Class Size

[Fulbrighterpak]

Brown incoming class is 13....for next year..

[filroz]

I don't want to know the number for lse msc
but I have what I wanted...

[mentalitysurf]

Penn's incoming class is 36.
A significant increase in the number of admitted students this year.

[eqtisadi]

22 at Stanford.

[israelecon]

Originally Posted by asquare

I don't see why having a smaller (or larger) cohort than another school is necessarily good The optimal class size depends on the school's resources (number of professors, office space, funding, etc.) and style of advising, among other things. What is just right at one school might be too small at another. Also, over some range, there are increasing returns to more students -- more students might mean having someone else in your field to work with, for example. And more really good students helps attract really good faculty.

Also, schools can't perfectly control class size because they can't control yield. A small cohort could be what the school intended, or it could mean that the school failed to attract the students it hoped for. Similarly, a small number of students offered admission in a given year could theoretically mean that the quality of the applicant pool was disappointing and the entering cohort is of below-average quality I'm not saying any of these things are true for Princeton or any other school this year, but that they are possible.

I don't see any reason to assume that a smaller cohort is better, either across or within schools. And I certainly don't see any reason to think that having 20 vs. 21 entering students will make any difference at all!! I know everyone is curious about what the coming year will hold, but there's no reason to make assumptions about whose cohort is better or whose year looks more promising based on trivia...

i have to disagree with you here, asquare. in the job-market i think a smaller cohort is better. on the job-market a school tries to sell its students. a school cannot claim that all their students are great, so they can only convincingly say that 5-10 students are really good in a ny given year (even if more are). so since it will be easier to be in the top 5 or ten in a smaller cohort.

[asquare]

Originally Posted by israelecon

i have to disagree with you here, asquare. in the job-market i think a smaller cohort is better. on the job-market a school tries to sell its students. a school cannot claim that all their students are great, so they can only convincingly say that 5-10 students are really good in a ny given year (even if more are). so since it will be easier to be in the top 5 or ten in a smaller cohort.

But if there are positive externalities from your classmates in the process leading up to the job market, then we don't know which direction the causal effect of class size goes in.

Also, since job market placement is a repeated game for a school, it "sells" students based on their strength relative to more than one year of classmates. If all the students in a given cohort just happen to be weak for some reason, the placement director isn't going to try to get a top placement for the best of that weak cohort, because it could undermine efforts to place future, stronger cohorts.

My point isn't that small cohorts are bad. My point is that it's silly for people here to claim that their entering cohort, at their chosen school, is somehow an advantage relative to the entering cohorts at other schools based on size. In addition to the ambiguous effect of cohort size, it's cohort size relative to the school's resources or the school-specific optimum cohort size that matters.

[econboy]

Originally Posted by mentalitysurf

Penn's incoming class is 36.
A significant increase in the number of admitted students this year.

In the past few years, Penn admitted around 23-25 students, I think the attrition rate next year could be as high as 50%

[israelecon]

Originally Posted by asquare

But if there are positive externalities from your classmates in the process leading up to the job market, then we don't know which direction the causal effect of class size goes in.

Also, since job market placement is a repeated game for a school, it "sells" students based on their strength relative to more than one year of classmates. If all the students in a given cohort just happen to be weak for some reason, the placement director isn't going to try to get a top placement for the best of that weak cohort, because it could undermine efforts to place future, stronger cohorts.

My point isn't that small cohorts are bad. My point is that it's silly for people here to claim that their entering cohort, at their chosen school, is somehow an advantage relative to the entering cohorts at other schools based on size. In addition to the ambiguous effect of cohort size, it's cohort size relative to the school's resources or the school-specific optimum cohort size that matters.

in any case, at princeton smaller classes will make it easier to get better graduate housing

[Nalfien]

Originally Posted by eqtisadi

22 at Stanford.

So last year was a fluke!... or a make up for the year before. I've been wondering about this for a year

[486hunter]

Berkeley Pub Pol's incoming class size is 3