, I am not saying that Caltech is a bad research organization. Indeed, I believe that Caltech is clearly one of the elite science and engineering research centers in the world. But at the same time, I don’t see that Caltech is getting shafted by the USNews departmental rankings. I think those rankings are reliable the way they are.</p>
<p>Yes, sakky, another way to look at what I was saying is that Caltech does get dinged for not having those economies of scale, but makes up for it in other ways (collegiality, sheer brilliance of the faculty, interdisciplinary work). So those other areas, whatever they are, must be pretty strong.</p>
<p>This happens in another dimension also… Caltech floats to the top of the USNWR and other college rankings despite not having about half the departments other schools have (sociology, art history…). Without any talk of fairness, that suggests that the departments Caltech does have must be good enough for teaching undergraduates that they outweigh the weaknesses.</p>
<p>Those ranks are for grad school. Isn’t the undergraduate experience at most schools significantly different?</p>
<p>Yes. Grad school rankings can be a tolerable proxy for the quality of the undergrad experience, but sometimes this doesn’t work at all – consider, for example, the UC’s.</p>
<p>Hmm. I’m surprised (and a bit disappointed) to see that Caltech isn’t in the top 3 in any biological science. Seems the focus is mostly on math and physics.</p>
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<p>Good point.</p>
<p>How good is Caltech’s compsci program? Do many people major in it?</p>
<p>Well, the CS major for undergrads is incredibly new (read: the first CS majors graduated year before last). The department is well established, though. It’s a small department with a few incredibly talented profs. The result is that there is not a lot of breadth in the classes offered, but what is offered is high quality. Because there are only a few profs, classes are usually only offered every other year, and there aren’t a ton of classes offered at any one time. The course catalog lists a ton of classes that aren’t offered anymore. With a few exceptions, most of the coursese listed on the CS website are still offered: <a href=“Computing + Mathematical Sciences”>Computing + Mathematical Sciences;
<p>About 15 people major in CS every year, and we have one of the worst ratios of all the majors (of about 20 CS seniors, there are 2 girls). The option itself is incredibly flexible. You have a set of 6 classes you need to take freshman and sophomore years and after that you really just need to fill a unit count.</p>
<p>Feel free to ask any more questions – I’m a CS major and can go on and on.</p>
<p>How do you reconcile CS being both very limited in class count and incredibly flexible?</p>
<p>You can take as many research courses as you want, as well as math, quantum physics – whatever you’d like. Usually, you’d have a more rigid regimen of required courses. Flexibility means you can explore what you like and work one-on-one with professors earlier. You can decide on your own whether this is right for you.</p>