Surprised only one other commenter in this thread listed Ohio State University. It is certainly deserving of mention as a top public research university. It is a member of the Association of American Universities mentioned above. It has a great First Year Experience (including living and learning communities via the Scholars program), a second year experience program (STEP), which makes a large university seem much smaller. And it has highly ranked, strong programs in engineering, business, sciences and social sciences. Ohio State is extremely selective now, not what it used to be thirty years ago with open admissons. It has a great social and sports culture, and great facilities. And it is one of the most affordable state schools for in-state (tuition has been frozen for about 4 or 5 years) and for outofstate students as well, with great amount of merit aid offered with the national buckeye and additional scholarships. Plus several full tuition and fees ride scholarships (Morrill scholars) provided by the Office of Diversity to promote diversity on campus.
I think a lot depends on the program you are looking at. For my son Kansas State beat a lot of the others for the pre-veterinary program he wanted. OOS and they have given excellent merit. It really depends on what you want out of the school. He already has a great summer job just because of the K-State connection and he won’t even start until the fall!
My top 25:
Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA
UCSD, Virginia, Georgia Tech, North Carolina, U Illinois, UCSB
William & Mary, U Washington, UC Davis, UC Irvine, Wisconsin, tOSU, Penn State, UT Austin
U Colorado, U Florida, Purdue, U Maryland, Rutgers, U. Minnesota, Pittsburgh, UC Santa Cruz
Just outside top 25:
Florida, UMass, UConn, NCSU, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Stony Brook, Michigan State
Why is Ohio State THE Ohio State?
^Inferiority complex
@wayneandgarth I’m just asking why THE is their? Why not Ohio State?
And I answered that question.
Technically a lot of schools are “the” whatever, Penn State included. Ohio State insists on using it even when shortened, for reasons outlined on their website https://library.osu.edu/find/collections/the-ohio-state-university-archives/digitalcontent/faqs#1
I refuse, it’s pretentious. 
@Mahindra a few other publics that give merit to OOS students include Pitt, Temple, South Carolina (tops for Int’l Business with a highly ranked Honors College) and Ohio University. These are just ones I know of from personal experience. BTW the last two are not among the best publics so maybe they don’t fit the title of the thread, but I have kids attending/headed for both, so mentioned them anyway since they are generous with merit.
@luckycharms07 thx
@wayneandgarth lol
@bodangles thx
Rutgers is high up in Worldwide rankings as well!
Re post #42…I’d place NC State and Florida over Rutgers and UC Santa Cruz…
In response to Prezbucky’s post:
Binghamton University (formerly SUNY-Binghamton), easily belongs in the top third of your Top 25 list. It is highly selective, academically rigorous and possesses an excellent reputation. Its business school, the School of Management, is outstanding, with a 23% acceptance rate, placing it in the ranks of many prestigious, better known schools.
It is one of the four “University Centers” within the SUNY system and is considered the crown jewel of the SUNY, which is one of the largest, or THE largest, university system in the USA. New York State does not have a flagship college but instead has four “mini-flagships,” which are Binghamton, Stony Brook, Buffalo and Albany.
Based on my thorough and wide-ranging research, I have found them ranked in that order most frequently. Obviously, some will disagree; to those I would recommend they rely not just on a few rankings. Do your due diligence, look at the admission standards, and you will see.
SUNY Geneseo, while not a University Center, is an excellent school, especially for liberal arts, and I have most often seen it ranked third best in SUNY (after Binghamton and Stony Brook). It is as good as many expensive, private liberal arts colleges.
The four University Centers do most of the research, and I believe Binghamton does the least of the four, though they do an appreciable amount. Each of the four University Centers has its strengths, with Stony Brook and Buffalo being particularly good for medical research.
The University Centers get the lion’s share of SUNY funding, but It is clear from everything I’ve read that Binghamton has been the favored child in this regard for some time now, and will soon be opening a pharmacy school and law school on its beautiful campus. No other SUNY school is on such a growth upswing.
If one were to designate an unofficial New York State flagship, it would have to be Binghamton University. Declared one of the “Public Ivies,” it is clearly poised for continued growth in reputation, prestige and national recognition. It is not on many people’s radar screens, probably because it has only been part of SUNY for about the last 40 years or so; it was a private college prior to that. Therefore, compared to all the other top public colleges in the country, it is very young—maybe the youngest.
We live in New York (I’m not an alum) and my son, who has been accepted to several more prestigious schools (he wanted to apply to 18 schools, and did, and was only denied by Cornell’s Dyson school (7% admit rate), Berkeley and Michigan Ross School). He will be attending Binghamton this coming fall. He is a direct admit to their School of Management. Due to our “high” family income and assets none of the other schools offered financial aid, though several offered generous merit scholarships and admission to their Honors College or Program. He applied only to the undergrad business schools of each university.
Binghamton is on an upward trajectory and the one to watch. Put it on your radar screen. The bonus for out-of-staters is that it has been rated a Best Buy by Kiplingers and other organizations; the OOS COA is quite reasonable.
@RamDass What about their computer science program?
Mahindra:
I don’t know much about their computer science program, but I do know it is well-ranked and often listed among the top 100 programs in the country. Considering that there are over 2,500 four year colleges in the USA and that at least 75% of them offer such programs, Binghamton’s ranking is excellent, but not outstanding.
Therefore, one needs to do a cost-benefit analysis. In that regard, Binghamton shines. The ROI for CS is among the best in the nation according to rankings I’ve seen.
My son actually wants to minor in CS (and major in Finance) eventually entering the emerging field of Fintech, or financial technology. In his college search process, he placed a higher priority on focusing on the best schools he could get into that were undergraduate business schools strong in finance, but also had very good CS programs. So, for example, some of the schools he was accepted to, such as UIUC, University of Wisconsin, University of Maryland, NYU, UT Austin and Rutgers have very strong business schools and CS programs.
He had a very difficult time deciding between the IU Kelley School of Business (ranked among the top ten undergrad business schools in the nation by the most important rankings) and Binghamton SOM. He chose Binghamton for a few different reasons, among them the ROI. It is actually harder to get into Bing SOM than Kelley, the student cohort is brighter, the school is MUCH more selective, and Bing is much closer to NYC for internships and similar experiences. NYC is the center of the world when it comes to finance.
Bing doesn’t have the US News ranking necessary to be in the top 25, I don’t think.
How good is Rutgers in business, exactly?
@RamDass thx
LBad96:
Rutgers is an excellent university and their business school ranks highly. A bonus is that it is very close to NYC for internships and places well into tri-state employers in the NYC core region.
What my son did not like is the fragmented campus system (he wants a traditional, bucolic college campus) that is split into five (5) mini-campuses. Three of those campus fragments are about 15-20 minutes away (but NOT grouped together) from the other two, which are relatively close to each other. Imagine trying to get from class to class during your school day by getting on/off the campus buses as they travel between each of the separate campuses, on local roads, AND highways! What makes the situation much worse is that there are, and have been for at least several years, bus transportation problems that the students there have been complaining to the administration about. They are frustrated that the administration is not responsive. The buses are overcrowded and there are often traffic jams between the campuses that delay the buses. Do a google search on this and you will see many students complaining that the buses are so overcrowded that they often have to let one or two buses pass by before they can get a SRO spot on maybe a third. Rutgers bus system is not like most campus bus systems, which are usually all self-contained within one large campus or maybe a second, nearby campus, and the buses don’t have to deal with outside traffic and tie-ups.
What really annoyed me was when, during our due-diligence process of learning about each college my son applied to, I spoke, by phone, with the deputy admissions official at Rutgers (a female), who DENIED there were bus problems, going so far as to say she had “never heard of it.”
No wonder the students there are angry at the administration. The Rutgers Politburo denies reality and instead pushes their propaganda that all is well.
The sheer size (and consequent # of HS classmates who attended) and the poor busing problems are what turned me away from applying. It’s a good school for sure, just not for me. I would especially be incensed with the admin actions.