**Jamaika a jamaikaiaké **- not really. However, one of the classes I’m currently taking is for both grad and undergrad students. I would say that it is more work than classes I took as an undergrad at State School, but it’s also more independent work. For example, at State School, we did a lot of weekly assignments that would take maybe 30 min-1 hour a week outside of class. The class I’m in now, we only have 3 grades, on 3 papers. That’s it- the rest is just reading, and the prof will honestly never know if I have done it or not. Now, that’s normal for grad school, but since this is an undergrad class as well… I have to think it’s not unheard of for other undergrad classes here, and that was rarely the structure for classes I saw at State School.
Please excuse this slight tangent, as it seems that the OP’s question has been answered very well.
What are the main differences between liberal arts colleges and “normal”, research universities (of course, only at the undergraduate level). Also, would you (people who are informed about this), regard UC Berkeley as comparable to some of the best private universities?
Totally different from my experience, and that of the others I knew who went to upper quality schools. I had one of the highest grade point averages at my (small) high school, and very good SATs. It wasn’t hard for me to get into Cornell. But it was far more challenging once I was there. Most people were just as smart as I was, and some were a lot smarter.
I did my graduate work at the University of Colorado. While that wasn’t a bad school, the atmosphere, especially among the undergraduates, was totally different. Most people at Cornell were driven to excel; many at Colorado were there to party and ski.
As a rule, liberal arts colleges don’t have graduate programs, and as such the faculty focus much more on teaching than they otherwise would. It’s definitely a good deal for many students, but those who intend to go on to grad school find it difficult to get research experience at these schools.
UC Berkeley is one of the top schools in the nation, with several very highly regarded programs (in particular, engineering and business). Its graduate programs are among the best out there in most fields.
Attending an Ivy League school makes one’s farts smell significantly more pleasant.
People at Ivies read Atlantic Monthly and Harpers. People at State Colleges read Esquire and Playboy.
Out of curiousity, is University of Pennsylvania a State School?
Ended up going to a Patriot League college - another conference similar to the Ivy League, consisting of the following schools:
American University
United States Military Academy (Army) West Point
Bucknell
Colgate University
Holy Cross
Lafayette College
Lehigh University
United States Naval Academy (Navy) Annapolis
Fordham University
Georgetown University
Villanova University
Personally, what I liked about my experience was:
high academic standards
excellent reputation
strong alumni support
rich history and tradition
athletic, without being overbearing about it (IOW, it’s not some massive State football machine)
work hard/play hard mentality
The only down side is that none of those schools seem like they are in a major city (except Fordham and Georgetown).
A good friend of mine from high school went to a state school and not a very good one at that (IOW, not like a Rutgers, UConn or Penn State). He transfered twice, ultimately ending up at Villanova. I used to visit him at his various schools and I could see a marked difference between the caliber of students in terms of intellect, class, sophistication, and drive.
Don’t discount the levels of drinking (and drug use) at fancy private universities. Many of those dudes like to party.
I didn’t quite follow. Do you teach at a less “fancy” school or a more “fancy” one? And should your homework assignments take more or less than an hour?
I went to a good, quasi-Ivy, college as a undergraduate and a couple of state colleges for graduate work.
No question that my undergrad courses were tougher, demanded more from me, and had generally higher expectations at every turn than the graduate courses. Those are all intangibles and I can hardly point to specific facts of comparison. (Well, maybe one: lots more required reading.)
The difference is pretty much the same as any between a good teacher and not so good teacher. They teach the same subject, using the same curriculum. But you learn a whole lot more from one than the other. You know it’s true and so does everybody else. Nobody can turn around and quantify it in a way that would make not-so-good teachers better, though.
Once you’ve been through it, though, it’s obvious and inarguable. Not absolute: there are good teachers everywhere and lousy teachers everywhere. Still, it’s like the difference between the major leagues and the minors. The middle of the curve is moved over and that means everything.
There are also schools referred to as Public Ivy Schools. My alma mater, University of California, Davis, is one such.
I don’t have experience with an actual Ivy League school, but I attend one of the best engineering schools in the country, and I also spent a semester at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The difference in quality of students was immediately obvious, and the courses suffered as a result. In some classes we had to skip sections of the syllabus because students couldn’t keep up with it and we never delved too deeply into the material. You could get by with a much more superficial understanding of the material. I imagine the same difference apply for Harvard and the like.
No. It’s private. In fact there has been some consideration in the past (I’m not sure how serious) of changing its name because of this confusion. Ben Franklin University was one name I heard was suggested.
I was walking with one of my fellow graduate students one day at Dartmouth. He asked me, “Do you see anything weird here?” I said no but I wondered what he meant. He replied that there were no fat people or unattractive people or dumb people anywhere within a stones throw and I looked around and he was exactly right.
The Dartmouth campus is about the most idyllic place I have ever seen and the general area doesn’t leave much to be desired either. Everything is dark wood gorgeous including the eating places. Dogs can wander freely on campus and I think they can even live in some dorms. The whole place is set up like an academic spa yet plenty of poor, smart kids get to go there and nothing is spared.
Harvard’s campus looks similar but isn’t quite as nice due to the urban environment. Several non-Ivy League schools have a similar pampering environment. You can make fun of the students that go to them all you want but I prefer a world where that type of thing is available to every kid that makes the cut.
I attended Harvard as an undergraduate. One benefit for me, coming from an incredibly small town in the south, where I was the valedictorian and a big fish in a small pond, is that ALL of my fellow undergraduates were used to being big fish in whatever size pond they were used to. That level of achievement (and competition) was brutal, eye-opening, and ultimately just as educational for me as the classes I took. Being surrounded by incredibly intelligent, hard-working, interesting, amazing people brought me to a new level of thought.
It is true that I knew people who skated through their undergraduate years there. However, the educational opportunities that were available were offered by some of the best names in their fields. The classes I chose to take were incredibly demanding, both in terms of the amount of material covered (my first literature class covered 17 different novels in one semester) and in terms of the level of processing and understanding required.
Because I had come from public schools in S.C., I had literally never had to study and didn’t know how to study. I didn’t even know how to take notes in a class! My freshman year was one of the hardest, most life-changing experiences I can remember.
My graduate school classes, in comparison, seemed easier.
I went to a hoity toity private school for smart people for undergrad. I would sometimes barely sleep for days on end just to keep up with the volume of work and the challenges presented to me.
In contrast, I went to a somewhat expensive private school that wasn’t near as selective as well as a large state U for graduate school. I slept through most of my classes, didn’t learn a dang thing from any professor (except during my practicums), and still had one of the highest GPA’s. It was boring.
Any shallow people? 
Cornell has one of the most beautiful campuses of any of the Ivies. It comes complete with waterfalls.
Even very good schools can be very different. Some of you may be familiar with St. John’s Annapolis. The curriculum consists of the Great Books of the Western World. All of the classes all four years are required. There is a high concentration of National Merit Scholars, a small student body and an excellent reputation.
You can count on the Ivies to be good. Some private schools may be better in certain fields. M.I.T., for example, may be better in engineering. Stanford is better in teacher education.
I’ve known Berkeley by reputation only for the last forty years. It always makes the top fifteen lists academically. Morally, it is the campus with a conscience. It leads and inspires the rest of us. Long live Berkeley! It is one of the nation’s finest universities.
Not exactly Ivy League (we have no equivalent), but I was an undergraduate at Edinburgh, now I’m a postgraduate at a smaller university who has to do some teaching and marking. Here’s some of the differences I noticed:
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Undergraduate workload at Edinburgh was pretty brutal. They worked students hard and didn’t care who dropped out. First year computer science, we had 250 students. Four years later, less than 50 graduated. Where I am now, they’re terrified of failing students, as that’s loss of revenue.
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Job opportunities were better. Individual universities are targeted by companies in the UK. Microsoft, Google, IBM, Sun Microsystems etc. all target Edinburgh and similar schools.
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Most of my peers as an undergraduate were there because they wanted to learn, not because there was an expectation they should go to university, or because they thought having a degree would give them a higher salary.
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My peers came from all sections of society. I was friends with millionaires, but there were also many like me, from the working/lower middle classes.
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The course material was a lot harder. Undergraduate CS at Edinburgh had a heavy emphasis on maths. Here, a lot of the maths behind what they are being taught is hidden from the students.
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Undergraduate dissertations at Edinburgh were cutting edge. Work I started in my dissertation is still being researched in the CS department now. Likewise, the supervisors were experts in their field. Students here seem to work on implementing solved problems (less interesting, to me).
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The elective courses were far more varied at Edinburgh, due to it being a research university, and having a huge department. Further, the courses actually went into some depth, exposing undergraduates to current research. One of my lecturers had published something a week before the lecture, and he changed the course material the to talk about his work, for instance.
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The courses were also far more “traditional”. Teaching style was a lecturer stood in front of the class with a set of slides, and you were examined at the end of the course. If you couldn’t handle that, tough. Here, they’re all about trying experimental teaching styles, abolishing exams, heavy emphasis on coursework etc.
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When it came to applying for a PhD, my dissertation supervisor came in handy. He knew pretty much everybody in the field and secured me a spot with a great supervisor.
First semester freshman year at another quasi-Ivy (Duke, whose motto is “Harvard. the Duke of the North”) a guy across the hall from me lost his father in a car accident, and had to withdraw due to financial issues. He transferred to Clemson, not a shabby school. We were both in the School of Engineering at Duke, and he went to Engineering at Clemson, and he called back several time second semester amazed at how EASY the classes at Clemson were compared to what he had taken at Duke. Did he get a “worse” education there than he would have with us? Who can tell?
To be fair, there is no way to get an accurate view from anecdotes. People who have gone to top universities can say they think the average education was deeper. But if somebody comes on and says they went to a lower-tier school and they think they got an equivalent education they will instantly get hit with “but you don’t know what the other side was like!” And there is surely some influence by the fact that if someone invested the money in going to a top school they probably are automatically going to believe it was worth it.
In the end, it is also worth remembering that everyone gets the education they work for. While the minimum standard may be higher at a top school, the maximum is still pretty much the same in most fields (exceptions made for science fields that need special equipment, etc.) Personally I busted my butt in school and got a great education even though my slacker-school didn’t even give us grades in our classes.
I started out at an open-enrollment community college (two years). I transferred and put in four years at Columbia. Before transferring, I spent a lot of time visiting campuses, mainly to sit in on classes. For three years at Columbia I was on the debate team, traveling to schools across the country every weekend – in addition to hanging out for a while, I sat in on a lot of classes. I did my post-grad at Georgetown, though I had a relatively small amount of undergrad exposure.
I now teach the occasional SAT or LSAT prep course and meet scores of students from private and public high schools. By the time their results are in have a fair idea of where they’re going — no so much from their initial results but from their overall approach to the course.
Granted, all this is just anecdote, but IME the differences between student bodies of, say, Williams to Lafayette to SUNY New Paltz is virtually tangible. Not to insult any particular school or student body, but the selectiveness inherent in the system fosters what posters have been saying about differences in student bodies — the higher the percentage of overachievers/excellent students a school has, the higher the caliber of overall discourse and overall capacity within each course.
Yes, there are failures at top schools and successes at lower-tiered schools, and yes, student body is one of a few major factors in education quality. None of this means some lower-tiered schools don’t have particular programmes that surpass name-brand schools. None of this means that someone focused on practicalities and skills can’t find what their looking for at any school. But if you’re looking for a comprehensive, traditional liberal arts education and understand what it’s all about, then it’s almost tautological to say that an intelligent student body that’s eager to learn is a critical component of an excellent education — the closer the student body is to that ideal, the better.
Based on my very modest experience, I think the culture of drinking is different at different schools. I think my college was notoriously low on the drinking scale. Perhaps this has skewed my point of view.
Sorry, I don’t think it is known on this board where I teach, and I would like to keep it this way. Unfortunately, my caution led to a clumsy description. What I left out was that this was a weekly homework assignment, and that spending only one hour on a weekly assignment for a class seemed absurd to me. So that would be less ‘fancy.’
‘Fancy’ sounds weird, doesn’t it?