<p><i'm glad="" we="" are="" talking="" about="" undergrad="" so="" the="" above="" posts="" don't="" matter="" that="" much=""></i'm></p>
<p>Oh, really?</p>
<p>Who do you think is teaching the courses?</p>
<p>hmmm...sometimes top professors, sometimes not, but undergrad is seperate from the grad school.</p>
<p>I'm not saying Harvard or whatnot isn't best, just saying that you can't use a grad ranking to prove it (just point to Harvard undergrads superior stats etc.)</p>
<p>Remember the point and context of this tier ranking. You're having dinner with Uncle Kenneth. He asks where you're going next year for your freshman year of college. You say, "CalTech." Does he:</p>
<p>a. Say, "Wow, that's very impressive."</p>
<p>b. Choke on an olive, and after you've performed a Heimlich maneuver on him, say, "CalTech? They suck in the humanities! Their Romance Languages Department is worse than Penn State's! Let me give my buddies at Cornell a jingle and see if they can get you in."</p>
<p>Its the same "Faculty of Arts & Sciences" either way.</p>
<p>the_prestige, I'm not quite sure where you're getting those numbers from, but according to PR, Grinnell is much larger than CalTech.</p>
<p>Caltech's social science group is not to be underestimated. The former chair of Stanford's Poli Sci -- Weingast -- is a Caltech Phd. Current UCSD chair -- Gary Cox has both undergrad and grad degrees from Caltech. The percentage of Tech's Social Science Phds with tenure is impressively high. Caltech's Poli Sci profs have very high citations per faculty.</p>
<p>You can also judge a school by where its students go. A large fraction of those Tech undergrads who went on to do PhD's in Econ, Poli Sci, and Sociology (mostly elsewhere) in the 20th century are now tenured faculty. A steady trickle of undergrads end up going to Harvard, Yale or Stanford Law. Many get admitted to the top MBA programs.</p>
<p>Unless you want to do Egyptology or Film, a Caltech undergrad isn't shut out of 90% of the things most students aim for whether in work, grad school or business when they graduate. [Caltech doesn't even do badly in the number of Oscars won by alums since Frank Capra (BS Chem E) won 4.]</p>
<p>It's not clear that many graduates of "good" LACs or strong state schools have an edge over Techers when applying to Law or B School. Moreover, many humanities jobs -- say, in journalism or tv -- don't require you do an undergrad degree in the subject. This is in contrast to sci/eng/math which pretty much requires a sci/eng/math degree to enter grad school.</p>
<p>Yes, the ranking that considers size shows Caltech is the best, followed by Harvard and Yale. Here it is again, <a href="http://www.sciencewatch.com/sept-oct...2002_page1.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.sciencewatch.com/sept-oct...2002_page1.htm</a></p>
<p>Of course, if you do not adjust for size, places like Caltech usually drop way down the list while mega-schools, that, comparatively speaking, aren't too great for undergraduate science, such as Berkeley, Michigan, Stanford and UCSD, rise.</p>
<p>posterX I disagree, Stanford is just as good for undergraduate science as Caltech.</p>
<p>gellino, my apologies, i read the numbers wrong on Grinnell - Grinnell is indeed larger than Caltech.</p>
<p>
[quote]
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 don’t 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.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The term "national" will be generally conferred to the colleges that have impacts and influences in the national level. Whether we like it or not, fields like business, law, science and engineering have much more impacts in general than musical arts. Caltech provides its student with the access to those major fields, much more so than Julliard and RISD. I am sorry, but your analogy just doesn't work out.</p>
<p>“Whether we like it or not, fields like business, law, science and engineering have much more impacts in general than musical arts.”</p>
<ul>
<li>“More impact” what does this even mean? If you are asserting that the fine arts don’t have a big impact on society, that’s ridiculous. </li>
</ul>
<p>“Caltech provides its student with the access to those major fields, much more so than Julliard and RISD. I am sorry, but your analogy just doesn't work out.”</p>
<p>-My analogy doesn’t work because of your subjective reasoning? That’s absurd. Caltech is allowed to claim a spot among the very best universities in the country by being pretty much strong exclusively in science and engineering. RISD is strong exclusively in the fine arts, why is it not now a highly-ranked “national university”?</p>
<p>Caltech is an amazing university and certainly worthy of its reputation. In terms of Engineering and Science education, it is second to none. Nobody can claim to be better than Clatech at educating students in the applied and theoretical sciences. However, as a university, it cannot be lumped together with the likes of H,M,P,S or Y.</p>
<p>That’s very random. I would think it depends on the store…..</p>
<p>This list:</p>
<ol>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Yale/Princeton/Stanford/MIT</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>Columbia/Dartmouth/Penn/Brown</li>
<li>Chicago/Cornell/Northwestern/Duke/Berkeley</li>
<li>Michigan/Hopkins/UVA/..... </li>
</ol>
<p>is much more accurate than this one:</p>
<p>1 - Harvard (without a doubt, the most prestigious and powerful university in the world)
2 - Yale (the second most)
3 - Princeton/Stanford
5 - MIT/Caltech (I don't see these two really be comparable to the others on the list because they are so highly specialized)
7 - Columbia/Cal/Chicago/Cornell
11 - Penn/Dartmouth
13 - Brown/Michigan/VA/Duke
17 - Northwestern/Hopkins
19 - BC/ND/G-Town
22 - Rice/Vandy/Emory </p>
<p>cal = columbia? haha... because why? they both have attractive campuses? As much as everyone likes cal, it is a public school, and simply does not have the selectivity or the financial means to compete with private schools. sorry.</p>
<p>Michigan, UVA > Northwestern, Hopkins? Not only am i going to waste my time repeating the same argument as above, i'm going to highlight another fact; it is almost an impossibility for a school with a majority in-state population to rival schools with extensively diverse student bodies with students from all 50 states and other countries comprising the majority of their student body. They simply can't match the competition, i don't even have to show you the stats that prove your list is wrong, i just have to appeal to your common sense.</p>
<p>
[quote]
“More impact” what does this even mean? If you are asserting that the fine arts don’t have a big impact on society, that’s ridiculous.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
“More impact” what does this even mean? If you are asserting that the fine arts don’t have a big impact on society, that’s ridiculous.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that's not ridiculous. Let's be realistic, professional fields (business, law, etc) are the main gears of the country. Who becomes the Federal Reserve Chairman matters much more than who becomes the Chairman some national Fine Arts institutions. Furthermore, although Caltech provides students with mostly engineering/sciences background, it doesn't close the door to move/switch to other fields. It is not surprising to have Caltech grads working in Financial sector, or become a CEO of a non-technical company. But as I said, this is not the case for RISD, in that sense, RISD/Julliard IS MUCH MORE SPECIALIZED than Caltech since it doesn't give the leverage for its grads to move to fields outside fine arts. </p>
<p>It is not my intention to belittle fine arts, but it's the fact that it is less significant in this money dominated world.</p>
<p>
[quote]
However, as a university, it cannot be lumped together with the likes of H,M,P,S or Y.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Putting it into LAC group or specialty schools will make it look more awkward.</p>
<p>Tour, thank you for your reply and honest opinion. I thought I should list the avg. SAT scores for 3 schools on your list UCLA/ Michigan/ UNC just to verify that average SAT scores of these schools are about as similar as it can get.</p>
<p>2007 U.S.News stat. (25 - 75 percentile)
UCLA - 1170 - 1410
UNC- 1210 - 1390
Michigan - (ACT) 26 - 31 = (SAT) 1190 -1390
(ACT - SAT Translation Table -<a href="http://www.ophs.opusd.k12.ca.us/sat_&_act_info_.htm">http://www.ophs.opusd.k12.ca.us/sat_&_act_info_.htm</a>)</p>
<p>Another thing I would mention is that even though OOC applicants have outstanding numbers to apply to UNC, they only make up 17% of a student class. However, it is hard for just that 17% of the group to bring up the school's oversll avg. SAT score to 1330 (listed on their website) evenif all of those OOS'er score above 1500 on their SAT unless in-staters also had solid test avg. likes of Michigan (30-40% OOS) and UCLA (approx. 15%> OOS). In terms of difficulty of admission into these schools, they are extremely similar (except for UNC and UCLA OOS admission being exceptionally challenging). And all of these schools in including few of the other elite public (including UVA) compensate maginally for their mendatory matriculation rate for in-state students. Therefore evenif one is to directly relate a school's prestige to calibur of incoming students' credentials , UNC is right up there with the schools in your group #4 where UCLA and Michigan are placed (as you have revised your list). Bottom line is that these three schools have been regarded as top 3 public institutions in the country in no particular order (ofcourse with UCB regarded best and UVA being its strong contestant).</p>
<p>Scott, the ACT cannot be converted to SAT. 60% of Michigan applicants take the SAT and 69% take the ACT (in other words, 30% of Michigan applicants take both the ACT and the SAT). The mid 50% SAT range for the 60% who take the SAT is 1260-1480 and the mid 50% of those who take the ACT is 27-32. </p>
<p>I disagree with your ranking of state schools though. SAT ranges are important to be sure, but other factors come into play. Three schools make a very strong case for top honors when it comes to public universities:</p>
<p>On the one hand, you have the University of California-Berkeley. Quite simply, it has the biggest name, the best reputation and arguably the best faculty on Earth. Every single department at the university is World class. However, Cal has had budget problems which sometimes interferes with the quality of undergraduate education.</p>
<p>On the other extreme, you have University of Virgnia, which doesn't have as big a name or reputation as Cal and doesn't have the same calibre faculty or the same high profile departments in every field of study. Instead, UVA offers a great undergraduate experience and has the wealth and resources to compete with most private elites.</p>
<p>Finally, you have the University of Michigan, which comes close to Cal in terms of academic reputation, faculty strength and excellence accross all academic disciplines, but also rivals UVA in terms of attention to undergraduate education and in terms of wealth and resources. </p>
<p>Those are the three universities that make the strongest case for the title of top public university. I agree that UNC and UCLA also make a strong case, but typically speaking, they are not considered quite as strong as the three above.</p>
<p>scotthl, I also prefer looking at data from collegeboard.com/US News, Alex, how come it says the undergrad enrollment is "unofficial" - also, how can there be a 70 point jump in SAT scores in one year? Just curious. When will collegeboard.com update?</p>
<p>The exact number of students enrolled in the Freshman clas is not official yet because classes haven't started yet. Students have sent in their deposits, but as we both know, not 100% of the students who send in their deposits show up. There is usually a 1% discrepency.</p>
<p>As for the SAT improvement, it was a 40 point improvement, not a 70 point improvement. The Michigan mean over the last 4 years was 1320-1330. The reason for that jump is because Michigan's applicant pool has grown by 30% over the last 2 years and the yield rates have improved. Michigan's acceptance rate also dropped from 57% to 47%. I expect this trend to continue for the next few years.</p>