""Nicholas E. Rozen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>" wrote: > b) Differences in university "identities" generally smooth out or level > out over time. > c) Some differences in university "identity" grow over time. I would say that schools most define their "personality" by choosing whom to admit, and to whom they give scholarships (if applicable); of course, though, the applicant pool selects itself to a great degree. The feedback gain in this process is higher than most, because the service provider can sell with a global perspective, while the consumers, students, must shop with a great deal of commitment to one provider. Contrast this with, say, car shopping, wherein dealers must move individual cars, but buyers can choose not just between dealers, but makes and models. So, I think both "b" and "c" apply depending on the situational needs of an institution. Sometimes, schools need to bolster their cachet in order to top off their recruiting, or increase their cultural prominence. Other times, schools realize that their long term strategy leads them to oblivion, and so they must have a complete "makeover" lest they perish. > If Universities/Colleges rarely ever merge, > why is that? The zeroth-order solution is that organizations have a strong self-preservation instinct. If two general universities merge, a provost, a president, a dean of students life, etc. would have to be fired or relocated. So, a merger would only likely get through if there is utter doom on the horizon for one or both of the schools. > I'd seen indications that over-achieving high school applicants with > both personal depth and financial resources tended to carefully examine > "quality of life"/"lifestyle"/"fun"/"image" features when applying to > colleges. That is true. Nearly all of the top schools have excellent hard science programs, most have well-known humanities departments. Unless the applicant has a strong desire to study a specialized field (engineering, business, computer science, etc.), academic reputation per se is not a strong differentiating factor. I myself knew that I wanted to study physics as an undergrad applicant, and there are number of schools (nearly 10) that have top-flight physics program. When researching schools, I decided upon MIT as my first choice based on a few simple criteria: * Organized, funded undergraduate research program (MIT's UROP, CalTech's SURF) * I like an eclectic, active campus culture * I like to party (this, of course, has changed somewhat since the death of Scott Krueger) Given the natural lack of differentiation on the academic front, personality becomes a big issue in recruiting/applying. Sourav Mandal ------------------------------------------------------------ Sourav K. Mandal [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.ikaran.com/Sourav.Mandal/ "In enforcing a truth we need severity rather than efflorescence of language. We must be simple, precise, terse." -- Edgar Allan Poe, "The Poetic Principle"
