2004 The Top Public Colleges Ranking!

College Search & Selection
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<p>I'm not trying to be cranky here, but if I go to a school, I feel I deserve a great education, which is what a college is supposed to provide. If I was hired to do a job, and I wasn't doing it, I would be fired. So, why should schools be less accountable? If I'm paying for a class, shouldn't I be getting a professor who is really passionate about his/her subject enlightening me about it rather than simply going through the motions so that s/he can quickly get back to the lab? If you bought something say a gadget in a store, would you settle for anything less than what it's supposed to do? I don't think so. So, why should you settle for a less-than-stellar education? How can a school claim to be the best if its focus is not where it's supposed to be: teaching, and it's not doing well what it was created to do: teach.</p>

<p>We meet students on this site struggling to find the right colleges for them, struggling to find the means of paying for those schools. They deserve schools that are working just as hard to make sure those bright students are getting the best.</p>

42

<p>I'm not trying to dispute anything you say Globalist, however, some or I should say many of the cream students at those top schools do not really need "high teaching skill" to understand their materials. It's often enough for them to read the textbook to fully understand the subject (even so than coming to lectures :)). In this case they'd rather need inspiration, motivation, analytical view of those stellar professors than merely the stuff available in the textbooks.</p>

<p>Unfortunately (Sakky will say it if i don't :)) Berkeley's undergrad is not selective enough to sustain that kind of teachings, and many students struggling badly as the result.</p>

43

<p>Regarding $$$, if you treat your students well, they will give back as alums. UVa gets more money from its alumni and its endowment every year than from the state of Virginia. You see, it's a cycle. Give the best to your students, and they will give their best back when they graduate. Therefore a school wouldn't be so dependent on research money.</p>

44

<p>Rtkysg, how can you separate "inspiration, motivation, and analytical view" from stellar teaching? My point is that many professors at top research universities don't even give those, because they're more interested in getting back to their research. </p>

<p>One of my many favorite professors at UVa was Larry Sabato, who's a top political analyst and pundit often seen on CNN and Fox News. He teaches the Intro to Goverment class. Sure, I can figure things out regarding the U.S. government from reading the text books he wrote, but it was his passion and teaching that drew me to major in government & foreign affairs. A former Rhodes Scholar, Mr. Sabato energized his class, challenged us to read beyond the text book. I remember one time, he couldn't teach the class, so his substitute was former President Jimmy Carter, who taught us about the Presidency. Another time, it was Senator George Allen. </p>

<p>Mr. Sabato gave me what I was paying for.</p>

45

<p>As I said, I do not dispute your words because I lack the liberal arts education. But it's known in tech education that the students get inspiration by observing how their professor tackle a question, also many stellar professors like to give challenging questions dismissing the class' standard. In such under pressure situation, the students are getting better by 'imitating' the thinking skill of the professor. Of course, my point of view is only limited in techie world, where everything is 0 or 1, and i.e I don't want to argue with you in term of general defn of good teaching and education. I just show you another point of view of the big picture. Of course it would be best if they can do both (MIT and Princeton are good examples). But imbalance on one thing can be offset by another (in Virginia vs Berkeley's case)</p>

46

<p>Hmmm...read the old MIT threads. It has a number of students complaining that their professors don't care about them, and thus they're having a hard time doing well in class. </p>

<p>We can argue ad infinitum about what is good teaching, and sure, there are different styles. My point in the end is for schools to care about their undergrads. They're not a cog in system. They are the system, or at the very least, they are the (initial) reason for the system.</p>

47

<p>No, I do not want to argue with you. What you said about the existantial reason of a university is so true and and so ... weak. Let me give you an anomaly, Richard Feynman, touted to be the one of the greatest physics lecturer ever in states, had both fans and enemy :) in his class. The brilliant students got the most and the normal students got the least. Can you now figure out some explanations for the complains at MIT thread ?</p>

48

<p>Weak? How so? That's why I said "initial." Colleges were originally created to educate undergrads, before grad schools existed. I'm saying that universities should not forget their original mission. </p>

<p>You're saying "anomaly" as by definition "a deviation or departure from the norm," right? That's my point exactly - that such excellent LECTURERS like Richard Feynman are lacking in many research universities - that they're not part of the norm. Instead, you find professors who care more about their research.</p>

49

<p>The purpose of the Feynman example is in fact to show that many students critized his way of teaching who never followed course outline and by far harder to understand than most professors. My anomaly was to exhibit two very different poles of view on one particular teaching style.</p>

50

<p>Dude, again you're missing the point. I'm not talking about teaching styles here. I'm saying that professors and the schools that employ them should do what they're supposed to do and focus on teaching their students more than conducting their research. I personally don't care if a professor deviates from his/her course outline.</p>

51

<p>UW-Madison is a great school, but is really not that selective. If you have a 3.6 gpa w/ 27 act or higher you can use Madison as a saftey, but it is still a great school, awsome Nuclear Engineering, but I still put william & mary in front of it.</p>

<p>I'm guessing UVA and W&M attract the same type of students (grade wise), but W&M has a lower acceptance rate, but UVA does have the most beatiful campus in the united states.</p>

52

<p>GoBlue is right. UNC is the hardest/most selective, but only for out of state. Especially because of their quotas...18% max can be from out of state..suxs for people like me who applied there EA lol</p>

53

<p>Clockwork, the mean GPA of Freshmen entering Wisconsin is 3.6 and the mean ACT score of Freshmen entering Wisconsin is 27. So I do see how students with such stats can consider Wisconsin a safety.</p>

<p>True that Wisconsin is not very selective, but it is still selective and it has, on average, very capable students.</p>

54

<p>Globalist,</p>

<p>It seems to me that you've misunderstood my points buddy. Let me re-state it more clearly. My example on Feynman was purported to give an explanation on the teaching complaints on the MIT's thread. I was trying to say that those complaints didn't mean much, because you can have very passionate lecturers who get thumbs down from their students. Professors at MIT are in general better than the ones at Caltech or Stanford or Berkeley, I never attended one at Princeton though.</p>

<p>Secondly, I argue that to get good profs like MIT's is not easy, because typically the profs whose more passions in research are indeed more brilliant than their teaching-focused peers. Again it's not always true in many cases, but that is the trend in tech fields. UVa although undoubtedly has better lecturers, Berkeley has better researchers, and all I was saying that there is quite a number of student, let's say top 10%, who do not really need passionate teachers but brilliant brains to be 'imitated'.</p>

<p>Again I do not say that your point has flaw in any way, however, you must know that sometimes, although a lecturer has adequately devoted his time to teaching, may be because of the gap of intelligence, his class is still hard to follow. And students will typically blame him not being able to teach and all those stuffs. It's our nature to look on a good side of the professor when we can understand his teachings, and we tend to have bad impression when the impossible equations are the only things we remember from him.</p>

55

<p>Globalist, I think barrons hit the nail right on the head. </p>

<p>You say that profs should go back to doing what they are supposed to be doing, which in your eyes (and in mine) is the teaching of students. But honestly, as long as the incentives are set at many schools, like UCB but also many others, that research is what is rewarded, then why should those profs prioritize teaching? Case in point - if your tenure status and your professional reputation rested on your research first, and your teaching a very distant second, then what would you spend most of your time on? Exactly. What we really need to do is change the incentives. </p>

<p>I would point to "Inside American Education" by Thomas Sowell, which documents the many problems inherent in research universities, amongst other problems in education in general. Let me give you some rather choice quotes from the book:</p>

<p>"...access to the professor may be quite limited. Huge classes with hundreds of students seldom permit any interaction during the lecture, and little immeidately after class or in the professor's office. ...The sheer number of students can limit how much interaction is possible, even when the professor is interested or cooperative. Moreover, a Carnegie Foundation study found that only 35 percent of the full-time faculty members at resarch universities considered teaching their chief interest, compared to 71 percent of faculty members at all institutions combined. A science professor at the University of Michigan put the situation bluntly when he said: "Every minute I spend in an undergraduate classroom is costing me money and prestige".</p>

<p>...For untenured faculty members, spending large amounts of time with students or in preparing carefully crafted lectures can cost them the job itself. It has become commonplace for an untenured faculty member to win a teaching award and then be told his contract will not be renewed....Some academics dispute the belief that a teaching award is like the kiss of death, either in general or at a particular university. However, the very fact that there can be a controversy over the issue suggests how widespread the phenomenom is. </p>

<p>The direct competition of research versus teaching for the professor's time is accentuatedwhen a particular individual in a research-oriented department devotes himself to teaching..."if you are unlike many members of the senior faculty (that is, you are a good teacher who cares about undergraduate instruction), you attract lots of students. This gives you a disproportionate amount of wokr, making it less likely that you'll be able to publish enough to get tenure."...Not only junior faculty members, but even graduate teaching assistants and advisers, learning that spending too much time on undergraduates imperils their own future" - Inside American Education p.205-206.</p>

<p>So really, this is a systemic problem. Which is why I've always said that for pure teaching quality, it's hard to beat the elite LAC's whose faculties do not have the unremitting pressure to publish. Barring that, what also works well are LAC-like research universities, like UVa. </p>

<p>However, I think the real problem is that institutions will not change until they are forced to change. And as long as it is research that brings home the bacon in terms of both money and prestige, then that is what profs will concentrate on. I would actually widen the argument to say that it is a matter of marketing. Berkeley has a big name - a name built mostly on the indisputable excellence of its research and its graduate education. That big name attracts thousands upon thousands of undergraduates to come to Berkeley to (for the most part) get mediocre teaching, when they are taught at all. Yet for the most part, those undergraduates don't complain because they are getting what they really came for - the big name that they can put on the resume - rather than to actually be taught well. Those students will claim that they are there to get a good education, but the reality is that a lot of them are there just for the prestige. And until those undergraduates demand to actually be taught well, and go to another school if they don't get it, then the profs have little incentive to change.</p>

56

<p>Well said, Sakky.</p>

<p>Rtkysg, sure every teacher has his admirers and detractors, but again, I'm not talking about just the act of teaching, I'm talking about an emphasis on undergraduate education vs. research. Learning doesn't just happen in the classroom. It happens at professors' offices during office hours. It happens in the lab. It happens over a cup of coffee. </p>

<p>Do you know why Thomas Jefferson created UVa as an "academical village" where professors and students would live and learn together rather than a school comprised of a bunch of large buildings where professors and students are at different quarters? It's because he realized that learning goes beyond the classroom. It happens between classes, after classes. It happens whenever there's great student-teacher interaction, which comes when there's an emphasis on engaging your students and making sure their professors are available to them, rather than being locked away in some lab. </p>

<p>How can a professor be available to his students if he's too busy working on his research? Yes, research is important, but first & foremost, an undergraduate school and its professors must perform their main purpose: the teaching, instructing, engaging, and inspiring of their students. That's by definition what schools are for.</p>

<p>Yes, UVa has grown beyond the original Lawn where students and professors live together, but the emphasis on UNDERGRADUATE EDUCATION, EXCELLENT STUDENT-TEACHER INTERACTION, and TEACHING are still the same and still the cornerstone of the University.</p>

57

<p>Most research funding goes to a very narrow group of fields--medicine, hard sciences, and engineering. Most liberal arts areas receive only a pittance. This means that many majors suffer little impact from research funding and time requirements.</p>

58

<p>"How can a professor be available to his students if he's too busy working on his research? Yes, research is important, but first & foremost, an undergraduate school and its professors must perform their main purpose: the teaching, instructing, engaging, and inspiring of their students. That's by definition what schools are for."</p>

<p>The question is whether it really changes the outcome. If a professor is too busy focusing himself for the student, on the other hand, he will lose his time for his research. Now as Sakky pointed out in his argument what we need, if you want to make any change of this, is the incentive. Clearly LACs, as he said, are more dedicated to teaching, and I agree with him completely that they provide the best teaching environments, yes, even better than UVa. But you and I would agree that LACs lose their acceptees to more famous research schools despite of the promise of teaching excellence. Now we step into a more philosophical question on why this trend happens?</p>

<p>The obvious answer is because the research universities are more glamorous, and the students are promised a better career and name, yes, that is the keyword, career and name. It has revealed the fact that, prestige attracts more people than good education. The next question is whether it is wrong? Does it bring our education state into decadence? For the time window of 50 years or so, it does not seem so. To put bluntly, will the students taught at UVa or LAC have better understanding of their material than Berkeley or Stanford students after their graduations? I must say that there no clear evidence that it is so. Also, universities in 1800-1900 were more for teaching than research while now in 1950-2000+ they become research institution. Does it bring any harm? Or is it a proof of a more efficient way of how the education goes in the long run, like Capitalism vs Socialism?</p>

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<p>I'm not totally dissing research. UVa does research too but not to the detriment of undergraduate education.</p>

<p>You query if a school focusing on its students vs. focusing more on its research changes the outcome. I think so. When students feel ignored, that in itself is an outcome. As I pointed out in an earlier posting, alumni from most research-focused public universities only give back to their respective schools on average between 13-15%, but at student-focused UVa and William & Mary, they are 27% and 26% respectively. The happier you are as an alum, the more willing you are to give back. If a school ignores its students, they in turn will ignore that school when they graduate (if they graduate). </p>

<p>Yeah, what's up w/ "top" public research universities and their mediocre graduation rates? Hmmm...I guess if those students aren't being taught, then they can't graduate. But you know what? As long as that research is still going strong, who cares about those undergraduate drop-outs? (Sad really.)</p>

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<p>uvakid - i'll confirm there are definitely a fair number of people at WM who didn't get in to UVA, i'm one of them! I also think both are great schools, you will get a very good undergrad education at either, and it's weird how seemingly equal schools will reject an applicant accepted at the other, and take an applicant rejected at the other. So goes the admissions game I guess. =P</p>

<p>And who's talking football? Friday Night, 7pm, ESPN2, William and Mary takes on James Madison, live on national tv in the I-AA semi finals! /plug, haha</p>

<p>and clockworkorange, "nicest campus" is subjective, and many people would choose other schools for their personal choice (esp with UVA construction right now).</p>