Why Can't University of Penn place any students into CalTech Physics PhD Program?

muerteapablo · September 23, 2009, 7:20pm

Y7ongjun - Before I get too far into this, let me give you the data for the physics class of 2007. Of the 4 who got physics PhDs, 2 went to Stanford and Santa Barbara (both top-5 for their specialties) and 2 went to Penn (#13, not too shabby).

You think Penn has bad grad placement?

Penn is the 4th most represented undergrad at Harvard Law (only behind Harvard, Yale and Stanford), and one of the best represented at all top-10 law schools. It is also one of the most represented undergrads at the top-10 medical schools. It has an average LSAT of 163, tied with: Dartmouth, Brown, Columbia and MIT. More examples: its aggregate law school acceptance rate was 94% among graduating seniors, one of the highest in the country.

Have you ever looked at career service data? There are always tons of kids matriculating to top PhD programs in all areas. Many graduates end up at top PhD programs, be they at Penn or at Yale, Harvard, Stanford and others.
For example, from the class of 2008 survey of the College (returned by roughly 50% of the graduates):
Out of the 30 that went for PhDs, 22 went to one of the top schools of their field:
4 @ Stanford (in biology, immunology, electrical engineering (he was a physics major!) and education)
4 @ Harvard (in chem, biochem, astronomy, and dentistry)
2 @ Yale (classical studies, psychology)
2 @ Cornell (English, bio + MD in medicine)
2 @ Penn (bio, marketing)
2 @ Brown (Russian literature)
2 @ Hopkins (bio + MD in medicine)
1 @ michigan (philosophy)
1 @ MIT (material science)
1 @ Columbia (neuroscience)
1 @ Wash U (bio +MD)

The class of 2007 was similarly strong: of the 41 getting PhDs, the vast majority (30) went to Stanford (2), Penn (5), Caltech (2), Harvard (3), Princeton (1), Yale (1), Columbia (3), Berkeley (2), Michigan(2), UCSF (1), Cornell (2), Chicago (2), UCLA (2), Santa Barbara (1, for physics), WashU (1, neuroscience). The other 10 still went to strong schools, just not as strong: Northwestern, UTexas, UWisconsin, Georgia.

keep in mind that this is just 50% of the class reporting.

So, to say that Penn has poor grad placement is… idiotic.

Venkat89 · September 23, 2009, 9:26pm

How is this thread still going on. So Penn doesn’t produce as many PhDs per capita as other peer schools. Who cares? It isn’t clear whether it is a fault of the university for preparing students poorly, for admitting weak students, or (my guess) the fact that many top Penn students have little interest in going to any PhD program, top or otherwise.

cmburns14 · October 16, 2009, 7:27am

what ever happened to Y7ongjun?

not to reopen this can of worms, but for those who don’t follow this sort of thing too closely, a Penn undergrad alum from 1955 won the Physics Nobel Prize this year.

So +1 to Penn on that.

muerteapablo · October 16, 2009, 11:06am

As did the chair of the econ department from 1963-1985.

45_Percenter · October 16, 2009, 12:43pm

^ He was a member of the department from 1965-1983, and chair for only a portion of that time. I don’t think ANYONE could stand being chair of a department for 22–or even 18–years! It’s a fairly thankless job. :)

Y7ongjun · November 17, 2009, 3:14pm

When will Penn replace Yale or Princeton as a top 3?

monydad · November 17, 2009, 3:50pm

umm…

When they can place some students into CalTech Physics PhD program? Is that it?

Or maybe: September 14, 2013?

I give up. When?

Y7ongjun · November 25, 2009, 2:45pm

CalTech’s Entering Class of 2009 does not have any UPenn students. So the likelihood of Penn taking over Yale or Princeton is very very small.

Caltech Physics PhD Entering Class of 2009

Student Name - Faculty Advisor -Undergraduate College

Daniel Chao TBD Caltech

thesis: 
employment:

Justin Cohen TBD U of Florida

thesis: 
employment:

Paul Gebhart TBD UC Irvine

thesis: 
employment:

Akihisa Goban Kimble U of Tokyo

thesis: 
employment:

David Grayson TBD U of Illinois

thesis: 
employment:

Katharine Kalamaroff Stone USAF Academy

thesis: 
employment:

William Korth Adhikari U of Florida

thesis: 
employment:

Emily Kosten Atwater Princeton

thesis: 
employment:

Shu-Ping Lee TBD National Taiwan U

thesis: 
employment:

Wei-Hsun Lin TBD National Tsing Hua U

thesis: 
employment:

Alexander Mott TBD MIT

thesis: 
employment:

Debaleena Nandi Eisenstein Indian Inst of Science

thesis: 
employment:

Mattias Rydenfelt TBD UC Santa Barbara

thesis: 
employment:

Edgar Shaghoulian TBD Stanford

thesis: 
employment:

Seth Siegel Golwala U of Michigan

thesis: 
employment:

Leo Singer TBD U of Maryland

thesis: 
employment:

Grant Teply Lange U of Wisconsin

thesis: 
employment:

Emma Wollman TBD Swarthmore College

thesis: 
employment:

Ke Zhang Blake Beijing Normal U

muerteapablo · November 29, 2009, 1:43am

Neither did Yale or Harvard, you stupid twat.

Go take your anecdotal evidence, stop cherry picking Caltech’s graduate rosters, and kill yourself.

monydad · November 29, 2009, 10:05am

Glad this thread came up again, because I thought of another guess:
when Penn Places its students into MIT/ Chicago’s Economics PhD Program ??
Is that it???

Why Can't University of Penn place any students into CalTech Physics PhD Program?

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