Best Undergraduate Education?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Regardless of other factors, which school do you believe provides the best undergraduate education?</p>

<p>I'll start first: </p>

<p>Princeton</p>

<p>Highest endowment per student, only ivy focused primarily on undergrads</p>

2

<p>this thread is going to end up going nowhere.</p>

3

<p>I have thought a lot about this question and what should be the determining criteria. IMO, they keys to making the judgment of “Best Undergraduate College” should be made based on the following:</p>

<ol>
<li> Quality of student body (stronger students are preferred)</li>
<li> Class Sizes (smaller classes are preferred)</li>
<li> Quality of classroom instruction (well regarded by the paying customers & more profs than TAs)</li>
<li> Institutional Resources (deep pockets and willing to spend on undergrads)</li>
</ol>

<p>I looked at the colleges ranked in the USNWR Top 75 and, using the data from the 2010 USNWR online edition, compared them on these metrics and calculated an undergraduate ranking based on the following weights:</p>

<p>(30%) Selectivity = 50% weight to Student body depth as measured 700+ on SAT CR & M, 50% weight to ACT 30+</p>

<p>(30%) Faculty Resources = 40% weight to classes under 20 students, 40% weight to classes over 50 students, 20% weight to Student/Faculty Ratio</p>

<p>(30%) Teaching = CP grades for Academics</p>

<p>(10%) Financial = USNWR Financial Resources ranking</p>

<p>Quick qualifiers: these results are presented in ordinal fashion which gives a false impression of material differences between each college. That’s not reality. IMO, a better solution would be to rank in tiers. </p>

<p>I should also add that these metrics and weights were my choice. Others will undoubtedly use different elements and different weights and I’d be interested to read & review alternative approaches and results. </p>

<p>Here are the results:</p>

<p>Rank , National University (publics in CAPS) ( Total Score )</p>

<p>1 , Caltech ( 2 points)
2 , Yale ( 5 points)
3 , Harvard ( 6 points)
3 , Princeton ( 6 points)
5 , Duke ( 7 points)
5 , U Chicago ( 7 points)
7 , Northwestern ( 8 points)
8 , U Penn ( 10 points)
8 , Columbia ( 10 points)
10 , MIT ( 11 points)
10 , Dartmouth ( 11 points)
10 , Stanford ( 11 points)
10 , Vanderbilt ( 11 points)
14 , Wash U ( 12 points)
14 , Emory ( 12 points)
14 , Tufts ( 12 points)
17 , Rice ( 14 points)
18 , Brown ( 15 points)
19 , Carnegie Mellon ( 20 points)
20 , Johns Hopkins ( 21 points)
21 , Brandeis ( 22 points)
21 , Georgetown ( 22 points)
23 , Notre Dame ( 23 points)
23 , Tulane ( 23 points)
25 , U Rochester ( 25 points)
26 , USC ( 27 points)
26 , Cornell ( 27 points)
28 , Wake Forest ( 28 points)
29 , Case Western ( 32 points)
29 , U Miami ( 32 points)
31 , UC BERKELEY ( 33 points)
31 , WILLIAM & MARY ( 33 points)
33 , NYU ( 34 points)
34 , U VIRGINIA ( 36 points)
34 , UCLA ( 36 points)
34 , Lehigh ( 36 points)
37 , Boston College ( 38 points)
38 , U N CAROLINA ( 39 points)
39 , U MICHIGAN ( 40 points)
39 , Rensselaer ( 40 points)
41 , Pepperdine ( 41 points)
42 , GEORGIA TECH ( 42 points)
43 , George Washington ( 45 points)
43 , U PITTSBURGH ( 45 points)
43 , Yeshiva ( 45 points)
46 , U ILLINOIS ( 47 points)
46 , SMU ( 47 points)
48 , Boston University ( 48 points)
48 , UC SAN DIEGO ( 48 points)
50 , Worcester ( 50 points)
51 , U MINNESOTA ( 52 points)
51 , U WISCONSIN ( 52 points)
51 , UC S BARBARA ( 52 points)
51 , U MARYLAND ( 52 points)
55 , Fordham ( 53 points)
55 , U WASHINGTON ( 53 points)
57 , U FLORIDA ( 55 points)
57 , Syracuse ( 55 points)
57 , U TEXAS ( 55 points)
57 , PURDUE ( 55 points)
61 , U IOWA ( 56 points)
62 , OHIO STATE ( 57 points)
63 , U DELAWARE ( 59 points)
64 , UC IRVINE ( 60 points)
64 , U CONNECTICUT ( 60 points)
66 , RUTGERS ( 61 points)
67 , UC DAVIS ( 62 points)
67 , U GEORGIA ( 62 points)
67 , CLEMSON ( 62 points)
70 , PENN STATE ( 65 points)
71 , BYU ( 66 points)
71 , UC S CRUZ ( 66 points)
73 , VIRGINIA TECH ( 68 points)
74 , TEXAS A&M ( 72 points)
74 , INDIANA U ( 72 points)
76 , MICHIGAN ST ( 74 points)</p>

4

<p>

</p>

<p>Yeah. It’s what you do for yourself that determines your undergrad education. I know people at ASU who are getting more out of their education than people at my school (the most selective LAC). I’d say the school’s resources maybe play a 5% role in that. In other words, a very minor role.</p>

5

<p>Where can you get the best undergraduate education? In a chair, studying.</p>

<p>Your own willingness to do the hard work of becoming educated will have a far larger influence on the quality of your education than the school you attend.</p>

6

<p>dartmouth!</p>

7

<p>I believe the credited response is: they all do a damned horrid job, and you may as well go to the one that won’t make your family bleed out financially.</p>

<p>Hence, the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, CalTech, the top LACs, state flagships for in-state students.</p>

8

<p>Hawkette, can you provide this list please:</p>

<p>“(10%) Financial = USNWR Financial Resources ranking”</p>

<p>also, can you show us how you arrived at the points - </p>

<p>thanks</p>

9

<p>Princeton. Duh. Well, if you want to be a supreme court justice, that is. 1/3 of the supreme court justices hailed from Princeton undergrad. wooty tooty.</p>

10

<p>Duke University</p>

11

<p>Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Amherst, Yale.</p>

12

<p>

</p>

<p>Ummm…ever hear of Dartmouth College? Also, Brown is pretty undergrad oriented.</p>

<p>

Ignoring the silly cynicism if the first part, I don’t at all understand the last sentence. He says go someplace that won’t cost a fortune, and then names all schools that are extremely expensive except for in-state schools. Even if he meant to say these are schools that make you bleed financially, how do the in-state flagships fit in the same sentence, lol?</p>

13

<p>Classroom Conditions and Overall Academic Quality
USNews top 10 Peer Assessment scores (based on surveys of educators):
Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford (4.9); Yale (4.8); Berkeley (4.7); Caltech, Columbia, Chicago (4.6); and Penn (4.5).</p>

<p>College Pr*wler’s highest (A+) rating for academics (based on surveys of students):
Bowdoin, CalTech, Chicago, Dartmouth, MIT, Princeton, Stanford. </p>

<p>Best average class sizes (universities with most classes <20 and fewest >50):
Columbia, Chicago, Harvard, Penn, Tufts, and Yale (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/708190-avg-class-size-4.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/708190-avg-class-size-4.html&lt;/a&gt;)</p>

<p>Academic Outcomes
Top 10 schools for production of PhDs per capita:
CalTech, Harvey Mudd, Reed, Swarthmore, MIT, Carlton, Grinnell, Bryn Mawr, Chicago, and Oberlin
([COLLEGE</a> PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]COLLEGE”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)).</p>

<p>Largest number of Nobel prize winning alumni <a href=“a%20broader%20measure%20of%20academic%20success%20would%20be%20desirable%20if%20anyone%20has%20one”>i</a>*:
Harvard (48), Columbia (37), Chicago (29), MIT and Berkeley(26), Yale and CalTech (17).</p>

<p>The University of Chicago is the only school on all of these lists. Chicago combines small classes, distinguished faculty, and first-rate research facilities with a rigorous, coherent undergraduate arts and science curriculum. By the numbers, it winds up near the top of most rankings. What the rankings can’t show is the quality of the curriculum and instruction, two of the most important factors yet also two of the hardest to measure. The Chicago “Common Core” approach has been tested and refined over many decades. The alternative at most other schools is either a Chinese Menu of distribution requirements or a student-driven Open Curriculum plan. Different approaches may work more or less well for different learners. However, with the Core approach, coherence is by faculty design; with the other two it is left more to student choice. (<a href=“https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/academics/commoncore.shtml[/url]”>https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/academics/commoncore.shtml&lt;/a&gt;)</p>

<p>I think Reed College or Swarthmore also could make reasonable claims to offering the best undergraduate education. The challenge with LACs is to that one cannot as easily back up such claims with numbers. So to support the preference you actually have to reason about what we mean by the “best undergraduate education”. To do that, I think you have to start with the assumption that there is some body of knowledge or collection of skills that is especially worth having, then identify approaches and conditions best for learning that. If we can’t agree broadly on what the best students should be learning, then it’s really pretty meaningless to talk about which education is best. A simplifying assumption (not an entirely valid one IMHO) is that all liberal arts and science programs are teaching pretty much the same content, so we can just measure some combination of inputs, classroom conditions, and outcomes to identify the best schools.</p>

14

<p>

</p>

<p>lrn2read. These schools I named are affordable, an excellent value, for students from middle and working class families.</p>

<p>I’m not being cynical, I’m being realistic.</p>

15

<p>

I vote for my own college - [Gramarye</a> College](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1742332-post23.html]Gramarye”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1742332-post23.html). Of course, I haven’t founded it yet, but it’s going to be awesome once I do. :cool:</p>

<p>I’m amused by the number of serious responses. A pointless thread deserves a pointless answer. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows there is no such thing as a college with the “best undergraduate education.” There is no college in heaven, hell, or earth that could satisfy everyone - and thank goodness for that. Admissions would be a nightmare.</p>

16

<p>Rice 10 letters You even get D1 sports- well, sort of</p>

17

<p>

</p>

<p>Warbler, make sure to spend enough money of glossy brochures and mementos to send to your peers. If you repeat the process enough times, you’ll be well on your way to climb in the PA. For all we know, you might be ranked as distinguished before you dole the first cent out in faculty resources.</p>

18

<p>^reading this site has given me plenty of ideas on how to start my own college. One day “Pierre Tong College” will be the best in the world!!</p>

19

<p>tk217, shouldn’t you shorten the USNWR rankings to only 6 schools thereby eliminating Chicago from the list?</p>

<p>After all, did you not use only 6 and 7 top places in several of the other lists, instead of ten places?</p>

<p>tricky tricky</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065086725-post13.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1065086725-post13.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

20

<p>kwu - show me where you said in your original quote anything about middle and working class families. But the programs they have in place aside, they still make it tough in the way they consider income and assets, and they are still expensive for most. Average debt has gone down for Harvard grads, no question, but it is still expensive. And unless I missed it, the top LACs especially are still really expensive for most middle class families.</p>