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Which graduate schools are friendly? Undergrad Life
By halewis
Posted Thu Feb 12, 2004 at 12:14:09 PM PDT
I'm teaching at a small liberal arts college, and our students have sometimes had difficulty adjusting to PhD programs. Is there a way to find out which graduate schools are particularly supportive of their new students during this transition?

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Which graduate schools are friendly? | 6 comments (6 topical, 0 hidden)
[new] two suggestions (none / 0) (#1)
by kroth on Mon Feb 16, 2004 at 06:05:21 AM PDT

My department typically reccomends University of Kentucky for math grad school since it is friendly and used to liberal arts students. Also Dartmouth is excellent. We reccomend Dartmouth to our best students (it only accepts a small number of students a year so it is harder to get into)


[new] look for small grad classes (none / 0) (#2)
by Anonymous Hero on Tue Feb 17, 2004 at 05:24:24 AM PDT

Smaller graduate admission classes are key.

Don't look necessarily at the overall size of the graduate school -- some schools have a high turnover or simply lots leave with the terminal degree of M.S. which can lower the overall size compared to schools that have a higher percentage going on to the PhD.

My first graduate school, FSU, had incoming admission class sizes of 20+. But only two or three of those would go on for a PhD, the rest flunking out or stopping at the masters. My second one, UVa, had classes of 8 or so, most going on.

Smaller classes allow for more faculty interaction, and a high percentage going on to the PhD do too. A lot of faculty won't bother much with graduate students until it is certain they are going on for the PhD. At UVa, where 75-80% were going for the PhD when I was admitted (that percentage has gone up, I understand), faculty took the time with first year students.



[new] large schools vary too (none / 0) (#3)
by Anonymous Hero on Sat Feb 28, 2004 at 07:51:19 AM PDT

I have heard bad things about two fairly large departments, Penn State (lack of faculty support before passing qualifying exams) and West Virginia University (ever changing qualifying exam requirements/lack of support). However I have also heard good things about University of Maryland, which is quite large.
Small class sizes probably help, but I do not think they are required. A large school does offer one benefit to a liberal arts college student, a large variety of fields to study. Many liberal arts students don't know what field they want when they enter grad school.



[new] Friendly grad schools (none / 0) (#4)
by JHamblin on Tue Mar 02, 2004 at 05:21:36 AM PDT

A couple of the faculty here at Shippensburg went to University of South Carolina, and said that it was pretty "friendly." A few of our students will be going there in the fall. I will be interested to see how they do, as our math program is not particularly intense, and they may not be quite prepared for grad school anywhere...

I know that while I greatly enjoyed my time at UW-Madison, I think most of our grad-school-bound students would get eaten alive there.

JH



[new] Counter-Question (none / 0) (#5)
by Anonymous Hero on Thu Nov 11, 2004 at 08:41:40 AM PDT

On the topic of graduate schools that are friendly, maybe not too many people will reply to this but it's worth a shot. (First question) Are there any departments that you know of that were extremely NOT friendly? I'm searching for graduate programs so I can start networking with the faculty to see if it's a good fit, but don't know what the response rate will be like and whether or not that is a good indicator of their "friendliness". Most faculty and representatives are nice at graduate school fairs, but they are also paid to be like that. (Second question posed) I know there are some critical skills to succeed in graduate school and beyond. Some of them include the ability to complete work and work well alone and with others, the list could go on from the ones I've heard in the past - but I wanted to know what everyone else thought they felt were "critical" skills. I can understand if no one answers the first question posed, but at least answer the second please. Thank you for your time.



Which graduate schools are friendly? | 6 comments (6 topical, 0 hidden)
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