<p>Alexandre, Strength of the faculty at Michigan is superior than many ivy league schools in the humanities and social sciences, but this damn school is just way too big, all the faculty are knowledgeable and willing to help you to learn, true. I took some classes at a local college over the summer, I was surprised that the instruction was better. Most of my classes here is basically the professor talking endlessly about random stuff and u go home and read the damn book.</p>
<p>Now we are getting somewhere. I agree with you Jeffl. </p>
<p>I have friends who attended Stanford and took classes at the University of Santa Clara and thought that some professors at Santa Clara were more engaging than their Stanford counterparts. </p>
<p>While at Cornell, I took classes at Ithaca college and felt that Ithaca College sometimes paid more attention to their students than Cornell did. </p>
<p>It is not unusual for faculty at lesser universities to focus more on the students. But trust me, Michigan is no different than any other top 10-15 university, except maybe Dartmouth. But Dartmouth operate as a LAC anyway. The rest of the nation's top research universities, like Penn, Columbia, Chicago, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Yale, Stanford, Michigan, Cal, CalTech, Brown, Princeton, Northwestern etc... are all similar.</p>
<p>But there are amazing professors at those great research universities who really do love to teach. In fact, the majority of the professors I had at Michigan really tried hard. But I had my fair share of duds, and like I said above, that is to be expected at any major research university.</p>
<p>And one last thing, the size is irrelevant. Michigan has over 1,000 full time LSA professors teaching the 15,000 LSA students. Harvard has roughly 6,000 LSA students, but its LSA faculty is under 500. Chicago has roughly 4,000 LSA students, but its LSA faculty is under 400. So the ratios are not much different.</p>
<p>I agree with you. but at the same time people at your private school who work
very, very diligently and might have gotten B- or C at Berkeley .</p>
<p>-Sounds like Berkley has a problem with grade deflation to me.</p>
<p>berkeley :)</p>
<p>kk- I agree. This conversation about deflation is noble, but I would much rather walk out with a 3.6 from Stanford than a 3.2 from Berkeley, if only for grad school apps.</p>
<p>I thought College is the place to learn something.</p>
<p>Anyway I like Reed. This college is unique.</p>
<p>Since 1995 Reed College has refused to participate in the U.S. News and World Report "best colleges" rankings. Several times Reed's stance on the rankings has put the college in the national spotlight, most prominently in a Rolling Stone magazine article that raised serious concerns about the U.S. News best colleges issue.</p>
<p>"[The editors at U.S. News] had never met with such a prominent school being so stubborn," wrote Rolling Stone in "The College Rankings Scam" (October 16, 1997), about Reed's refusal to cooperate. "So U.S. News punished Reed College. They gave it the lowest possible score in nearly every category. The school plunged to the bottom quartile. No other college had dropped so far, so fast." Acknowledging that it was wrong to punish Reed for being the lone holdout in the prestigious national liberal arts and national universities categories, U.S. News editor Al Sanoff told Rolling Stone, "Let's just say we did not handle it the right way."</p>
<p>Reed College has actively questioned the methodology and usefulness of college rankings ever since the magazine's best-colleges list first appeared in 1983, despite the fact that the issue ranked Reed among the top ten national liberal arts colleges. Reed's concern intensified with disclosures in 1994 by the Wall Street Journal about institutions flagrantly manipulating data in order to move up in the rankings in U.S. News and other popular college guides. This led Reed's then-president Steven Koblik to inform the editors of U.S. News that he didn't find their project credible, and that the college would not be returning any of their surveys. In 1996 an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times by a leader of the student government at Stanford University praised Reed for refusing to provide information to U.S. News. The editorial advised prospective students to choose Reed if they "want to go to a school that isn't interested in selling out its education."</p>
<p>The college has repeatedly asked U.S. News simply to drop it from the best-colleges issue, yet the magazine continues to include Reed and to harvest data from non-Reed sources. Reed's subsequent yo-yo relationship with U.S. News has turned into quite a spectator sport. The year after Reed was singled out for special censorious treatment and relegated to the lowest tier in its category, the magazine trumpeted Reed in its "best colleges" press release as being new to the "top 40" tier of national liberal arts schools. Since then Reed has been in the second tier, even though the magazine's sources rate the college's academic reputation as high or higher than half of the top-ranked schools.</p>
<p>The college's decision was not without risk especially related to admission. To date, however, the action has received widespread enthusiastic support from parents, students, faculty members, high school college counselors, and other college and university presidents--several of whom have even confided that they wish they could refuse to participate. In the years since Reed has stopped participating, two measures of institutional vigoradmission and fundraisinghave been robust. This past year Reed received a record number of applications for admission and exceeded goals for its annual fund.</p>
<p>Reed's president, Colin Diver, cautions prospective students and parents against relying on rankings. Rankings, he says, are grounded in a "one-size-fits-all" mentality. "They are primarily measures of institutional wealth, reputation, influence, and pedigree. They do not attempt, nor claim, to measure the extent to which knowledge is valued and cultivated" on each campus. Reed doesnt rank its students. "Why should we participate in a survey that ranks colleges? he asks.</p>
<p>Reed continues to stand apart from ephemeral trends, resisting pressures to abandon its core principles and its clear focus on academics. Studies continue to show Reed graduates earning doctorates or winning postgraduate fellowships and scholarships (such as Rhodes, Fulbright, Watson, and Mellon) at rates higher than all but a handful of other colleges. Says President Diver, "Reed is a paradigmatic example of a college committed--and committed solely--to the cultivation of a thirst for knowledge. Reed illustrates a relatively small, but robust, segment of higher education whose virtues may not always be celebrated by the popular press, but can still be found by those who truly seek them."</p>
<p>And </p>
<p>Top Twenty Baccalaureate-Liberal Arts Insitutions by
Number of Doctorates Earned in ten-year increments </p>
<p>Institution Name 1991-2000 1981-1990 1971-1980 </p>
<p>1 Oberlin College 1086 946 1120
2 Swarthmore College 755 532 599
3 Carleton College 752 538 559
4 Wesleyan University 695 473 415
5 St. Olaf College 591 400 376
6 Smith College 590 562 581
7 Wellesley College 570 573 615
8 Williams College 541 338 393 </p>
<p>9 Reed College 495 401 411 </p>
<p>10 Barnard College 476 571 716
11 Amherst College 460 334 499
12 Vassar College 456 446 443
13 Pomona College 455 438 560
14 Mount Holyoke College 444 442 403
15 Bryn Mawr College 440 318 359
16 Grinnell College 430 283 379
17 Bucknell University 422 430 431
18 Wheaton College 409 445 507
19 Haverford College 373 281 286
20 Colgate University 365 321 367</p>
<p>R&D Rankings(Year 2002-2003)</p>
<p>(excluding Medical R&D)</p>
<p>1.UCLA 788 Million</p>
<p>2.Michigan 674 Million</p>
<p>3.Wisconsin 662 Million</p>
<p>4.UCSD 585 Million</p>
<p>5.Stanford 538 Million</p>
<p>6.Berkeley 474 Million</p>
<p>7.MIT 455MIllion</p>
<p>8.UI Urbana 427 Million</p>
<p>9.Harvard 401 Million</p>
<p>10.Yale 354 Million</p>
<p>11.Princeton 164 Million</p>
<p>Grade Inflation Rankings</p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford (3.45)</li>
<li>Harvard (3.40)</li>
<li>Pomona (3.40)</li>
<li>Duke (3.40)</li>
<li>Princeton (3.38)</li>
<li>NU (3.38)</li>
<li>Yale (3.36)</li>
</ol>
<p>Grade Deflation Rankings</p>
<ol>
<li>UNC</li>
<li>Berkeley</li>
<li>Caltech</li>
<li>UCSD</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>USC</li>
</ol>
<p>I had no idea that UNC graded hard. No surprise with Berkeley, Caltech, UCSD, and UCLA though. Great information there, I definitely have more respect for UNC graduates now. </p>
<p>
[quote]
but I would much rather walk out with a 3.6 from Stanford than a 3.2 from Berkeley, if only for grad school apps.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Schools in the west coast would look at the difficulty of the major. They are familiar with the difficult majors at Berkeley and Stanfurd and have better weighting systems.</p>
<br>
<p>Golubb_U I've seen GPA conversion tables, and 3.5 at Cornell is weighted at a 3.75 at Stanford. I can't remember the other conversions, but a Cornell/Caltech GPA is almost always scored up.</p>
<br>
<p>I hope GPA conversion tables agst GI schools will be made by
year 2008 or 2009.</p>
<p>The UC system is the juggernaut of grade deflation.
You know it!</p>
<p>Rice seems to be underrated a lot here. This is about undergrad no? Some peope seem to be letting some grad school rankings influence their judgement. The same goes for LACs of course, for some who did combined those in their rankings.</p>
<p>flopsy, as since we both went/go to UCLA we know very well that that school is HARD to get good grades at. Shoot, a UCLA student can study and study all day and still get a bad grade. Its the darn curves and all the brilliant minds in class that we must deal with! Personally, I think lack of grade inflation is a good thing. Then again, I would rather get good grades than bad ones even if good grades are a dime a dozen. In other words, I would rather have grade inflation at my school and not anywhere else ;)</p>
<p>
[quote]
In other words, I would rather have grade inflation at my school and not anywhere else
[/quote]
</p>
<p>LOL! shyboy. </p>
<p>hahahhahaha! I guess its time to spend more money on marketing, and less focus on academic excellence. And expecting hiring managers to be dumb enough to be fooled...</p>
<p>California Ivies +3 would consist of University of Michigan, MIT, and University of Chicago.</p>
<p>"Best" + "College Ranking" is an oxymoron.</p>
<p>Two cookies to uc_benz.</p>
<p>anybody has that conversion table for gpa from various UG institutions?</p>