Best State University?

<p>What I mean is that speaking to these alums, there wasn't alot of "work hard" either....I agree that you get out of a college what you put into it, but what about workload, expectatiions from profs re work quality, etc. I'm not picking on UVA in particular, but its just what I've heard repeatedly over the years. My husband did his grad work there and said he wouldn't want the kids to go because he didn't think the undergrad was "serious enough" about academics.....a broad generalisation, I know..no flames!</p>

<p>DKE, there are schools that would satisfy your husband's expectations. Schools like Caltech, MIT, Swarthmore, University of Chicago etc... But academic intensity has nothing to do with the quality of the insitution. The former is a question of school culture and is open to interpretation, the latter is an absolute.</p>

<p>
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"USN&WR should at least publish a poll listing the universities with the greatest number of highly ranked grad programs"

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</p>

<p>It's not a poll, but as I understand it there is at least one ranking that does this (it wasn't done be USNews, but it used their data). We actually wanted it for something but I couldn't find it, so I've been trying to duplicate it myself in my spare time. It's boring, though--I'm including every specialty ranking US News did. I keep setting it aside but if I don't hurry up it the 2007 one will be out and I'll have to start over. </p>

<p>The thing about such a rating is that it will reward both depth and breadth--so an institution that is specialized or smaller won't stand a chance no matter how good it is. A place like Michigan, with a med school, a nursing school, an ed school, social work, public health, etc, has a lot of chances to rack up rankings. A lot of Ivies don't have that kind of breadth--not should they, really--so they will always look "lesser" in this kind of tally. </p>

<p>Such a tally is great for explaining to legislators what a huge asset you are to the state, for example, so it's a nice thing for state universities, but may not be that meaningful in college choice.</p>

<p>Really, it is.</p>

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<p>I thought we were talking about the best STATE schools here.</p>

<p>Alexandre, I cannot agree with the statement that institutional quality is an absolute.</p>

<p>Why not Fiddlefrog?</p>

<p>There are more than a few large institutions that seemingly offer everything...medical school, nursing school, engineering, music school, business, etc. But only a handful of these schools have highly regarded departments or programs across the board. If you look at the USN&WR graduate rankings, only Stanford and Michigan had their medical, law, business, and engineering schools all ranked in the top 10. Of course great schools like MIT & Cal Tech are more specialized and don't offer as many programs as these universities. Yet MIT & Cal Tech are highly respected for all their Nobel Prize winners and ultra high quality research they put out. </p>

<p>In regard to graduate school rankings, the NRC Report is the most respected source, not the USN&WR. Yet I don't think the NRC Report rated the professional programs. Actually the Gourman Report claims to have used the data from USN&WR to compile its overall graduate school rankings. Yet the Gourman Report rates many more programs than the USN&WR...many, many more programs. I would like to see the overall undergrad & graduate rankings from the Gourman Report. I'm not interested in the rankings in each specific field, just the overall undergrad & graduate rankings. I can't find them on the web. Perhaps someone can post these rankings, if they have the latest edition of the Gourman Report.</p>

<p>The Goruman Report is about as accurate as the USNWR best colleges ranking...not very! But it certainly offers a healthy counterbalance, so what the hoo!</p>

<p>Top Undergraduate Institutions according to Gourman:</p>

<h1>1 Princeton University</h1>

<h1>2 Harvard University</h1>

<h1>3 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</h1>

<h1>4 Yale University</h1>

<h1>5 Stanford University</h1>

<h1>6 Cornell University</h1>

<h1>7 University of California-Berkeley</h1>

<h1>8 University of Chicago</h1>

<h1>9 University of Wisconsin-Madison</h1>

<h1>10 University of California-Los Angeles</h1>

<h1>11 Massachusetts Institute of Technology</h1>

<h1>12 California Institute of Technology</h1>

<h1>13 Columbia University</h1>

<h1>14 Northwestern University</h1>

<h1>15 University of Pennsylvania</h1>

<h1>16 University of Notre Dame</h1>

<h1>17 Duke University</h1>

<h1>18 Brown University</h1>

<h1>19 Johns Hopkins University</h1>

<h1>20 Dartmouth College</h1>

<h1>21 University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign</h1>

<h1>22 University of Minnesota-Twin Cities</h1>

<h1>23 Rice University</h1>

<h1>24 Carnegie Mellon University</h1>

<h1>25 University of California-San Diego</h1>

<h1>26 University of Washington</h1>

<h1>27 Indiana University-Bloomington</h1>

<h1>28 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill</h1>

<h1>29 Washington University-St Louis</h1>

<h1>30 State University of New York-Buffalo</h1>

<h1>31 Tufts University</h1>

<h1>32 Vanderbilt University</h1>

<h1>33 Ohio State University-Columbus</h1>

<h1>34 University of Virginia</h1>

<h1>35 University of California-Irvine</h1>

<h1>36 Pennsylvania State University-University Park</h1>

<h1>37 New York University</h1>

<h1>38 University of California-Davis</h1>

<h1>39 University of Rochester</h1>

<h1>40 University of Iowa</h1>

<h1>41 Georgia Institute of Technology</h1>

<h1>42 Michigan State University-East Lansing</h1>

<h1>43 Purdue University-West Lafayette</h1>

<h1>44 Tulane University</h1>

<h1>45 Rutgers University-New Brunswick</h1>

<h1>46 State University of New York-Stony Brook</h1>

<h1>47 University of California-Santa Barbara</h1>

<h1>48 Brandeis University</h1>

<h1>49 United States Air Force Academy</h1>

<h1>50 Case Western Reserve University</h1>

<p>Thank you much, Alexandre. Yes, I agree with you. Like with any poll, I question the validity of this one as well. This Gourman ranking seems to favor the larger public undergrad programs over the smaller private programs...the opposite of the USN&WR. But like you wrote, it does offer a different perspective. Do you know Gourman's ranking for the overall top graduate programs? I guess that's a separate source. Thanks again for posting Gourman's undergrad ranking.</p>

<p>Miriam Boo,</p>

<p>I agree w/ you regarding US News. I've never been a fan of that ranking or ranking in general. Prospective students should do their research to find out what schools are right for them rather than simply looking at rankings which can be false indicators of the true quality of a school's teaching and undergraduate education.</p>

<p>I think it's very important to look at graduation rates when choosing colleges. Though many students drop out for a number of reasons, the graduation rate is a great indicator of a school's ability of offering a good undergraduate education. If a school has a low graduation rate, it may point to (a) poor student advising that doesn't help students properly finish 4 years of college on time or at all, (b) having a lack of enough required classes offered that allow students to finish their majors, (c) bad financial aid that doesn't allow students the ability to continue to attend that school, or (d) a bad collegiate environment where students just drop-out or tranfer to a better school. </p>

<p>If students enjoy attending a school and a school does a good job offering the necessary components that help students graduate on time (or at all), that college would have a high graduation rate.</p>

<p>I do not have the Graduate rankings. But if memory serves, #1 was Harvard, #2 was Cal, #3 was Michigan. I am pretty sure MIT was well in the top 10 too.</p>

<p>You guys just love those research rankings.</p>

<p>Actually Globalist, I do not like rankings at all. I am critical of Gourman and the USNWR. I favor a rating system similar to Fiske. I just do not see how one can rank schools so accurately. University rankings is not a balance sheet or an equation. It is not an exact science. How does the USNWR figure that Stanford is #5 and MIT #7 and Columbia #9? How does Gourman know that Princeton is #1, Cornell #6 and UCLA #10? Let us get real. It cannot be done. One cannot even differentiate between #8 and #18, let alone between #8 and #9. Ratings (or groupings) are best.</p>

<p>Oh Alexandre, read your early posts. You LOVED rankings. :) </p>

<p>Perhaps the key word is "loved." I'm not trying to start a fight. Just poking fun.</p>

<p>You could be right about ratings and groupings.</p>

<p>Not true Globalist. I always criticize rankings. I am a proponent of groupings.</p>

<p>Oh, how you forget. </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=4009%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=4009&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>A lot of talk about rankings here. :)</p>

<p>Again, I'm just poking fun.</p>

<p>We all look for the best in our respective schools. Some are research giants with scores of NAS level faculty and huge libraries; others, due to various circumstances, focused more on undergrad. Now each is busy trying to become the other to some extent. For example UVa is spending some major cash to lure what they call NAS level profs to C'Ville. Those boys and girls will not be focusing on teaching Chem 101 to undergrads. At the same time UM and UW have somewhat hastily intoduced all sorts of special small classes for first years and are putting more emphasis on the ug's than they have in 30 years or more.</p>

<p>Globalist, I do not take this subject lightly. I do not favor rankings over ratings. I have posted over 3,000 posts. I am sure I will allude to rankings is a few of the. But more often than not, I stick to ratings/groupings. I know you are poking fun, but I must clarify.</p>

<p>CORNELL IS NOT A STATE SCHOOL, w t f is wrong with you ppl, go look it up on the internet, it is a private university with 3 undergrad schools that have a loose affiliation with the state of new york, which allows new yorkers to receive subsidized tuition. If the whole school was a state school, wouldn't 2/3 of the school come from New York or more. In fact, only 1/3 of the students are from new york. In addition, the tuition of these contract schools are MUCH more expensive than any state school in the state of new york. Get ur facts str8.</p>