What would you guys say are the best public state schools
From what I know some of the best ones are
-University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
-The UCs
-University of Texas
-UNC Chapel Hill
-University of Virginia
-College of William & Mary
-University of Washington, Seattle
-Georgia Tech
-University of Florida
-University of Wisconsin, Madison
-University of Georgia
There are also many great honors college programs at most public universities which are great to look into and see if you qualify for them.
UMich and UCs are easily the best state schools in the country - and UMich and a number of the UCs are crazy selective plus expensive OOS. UIUC is great for engineering, Twin Cities (Minnesota), UNC and Wisconsin - Madison are also great state schools.
@getaclucy GATech yes, University of Georgia, NO.
UVA is one of the best.
I would say UC Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Virginia, William and Mary, UNC, and Georgia Tech.
There are a number of others that are good in specific areas like UT Austin (business, computer science, engineering), Illinois (engineering, computer science).
Michigan and Berkeley are probably the consensus top publics, with UCLA close behind. Many people will put UVA and UNC right behind those three, with Texas, Wisconsin, Washington, GA Tech, Illinois for Engineering, behind them. Personally, I’ve thought UNC and UVA’s academics are on par with Texas/WA/WI, not above, but that’s just me.
@Midwestmomofboys, that is consistent with this analysis of 15 department rankings (aggregate of US News department rankings in business and engineering (undergrad); biology, chemistry, computer science, earth sciences, economics, education, English, history, math, physics, political science, psychology, and sociology (graduate level); but note caveat re omission of some schools, including GA Tech, “because they are too specialized or do not have at least 11 rated departments”):
http://publicuniversityhonors.com/rankings-academic-departments-private-elites-vs-publics/
@UWfromCA Thanks for that link, interesting!
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You have to be clear what you are ranking or else it becomes an empty exercise. If you are ranking a university on the basis of all of its graduate programs (across the board) and the quality of its research, I would say Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA, Texas, Wisconsin, Washington, UCSD, UNC, Illinois, etc. If you are ranking for undergraduate education, I would say Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, UVA, William and Mary, UNC, and Georgia Tech. (Neither of these lists are ranked.)
At a school like Texas, you can get a wide disparity in undergraduate programs. Honors programs, business, engineering, computer science, etc. are top notch, get more focus and have better quality students. Other areas get less focus at the undergraduate level.
Miami of Ohio & Penn State…Not in the top few, but deserve to be mentioned.
Which of these schools give good merit aid to OOS students? Probably none because I know these are state schools but just asking.
Also, you guys forgot U of Alabama, UMD, Rutgers , Purdue, and maybe Clemson
All four of these schools have good undergrad programs
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University of Virginia
College of William and Mary
University of Florida
Virginia Tech
Northwestern University
Boston University
New York University
Northwestern, BU and NYU are private . . . .
And publics which give merit aid to OOS include Indiana, Iowa, Miami of Ohio. And of course, Alabama.
William and Mary is somewhat unique in having an undergrad population of 6000+. Most others are much larger. That may be a plus or minus depending on what you are looking for. The teaching is outstanding though.
IMO this is the order of the top 5…
UC Berkeley
UCLA
UVA
UNC
UMich
If we’re looking at state univ SYSTEMS in terms of overall top-to-bottom quality, then…
California
Virginia
North Carolina
Michigan
Texas
Florida
Ohio
Corrected
UCB
U-M
UCLA
UVA
UNC
I would add Clemson for sure.