2007 USNEWS Rankings!

College Search & Selection
621

<p>“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>-A graduate from RISD has just as much ability to switch fields as a graduate from Caltech. Provide some evidence to the contrary, or abandon that ridiculous argument.</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.”</p>

<p>-Maybe the chair of the Federal Reserve matters to you, but again, this is just subjective reasoning. Honestly who cares what is important to you? The argument is that Caltech is only strong in science and engineering, and thus does not deserve its extra high ranking as a national university. Also, who says people who graduate with fine arts degrees can’t go into business or law? </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>-“Money dominated world”? Let me overlook the fact that the film, television, and animation industries create revenues of well over 200 billion dollars per year, and say that again, you provide no proof. What fields outside of the applied and theoretical sciences does Caltech have in the top five? Compare that to the schools it’s supposed to be among (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT). I still see no rightful reason why Caltech can claim such a high ranking as a national university.</p>

622

<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."</p>

<p>I disagree.. most people i know regard uva much more highly than cal. I'm from the midwest.</p>

623

<p>Here we go again...</p>

624

<p>Most of the people you know in the Midwest must be uniformed.</p>

625

<p>Agreed. I'm from the midwest too and Cal is held in higher esteem than Virginia.</p>

626

<p>How about this?</p>

<ol>
<li>Harvard </li>
<li>Yale = Princeton, Stanford, MIT</li>
<li>Chicago, Columbia, Penn, Dartmouth</li>
<li>Brown = Duke, Cornell = JHU = Northwestern, Berkeley, Rice</li>
<li>UVA = Michigan, Emory, WUSTL, Georgetown etc</li>
</ol>

<p>This just seems to be what people at my high school seem to think.</p>

627

<p>"Most of the people you know in the Midwest must be uniformed."</p>

<p>Was that a slam against the military?</p>

<p>Hopkins, that list looks better than 99% of the lists on this thread. Congrats to the students in your high school.</p>

<p>I don't get why CalTech should be degraded just because it doesn't have the full range of majors. Lots of top universities have large gaps in their offerings. Indiana doesn't have engineering...does that make it any less of a Big 10 school? Northwestern doesn't have nursing. Big wuff. Where's it written that a university must have this or that major or else it's exiled to the back of US News and must remain forever sandwiched between the Little Rock Conservatory of Music and the Quad Cities Institute of Art?</p>

628

<p>elsijfdl, although it is not unreasonable that UVa is more popular and more highly regarded than Cal in your milieu, it is generally not the case in most pockets of society.</p>

629

<p>
[quote]
A graduate from RISD has just as much ability to switch fields as a graduate from Caltech. Provide some evidence to the contrary, or abandon that ridiculous argument.</p>

<p>

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Do you really think a BFA in Painting is as flexible as a BS in Geoscience or a BFA in Textiles is as flexible as a BS in Biology or BA in Architecture is as flexible as a BS in Mechanical Engineering? The fact that Caltech is still well represented in WSJ feeder ranking shows its access to other fields outside science/engineering. Show me where RISD stands in this ranking list! The fact is that somebody can aim to work as a lawyer or medical doctor and get his/her undergraduate degree(s) at Caltech. Can the same be said for RISD???</p>

<p>
[quote]
Maybe the chair of the Federal Reserve matters to you, but again, this is just subjective reasoning. Honestly who cares what is important to you?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Do you read news ? or you're just too busy with your school work at Northwestern?</p>

<p>When Bernanke stepped in to become the next Fed. Res. Chairman, it created such a stir/anxiety in Wall Street and much publicity about it flooded the media. One wrong step taken by the Fed. Res. Chairman and US economy would collapse. If this happens you may not even get a job when you graduate, or perhaps it is also not important to you?</p>

<p>
[quote]

The argument is that Caltech is only strong in science and engineering, and thus does not deserve its extra high ranking as a national university. Also, who says people who graduate with fine arts degrees can’t go into business or law?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>My argument is that Caltech, though science oriented, still widely open the door for its students who are looking in other professional fields. I never said people in fine arts couldn't get into business or law, but it is much harder and hence not representative. For example in many MBA top programs, 60% of the students come from science/engineering background. You can get a premed degree at Caltech and continue with Stanford medical school for graduate degree. Can this be done for RISD grads? less than small chance !!!</p>

<p>
[quote]
-“Money dominated world”? Let me overlook the fact that the film, television, and animation industries create revenues of well over 200 billion dollars per year, and say that again, you provide no proof. What fields outside of the applied and theoretical sciences does Caltech have in the top five? Compare that to the schools it’s supposed to be among (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT). I still see no rightful reason why Caltech can claim such a high ranking as a national university.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Engineering and science industry alone is much larger than those industry you mentioned, let alone health care and financial services. Yes, Caltech has much less resource and faculty in the fields outside science/engineering when compared with HYPSM, but I would argue that Caltech grads stand the same chance as any HYPSM grads to compete in most professional fields or graduate work. For example, a Caltech grad in economics has the same chance as a Harvard grad in economics for admission into UChicago graduate school. </p>

<p>It should be pretty obvious that Caltech can easily rank among HYPSM when its grads can compete with HYPSM grads for almost every industrial/professional major without reservation.</p>

630

<p>“The fact that Caltech is still well represented in WSJ feeder ranking shows its access to other fields outside science/engineering.”</p>

<p>Indeed Caltech is represented on the WSJ list. Where is it? Number 28! In the year the information was compiled Caltech had 7 people in the 15 schools WSJ looked at, 7! If Caltech graduates so many people with science and engineering degrees every year, one would think it would have more than 7 people in those schools. This leads me to believe that Caltech graduates are not going into law, business, and medicine as frequently as some are asserting. HYPSM are all in the top 10. How can a school that is supposed to be among those schools be ranked 20 spots lower than they? </p>

<p>“the fact is that somebody can aim to work as a lawyer or medical doctor and get his/her undergraduate degree(s) at Caltech. Can the same be said for RISD???”</p>

<p>-Medical schools require applicants to have certain courses completed. I don’t know that RISD even has any science classes; thus, it would be impossible for a student to go to med school from a place like RISD. There is no reason why a student with any degree from RISD can’t attend law school, however. In fact, WSJ characterized Caltech as “lighter on law than most in our top 50”. Can people from Caltech go to law school? Sure they can, but it appears they aren’t going to the “top” schools (with any frequency) as noted by the WSJ.</p>

<p>“Engineering and science industry alone is much larger than those industry you mentioned, let alone health care and financial services. Yes, Caltech has much less resource and faculty in the fields outside science/engineering when compared with HYPSM, but I would argue that Caltech grads stand the same chance as any HYPSM grads to compete in most professional fields or graduate work.”</p>

<p>-How can you argue this? If Caltech is ranked so low on the WSJ list, how can you be arguing that it has just as much of a chance as HYPSM at graduate work? This may be true for engineering and science graduate schools, and to a lesser extent business schools, but not for 80% of other fields. If science and engineering are the only important fields in higher academics, then yes, Caltech is indeed among the top 5 or 6 schools in the country.</p>

631

<p>Theres no way, in terms of student body strength or placement (which is what matters for undergrad), that Columbia, Dartmouth, Penn can anyway be considered better than Duke. Duke wins in SAT scores, feeding into top 15 Northeast professional schools (even though its not in the Northeast), proportion of National Merit Scholars, etc. etc. etc. Peer Assesments are all the same pretty much (4.4 - 4.6 range). I consider these schools tied in almost every way. If you don't, that means you dislike facts.</p>

632

<p>
[quote]
Indeed Caltech is represented on the WSJ list. Where is it? Number 28! In the year the information was compiled Caltech had 7 people in the 15 schools WSJ looked at, 7! If Caltech graduates so many people with science and engineering degrees every year, one would think it would have more than 7 people in those schools.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>My claim is that Caltech grads can get to non-technical fields IF THEY WANT TO. The fact that most Caltech students are interested to pursue their career in science and engineering is different from whether they have capacity to work in other fields.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Can people from Caltech go to law school? Sure they can, but it appears they aren’t going to the “top” schools (with any frequency) as noted by the WSJ.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Do you know how many Caltech students on average apply to law school every year? It may be fewer than 5 students!!! Although I don't think it's a good trend, let me tell you that most of the cream students at Caltech would never apply to a law school. Hence your argument here has no foundation at all.</p>

<p>
[quote]
How can you argue this? If Caltech is ranked so low on the WSJ list, how can you be arguing that it has just as much of a chance as HYPSM at graduate work? This may be true for engineering and science graduate schools, and to a lesser extent business schools, but not for 80% of other fields.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>As I mentioned previously, Caltech ranks low on the WSJ list because most of its students are science oriented. But it's totally different from their ELIGIBILTY and CHANCES to get admission to top professional schools if they choose to. What you fail to consider here is the ratio # of students admitted to professional schools / # of them who applied. It's not that they couldn't get in those professional schools, but they choose not to. I would say that a Yale grad, for example, will not have any advantage over Caltech grad when BOTH of them apply for Stanford Business School. But I would argue that a Princeton grad would have better advantages (just from the name of the school) over an RISD grad for admission to Harvard Law School. When the WSJ report says that Caltech is rather 'light on law', it means that very few Caltech grads apply to law schools, and not that Caltech grads have less chances for law school admission.</p>

633

<p>In addition, the fact that Caltech is in the WSJ feeder list is sufficient to prove that it is NOT A SPECIALTY school.</p>

634

<p>Okay, so college doesn't start for a few weeks, and I'm pretty bored, so here goes. HYPSM are not the top 5 schools in every field! For instance, Harvard and Yale engineering fall somewhere in the 20s in terms of engineering rankings. And I'm sure the medieval history department at MIT is not in the top 5. Now does that keep them from being at the top of U.S. News? Every school has its strengths and weaknesses. Caltech isn't all things to all people, but it does pretty darn well in the things it chooses to focus on. HYPSMC all have their unique strengths and weaknesses in terms of the different fields out there, but they pretty much have the most talented students in terms of academics, great faculty, and a lot of resources available to students (i.e. good faculty to student ratio, funding for undergrad research). This is the main reason why they are the top 6 universities in U.S. News.</p>

635

<p>This is an historic occasion; I find myself in agreement with Rtksyg. That is precisely why I think it is important to include placement into Engineering programs. Schools like CMU, Caltech, MIT and Harvey Mudd, which are all brilliant in their own right, have a signifnicant portion of their student bodies pursuing their graduate studies in Engineering. </p>

<p>I personally also think it would be a propos to include placement into top 10 PhD programs in the major disciplines, like Anthropology, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English, History, Mathematics, Physics, Political Science and Sociology. And for those who complain that if we include all those programs, why not include graduate programs like Architecture, Dentistry, Pharmacy etc..., I say why not include them? It is really very easy to come up with a very highly accurate report that covers all of this. All that needs to be done is for an authority to get all top 10 programs in every field to send in a small, two page report on which undergraduate institutions their students come on a annual basis. In most cases, such a list should take not more than 3 or 4 hours to compile. In the most extreme cases, like Harvard MBA, where 900 new students join each year, we are still talking about a pretty easy report that shouldn't take somebody more than half a day to produce. </p>

<p>I also agree with thethoughtprocess. Duke is definitely on par with the likes of Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and Penn. Of course, Columbia, Cornell and Penn are completely different in that they are far more research centric, but they are all equally good. Too bad he does not think as highly of Cal and Michigan! hehe!!! Seriously, too many people on this forum focus on the tiny little insignificant and superficial details that act as nothing more than devicive issues rather than focusing on the big picture.</p>

636

<p>“When the WSJ report says that Caltech is rather 'light on law', it means that very few Caltech grads apply to law schools, and not that Caltech grads have less chances for law school admission.”</p>

<p>-I’m dealing in actualities. Again, could Caltech people attend these schools? They sure could. Do they? Nope, they don’t. The WSJ survey dealt with how many people are actually in the schools. That is actual data. What you are doing is speculating that people WOULD be admitted if they applied. I’m in no way saying that they couldn’t be admitted; I’m saying that as far as those top professional schools go (business, med, and law) Caltech is not nearly as represented as HYPSM. </p>

<p>“In addition, the fact that Caltech is in the WSJ feeder list is sufficient to prove that it is NOT A SPECIALTY school.”</p>

<p>Caltech had a class size of 249. Thus, having 7 people attend a least some of the top business, med, or law schools, put it on the list. This is merely a function of its size and student population. Caltech has many great students; it is not a shock that it appears on the list. But again, for a school that is supposed to be among HYPSM, it is 20 spots lower than they.</p>

<p>“Caltech isn't all things to all people, but it does pretty darn well in the things it chooses to focus on. HYPSMC all have their unique strengths and weaknesses in terms of the different fields out there, but they pretty much have the most talented students in terms of academics, great faculty, and a lot of resources available to students (i.e. good faculty to student ratio, funding for undergrad research). This is the main reason why they are the top 6 universities in U.S. News.”</p>

<p>Indeed they do all have their strengths and weaknesses. The difference here is that HYPSM all have more than just two related strengths. This, however, can not be said for Caltech. Also, from this argument, any school that has a top program in ANY field could lay claim to being a top 5 school. Penn is very strong in business, thus it is a top 5 school. Northwestern is very strong in journalism, thus it is a top 5 school, Cornell has a school devoted to hotel administration and is the best there is, thus, it is a top 5 school. For a school to be considered one of the top 5 or so, it should be a well-rounded school, not one that is extremely specialized. </p>

<p>As far as resources for students, I see nothing that Caltech offers that is substantially better than any schools in the top 20.</p>

637

<p>
[quote]
But I would argue that a Princeton grad would have better advantages (just from the name of the school) over an RISD grad for admission to Harvard Law School.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's like saying:</p>

<p>"Maybe Paris Hilton is not a virgin."</p>

<p>Instead of RISD, you could have written [insert any college or university in the world] - given that Princeton sends more undergrads to Harvard Law than 99% of other schools out there.</p>

638

<p>
[quote]
I personally also think it would be a propos to include placement into top 10 PhD programs in the major disciplines, like Anthropology, Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English, History, Mathematics, Physics, Political Science and Sociology. And for those who complain that if we include all those programs, why not include graduate programs like Architecture, Dentistry, Pharmacy etc...,
I say why not include them?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Sorry to disagree here, but this is fundamentally flawed thinking.</p>

<p>By definition then, any large research U. is going to dominate such an all-encompassing list (and conversely, the smaller LAC-like schools such Princeton, Dartmouth and Brown would get unfairly hit) - but not because they are inferior in any way - it's just a simple matter of sheer brute numbers at play here.</p>

<p>Remember, the main point of the WSJ Graduate Feeder Ranking was to determine which undergrad programs send the most graduates to the "ELITE" grad schools. It wasn't a ranking of "how many of our graduates go on to get any degree of any kind".</p>

<p>(I am re-hashing much of what I wrote earlier, here):</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=2878864#post2878864%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=2878864#post2878864&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Again, the Title of the Report / Ranking with accompanied the WSJ Feeder Ranking was:</p>

<p>"Want to Go To Harvard Law?
A Comprehensive Ranking of America's Most Successful 'Feeder' Colleges"</p>

<p>It wasn't called:</p>

<p>"Want to Georgia Tech Engineering School?"</p>

639

<p>
[quote]
I’m in no way saying that they couldn’t be admitted; I’m saying that as far as those top professional schools go (business, med, and law) Caltech is not nearly as represented as HYPSM.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Look, we're dealing with two things here: 1. whether Caltech justified to be ranked highly in national ranking and 2. whether Caltech is a specialty school.</p>

<p>Now it seems that you've already agreed that Caltech is NOT a specialty school, let us move on discussing whether point 1. above is justified.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Indeed they do all have their strengths and weaknesses. The difference here is that HYPSM all have more than just two related strengths. This, however, can not be said for Caltech

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It turns out however that the strength in many fields IS NOT A CRITERION in USNews national ranking. If you don't like the ranking, then create your own, but saying that Caltech's high position in the ranking list is not justified because it's a specialty school is simply ridiculous, since:
1. Caltech is not a specialty school.
2. USNews national ranking doesn't count department diversity as a criterion.</p>

<p>
[quote]
s far as resources for students, I see nothing that Caltech offers that is substantially better than any schools in the top 20.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Now you are entering a dangerous zone. I don't think you haven't known that Caltech has the strongest student body in terms of academic accompishment and is always among the most selective colleges. It is arguably the most rigorous college in the US. It has one of the lowest faculty/student ratio, and it has the highest Nobel prize/population ratio in the States. In terms of faculty, student body and accomplishment, Caltech is definitely as good as HYPSM. So what are you complaining other than most Caltech grads ARE NOT INTERESTED to go to non-technical fields?</p>

640

<p>
[quote]
of RISD, you could have written [insert any college or university in the world] - given that Princeton sends more undergrads to Harvard Law than 99% of other schools out there

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Ok, then replace Princeton with MIT and repeat my post above.</p>