BU Lacks Some Resources

[Zoonosinoid]

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I couldn't help but notice that BU, which has been jostled in other threads, was apparenlty advertising a faculty to student ratio which may be misleading. Without starting a flame war here is my take:

I don't think the 4:1 ratio put out by BU tells the whole story, in fact I kinda of laughed as this school sort of has a reputation for being overcrowded with students and not a lot of faculty compared to other public health schools with this number of students.

Look at JHU (similar number of students), they have 2,056 students and 529 full-time faculty and 623 part-time faculty.

From the wiki page on BUSPH, there are "150 full time faculty". Huh? How does this equate to a 4:1 ratio, oh I know, they count part-time faculty, or folks who have a joint appointment tacked on to their title. I kinda of think that other schools don't do this.

Obviously JHU is a big time public health magnet, they have about five times as many full time faculty as BU.

Then look at Emory, the school has 925 masters students and 163 full time faculty and 418 adjunct faculty, so they have more full time faculty than BU and about half as many students. I don't think BU should be bragging as their stats are not as good.

Look at Yale's public health school, which is very selective and has perhaps 250 total enrollment, so their faculty to student ratio is undoubtedly higher than BU. Plus Yale has fantastic options available for research and they get a lot of wonderful speakers rotating through there. But they don't have a huge public relations campaign to get students to come their school, so they don't get a lot of notice.

BU, when compared to schools that admit a comparable amount of students has a lot less faculty.

Personally, I think that BU is way overextended and admits more students then they can properly train in order to make $$. I know people who have been very disappointed with their offerings which sound great on paper, but in reality they aren't that good for some students.

I was considering BU, so I sorta played devil's advocate, but I would really like someone to comment on this as it will likely sway my decision though I am leaning away from BU for now.

 

[Stories]

Then look at Emory, the school has 925 masters students and 163 full time faculty and 418 adjunct faculty, so they have more full time faculty than BU and about half as many students. I don't think BU should be bragging as their stats are not as good.

I think you think BU is bigger than it actually is:
http://sph.bu.edu/About-BUSPH/busph-at-a-glance/menu-id-617234.html

788 students (51% of which are part-time: 1 or 2 classes/term)
160 full-time faculty.

For Emory:
http://www.sph.emory.edu/cms/about/overview/rollins_facts.html

925 traditional master's students + 32 Masters International Students
128 Career MPH Distance Learning Students
21 MD/MPH students
43 Dual Degree Students
180 full-time faculty

EDIT: Those of you who have never experienced life at a research university; not all faculty are required to teach. Every single school, however, will list any faculty member with the professor title in their statistics pages to make the faculty:student ratio appear better. No school is exempt from this tactic, and the schools that are most egregious in this regard are the Ivy's. Ivy's are notorious for having research-only faculty.

Additionally, know that your learning experience at a research-university is going to be drastically different than if you went to a liberal arts college for undergrad.

 

[intlhealth2010]

I couldn't help but notice that BU, which has been jostled in other threads, was apparenlty advertising a faculty to student ratio which may be misleading. Without starting a flame war here is my take:

I don't think the 4:1 ratio put out by BU tells the whole story, in fact I kinda of laughed as this school sort of has a reputation for being overcrowded with students and not a lot of faculty compared to other public health schools with this number of students.

Look at JHU (similar number of students), they have 2,056 students and 529 full-time faculty and 623 part-time faculty.

From the wiki page on BUSPH, there are "150 full time faculty". Huh? How does this equate to a 4:1 ratio, oh I know, they count part-time faculty, or folks who have a joint appointment tacked on to their title. I kinda of think that other schools don't do this.

Obviously JHU is a big time public health magnet, they have about five times as many full time faculty as BU.

Then look at Emory, the school has 925 masters students and 163 full time faculty and 418 adjunct faculty, so they have more full time faculty than BU and about half as many students. I don't think BU should be bragging as their stats are not as good.

Look at Yale's public health school, which is very selective and has perhaps 250 total enrollment, so their faculty to student ratio is undoubtedly higher than BU. Plus Yale has fantastic options available for research and they get a lot of wonderful speakers rotating through there. But they don't have a huge public relations campaign to get students to come their school, so they don't get a lot of notice.

BU, when compared to schools that admit a comparable amount of students has a lot less faculty.

Personally, I think that BU is way overextended and admits more students then they can properly train in order to make $$. I know people who have been very disappointed with their offerings which sound great on paper, but in reality they aren't that good for some students.

I was considering BU, so I sorta played devil's advocate, but I would really like someone to comment on this as it will likely sway my decision though I am leaning away from BU for now.

Stories is right, every university includes adjunct/part-time professors in their statistics, not just BU. Anyways, it seems like you've already crossed BU off of your list.

Are Emory, Yale & JHU your other choices?

 

[Zoonosinoid]

I think you think BU is bigger than it actually is:
http://sph.bu.edu/About-BUSPH/busph-at-a-glance/menu-id-617234.html

788 students (51% of which are part-time: 1 or 2 classes/term)
160 full-time faculty.

Oh sorry, I got the total enrollment wrong. Still, BU seems a little short on fulltime staff . . .

Here are the data from the 2009 ASPH data report in terms of new enrollments for BU and some other schools, and then I am trying to fill in number of full time faculty (which would remove any bias in terms of non-full time faculty adjuncts).

2009 New Enrollments. . . . . .Full time faculty
Columbia 488
John Hopkins 755 . . . . . . . . .529 Full-time faculty
Havard 513
Emory 483. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180 full time faculty
BU 403. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .160 full time faculty
UNC 520
Pittsburgh 224
Yale 136
UAB 144
UCLA 231
Michigan 361
Washington 370
Berkley 222
Minnesota 353
UT 309
Michigan 361

Maybe over time I could fill in the full time faculty for each school, but you can see that BU saying that they are 4:1 student to faculty is somewhat misleading considering that Hopkins has a much higher ratio when just looking at their full time faculty, considering part time Hopkins would be close to 2:1, and when considering that there are probably 800+ students in total at BU, perhaps making the real ratio something like 7:1

While some schools may play this game, I don't know if that it makes it "OK" and I still find it worrisome, especially if it means less opportunities at BU.

In 2009 it seems that BU really ramped up their student enrollment as new enrollments accounted for 63% of the total enrollments, maybe they are growing too fast? or the stats are old?

Anyway, I probably have crossed off BU from my list, some of the other schools I am looking at I can't find good stats for fulltime faculty, but I guess I need to dig a bit more, will update.

 

[ms newyear]

Man, it's trendy to criticize BU. Oh well I'm not fazed, I'll still be heading to Boston in the fall (I don't mind being the underdog LOL). My undergrad was at a giant public research institution where the ratio felt like 500:1 so anything less than that is an upgrade already.

 

[Epi2013]

I agree. This must be rip on BU year. I think this thread is a little nitpicky. Based on the stats given, it is very possible that BU has enough full/part-time faculty to have a 4:1 ratio. I too went to a large undergrad and think thats an awesome ratio.

 

[zose]

Most of the criticism of BU on this forum has been spurious, so don't worry ms new year.

In all honesty, I think that the student-faculty ratios are pretty meaningless for the reason that Stories pointed out and because the relationship and opportunities that you have with faculty are not just about numbers, but also about personalities. The professors that I have had at BUSPH have been extremely friendly, attentive, and supportive. In addition, the school has connections across the city, state, and beyond, so opportunities are not limited to the school alone.

 

[Awapi]

.

 

[swaffles]

Granted, most of it isn't spurious but it definitely feels like a snowball that has turned into an avalanche. Many of us were disgruntled about BU's request for additional info and the long finaid form and that led to a lot of people turning an extra critical eye on the rest of the program, even though finaid and adcom aren't products of the actual professors themselves/quality of the program itself.

I've had other grad schools that have given me much more trouble but I suppose they didn't really gather steam in the forum only because BU's request for one extra paragraph of additional info was practically ubiquitous and the other grad schools' problems were per-student basis.

Grain of salt, everyone.

 

[zose]

To clarify, my comment was not directed at the application process at all. I am sorry and disappointed to hear about the number of issues that applicants have had this year (I don't recall these issues occurring in previous years) and I don't think that it is a reflection of the faculty and education. My remark was in reference to some of the more extreme comments that have been made in other threads (i.e. cult, bad research, Boston/BU lacking in opportunities), which are ridiculous.

 

[grather888]

For what it's worth, my contact with BU was really, really positive. So good that it made me feel like I was really missing out when I had to tell them I was going somewhere else.
Application season makes people super needy, and sometimes that need gets channeled into - er - less than thoughtful analysis.