<p>Scottlh, remember, this list is more about a general overall impression than a careful analysis of the stats. UNC is by all accounts a wonderful school with a top-notch faculty. The Fiske Guide gives it 5 stars for academics while it gives Hopkins only 4.5 stars. But I don't think many people are blown away if they find out someone was accepted there or graduated from there. UNC seems to fit in with the other schools in that category for "wow" factor, SAT scores.</p>
<p>Considering UNC's sports, location, climate, price, college-town atmosphere, reputation, academics, etc., I could understand someone who picked it over every other college in the country. But I still think its "wow" factor is about on par with the others in that group.</p>
<p>I agree with Alexandre; Berkeley, Cornell, Northwestern, and Michigan are pretty much on par in terms of undergraduate quality - you might even add Penn to this list. However, I believe Northwestern, Cornell, and Berkeley are a bit more selective than Michigan is. </p>
<p>Tour- in my previous post I've mentioned UNC having been consistent U.S. News top 25 as just one of the examples. UNC, in fact, receives top national ratings from numerous other publications as it seems that the school is recognized in virtually every category. However, with national publication set aside, I think the "wow" factor is up there with several of the ivies. In actuallity I understand this more since I was in PENN for first few semesters of college and one of my friends attended brown. My colleagues in PENN and the friend at Brown recognized Chapel Hill for what it is worth as a premiere research university with top notch professors. Actually quite a few of my friends at PENN and Brown (and one at Columbia) who studied Poli-Sci at ended up at UNC graduate programs due to their professors' strong recommentions of the school. Also when I've talked to few professors (outside of my dept. such as Comp-Sci, and my ethnic mentor - chem prof.) all considered UNC to be brown and Michigan equivalent. Obviously when it comes down to outside of academia and depending on where you are in the country, one may get diverse assessments but you'll see general consensus on UNC being one of the legitimate elite schools - likes of UCLA, UVA, Brown and Emory. Though, I think one of the reasons for UNC being brought up less recently as a topic of discussion amongst college prospects is due to recent decline in its U.S.News rankings since 2001. Whether many of us care about the ranking or not, it does definitely seem to have a legitimate impact on a school's general impression on highschool students.</p>
<p>Scott, it seems like usually at most colleges the quality of the undergrads and the quality of the faculty are roughly equal. Sometimes there is a bit of a difference, and UNC always struck me as one of those schools. It always seemed like its top-notch faculty was not matched by its students (with their modest SAT scores). Perhaps this is because UNC admits so few out-of-state students? Or because there are so many other superb options in the DC/Maryland/Virginia/Carolinas/Georgia area that drain off some of the tip-top students from the state of NC?</p>
<p>In other words, I think it's possible for both of us to be right: Its great faculty it can deliver an Ivy-quality education, but because the average student there (based on SATs, anyway) is not spectacular, it isn't such that you can be assured that by just getting in or graduating from there someone is likely to be an egghead.</p>
<p>I live 20 min. from U of Michigan, and one of my kids is dying to go to UNC. I'd have no qualms about paying the extra bucks to fulfill her dream. So I'm plenty impressed with UNC, but I still think its reputation is more for basketball, a beautiful campus, and a great college town than it is for cranking out geniuses.</p>
<p>Once and forever, not ALL of the students at schools like UNC have the average test score. Those that gravitate to the tougher majors will have scores at the higher end and those that major in education and communications will be at the lower end. I doubt the science and math profs at UNC have a problem with lots of elem ed majors slowing down the advanced math and chemistry classes.</p>
<p>^Thats pretty much how it is with most rankings and stats, besides US News which has Penn higher, but thats the only difference (and Cornell NU Hopkins and Rice are statistically stronger than Berkeley, UVA, Mich, but I mean, thats a can of worms I don't feel like opening again)</p>
<p>Barrons, I think I know enough about stats to know that the "average" student's SAT scores are not the SAT scores for EVERYBODY. But if a school like UNC (or Wisconsin, sorry) has as many students as it has below 1300, I think its hard to say that someone will be really impressed by the fact that you just got accepted or graduated. I'd guess that the top 25% at such schools could compete with anybody anywhere, but you gotta admit they share the name on their diplomas with some folks who still think the capital of Canada is Toronto.</p>
<p>I'm sure this has been discussed ad nauseum but I just have to put in my two cents about Caltech:</p>
<p>Sure, it's an awesome institution - but it's way too small, too specialized to be considered a "national university".</p>
<p>Pop quiz: Which of the following schools had the smallest entering freshman class size (2005)?</p>
<p>A) Amherst
B) Williams
C) Swathmore
D) Pomona
E) Caltech</p>
<p>Did you guess Caltech? Bingo. A class size of 234. Williams, by contrast, is almost twice the size of that at 535 (which, mind you, is still tiny compared to the average national uni). Put another way, I could only find two other colleges out there with a smaller class size than Caltech in my NMS data mining (which analyzed over 100 colleges) those schools were Grinnel and Harvey Mudd (and those schools weren't smaller by much) - i.e. in researching over 100 colleges, universities (LACs and national u's) - 99% of them (including LACs) had larger class sizes than Caltech... heck even RISD had a smaller class (405) than Caltech!</p>
<p>If Caltech didn't have such a technical bent, it would almost certainly be the no. 1 LAC... but since it doesn't fit neatly into any other existing category, its just lumped into the general national university pool.</p>
<p>Caltech should be in its own category - (e.g. Specialty School - like USNWR categorizes for fine arts programs such as Julliard or RISD).</p>
<p>Yeah, I don't think the folks at CalTech have to take a back seat to anybody--not even HYPSM. The small size alone ensures that there would be precious little room for any student who's not really really really sharp, and any prof who's not really really really sharp wouldn't make it past the first interview. No Ward Churchills in Pasadena.</p>
<p>That does not stop the top firms from recruiting the top students and as we all know UW undergrad has produced as many Fortune 500 CEO's as Harvard. I guess if you need the prestige factor of a certain name on your diploma--fine. But not many people even put them up in their offices so you will have to be one of those who manages to slip it in to every conversation to try to impress people.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Caltech should be in its own category - (e.g. Specialty School - like USNWR categorizes for fine arts programs such as Julliard or RISD).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, it can't be classified as specialty schools like Julliard. Why? Because many Caltech grads end up in non-technical fields like Business, Law, etc. Companies like Goldman Sachs and McKinsey, for example, recruit a number of Caltech grads every year. This, however, is not the usual case for Julliard or RISD's grads.</p>
<p>But isn't the right way to think about this size of the faculty and subject availability in the curriculum? If we look at the core majors that most students at the top unis go to we might see Lit/History/Math/Physics/Chemistry/Biology/Engineering or CS/Economics/Poli Sci
These account for the overwhelming majority of the subjects students study or need to study for most careers (I leave out prelaw and premed because these can be cobbled together almost anywhere, and many of the top 20 don't have undergrad business). Caltech has a faculty of about 380 (in comparison, Brown which is much larger, has some 600 or so) which is smaller than normal but huge compared to the size of the student body.</p>
<p>Caltech's departments (even uncorrected for size) are ranked among or near the top 5 or 10 in all the science and engineering related fields. Only 5 schools in the country have produced alums with more Nobel prizes in total than Caltech. Caltech's econ and poli sci are generally top 20 or so (and more Caltech alums have won Econ Nobels than those from Stanford). Only in the humanities is it lacking, yet even here there are substantial resources available plus small class size. Yet given this lack, Caltech still has more top ten departments than all but a dozen universities at most. Overall, citations per professor are the highest in the world.</p>
<p>In effect, Caltech has a tiny student population -- think Harvey Mudd undergrad and a slightly larger group of grads -- combined with a faculty that is literally comparable to an all-star selection of the top 300 profs from Stanford and Princeton, only skewed to the sciences.</p>
<p>"Of the institutions here, none achieved greater distinction than Harvard University, which appears in seven of the eleven rankings, and in the top spot in all but one of those appearances (the exception being chemistry, where Harvard came in at #10). The University of Texas System also accounts for seven placements, while the University of California, San Francisco, is not far behind with six. Johns Hopkins University, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the University of Tokyo each score five appearances, with Stanford, Yale, the University of Washington, and Washington University of St. Louis each making four of the lists...."</p>
<p>Harvard is truly a remarkable school but the article does note that "The measure of total citations favors larger institutions that produce a high volume of papers." Hence the poor relative showing of places with fewer profs, including Princeton, Yale, MIT, and Caltech.</p>
<p>They add:
"On the other hand, a ranking by impact (citations per paper), allowing smaller producers of papers to compete more equitably, would result in a different list of institutions."</p>
<p>I disagree that Caltech is some sort of universally good school. Yes, Caltech is great in the engineering and sciences, but thats pretty much it. Besides econ, I wouldnt think it highly regarded in any social sciences. It also has zero strong humanities programs. How can a school that is comparatively weak in EVERYTHING but science and engineering be considered the 5th or so best school in the country? This makes no sense. I dont buy all this Caltech has many top programs outside engineering and sciences stuff.</p>
<p>Again, I say that if Caltech is a strong national university, so is RISD.</p>