Comprehensive Ivy League v. non-Ivy League Thread Part 3

<p>im pretty sure notre dame has one of the worst peer assesment scores in the top 20</p>

<p>i might be wrong</p>

<p>I really don't understand why tufts always gets the shaft. Tufts and georgetown too. in my book, (the book of a probably naive 17 year old) i see tufts and georgetown faaar ahead of most of those schools you posted.</p>

<p>is this usnwr rankings making people biased or is there a real reason for their low rankings?</p>

<p>You have to understand that Cornell consists of two parts, private and public(NY state supported). And it is generally true that the private sections of Cornell is relatively more difficult to get in than the sections that are supported by the state. However, tuitions are cheaper in the latter if the students are classified as NY state residents. This is why the school is bigger than other Ivys and the admission stat is lower. But it is still an excellent school with international recognition.</p>

<p>^^^ actually someone posted some info a while back that said the public colleges at cornell, nowadays, have the same number of in state students as the private colleges, and that admissions preference is not given to in state students</p>

<p>
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I really don't understand why tufts always gets the shaft. Tufts and georgetown too.

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<p>in my opinion georgetown is more respected than tufts, and has a significantly stronger draw and level of prestige</p>

<p>yes elsijfdl but i am not trying to compare the two, instead i am suggesting that both of them are perhaps underranked and underappreciated</p>

<p>in 2006, the WSJ ranked colleges (LACs and national universities) by their ability to place students in the top 10 business, law, and medical schools (as ranked by the USNWR). from what i understand, it compiled the UG schools of the entering classes of those top 10s and included students (like wharton UGs) that may have graduated, entered the workforce, and then returned to grad school for an MBA...</p>

<p>in those rankings, Georgetown was 17th, Penn 16th...(harvard, yale, stanford, princeton, williams, duke topped the list...tufts was 45th). we can deduce from this that georgetown ought to be considered a top tier school alongside the ivies (cornell, afterall, was 25th). </p>

<p>georgetown gets a bad rap for retaining ties to the catholic church and having an anemic endowment, but the education and the university in general, at least for humanities, social sciences, and most health sciences, is superior---and the school's reputation across the country, as well as in these rankings, reflects that</p>

<p>
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we can deduce from this that georgetown ought to be considered a top tier school alongside the ivies

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</p>

<p>Leaping conclusions, yes?</p>

<p>And no, we can't deduce that, because that's one single measure. If the quality of colleges and that had a perfect correlation, then there would be no need for any other rankings. But we all know that the quality of a university is NOT dependent on how its students place at the top med/law/business schools. (Not all students even want to go to grad school, not all that even want to go to those professional schools, there is a very limited # of top professional schools, there are regional biases, etc.)</p>

<p>Georgetown doesn't get a "bad rep" at all -- it has a peer review score of a 4.0, one of the highest in the country, on par with Emory, WUStL, Rice, Vandy, etc., as Alexandre said.</p>

<p>thats ridiculously skewed against schools like Penn and cornell, which have entire undergraduate schools whose intent (and result) is to send students directly into the workforce...architecture, nursing, aggies, engineering, Wharton..they are just a lot less likely to even try going to grad school. This methodology is deeply flawed, unless WSJ took the time to only compar the liberal a&s schools of Cornell and Penn</p>

<p>The Columbia Wiki is pretty funny.</p>

<p>Ughh, stop looking at rankings, Cornell is great.</p>

<p>I agree with ilovebagels. The WSJ is fun to look at, but one must take it with a grain of salt. Some schools have a larger portion of students that are "pre-professional" than other schools. Those schools will naturally have a larger percentage of their students enroll into MBA programs and into Law and Medical school. </p>

<p>Furthermore, the WSJ has a definite East Coast bias, which explains why some schools, like elite Midwestern and West Coast universities do not do as well as their East Coast peers.</p>

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Is cornell the most looked down upon because of the stigma of it being the worst ivy league school?

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<p>MODERATOR'S NOTE: </p>

<p>This question plainly belongs in the comprehensive Ivy League v. non-Ivy League thread, where it will be moved forthwith. </p>

<p>There are contrary opinions, but a lot of participants like to keep the Ivy versus non-Ivy threads fewer rather than more plentiful, and grouping them allows looking at more comparative data.</p>

<p>The WSJ "Feeder School" rankings are nice to look at, but very limited as they only look at 15 graduate programs to make their judgments. Clearly, there are many, many more than 15 top med, law, and business schools in the USA. Probably more important is the fact that many law schools and now some med schools want their students to work for a year or two and most top graduate business schools usually want their students to work from 3-6 years after college before returning. As a result, the importance of the undergraduate record and name brand is less important. What the student has actually done with his/her life is actually a more important determinant of applications success to the top graduate schools. And, of course, the standardized test scores also play an important role in this application process. </p>

<p>For the record, here are the schools that the WSJ used and all of these schools probably benefited in this survey because of the inclination of most institutions to enroll their own graduates at a higher than average rate. </p>

<p>Law
Chicago
Columbia
Harvard
Michigan
Yale</p>

<p>Med
Columbia
Harvard
J Hopkins
UCSF
Yale</p>

<p>MBA
Chicago
Dartmouth
Harvard
MIT
U Penn</p>

<p>As for geographic bias, notice that there are no southern or southwestern schools included in this measurement and only UCSF on the West Coast.</p>

<p>Yes, as any high school student who has taken the AP statistics course should recognize at once, the biggest problem with the Wall Street Journal rankings is that they are based on what is called a "convenience sample," and they can't be taken to represent the overall reality of all colleges.</p>

<p>Hawkette, I agree that the WSJ was way too East Coast focused. 12 of the 15 programs were in the East Coast. 11 Of those were in the Ivy League. </p>

<p>The South, West Coast and Midwest should all be better represented. In the South, Duke has top 10 Medical and Law Schools and a top 10 MBA program. UVa has a top 10 MBA program and a top 10 Law School. UT-Austin, UNC and Vanderbilt also have excellent professional programs. </p>

<p>In the Midwest, Michigan has top 10 Law and Medical Schools and a top 10 MBA program. Chicago and NU have top 10 MBA programs and top 10 Law Schools. Both also have highly regarded Medical Schools. WUSTL has a top 10 Medical School.</p>

<p>In the West Coast, Stanford has a top 10 MBA program and top 10 Law and Medical Schools. Cal has a top 10 MBA program and a top 10 Law School. UCLA has top ranked programs in Business, Law and Medicine.</p>

<p>Not sure about all of your Top 10 ranks because we'd probably end up with 20 schools in the top 10 of each category. LOL. But your point is well made in that there is plenty of quality in graduate schools around the country that is not recognized thru the narrow lens provided by the WSJ. If one included 10-15 graduate schools in each of the categories and did more geographic sampling, I suspect that the results would be a lot different...and a lot broader...and a lot more reflective of the breadth of highly talented students all across the country. </p>

<p>Also, Emory has some top graduate schools that would be considered excellent and elite for anyone considering a career in the Southeast. And there are undoubtedly plenty of other colleges that could also make a legitimate claim to Top 10 graduate programs in either of medicine, law and/or business.</p>

<p>Here are the words to an old Cornell drinking song:</p>

<p>"Don't send my son to Harvard, the dying mother said.
"Don't send my son to Yale, I'd rather see him dead.
"Send him off to Darmouth, or better yet, Cornell.
"And as for Pennsylvania, I'll see him first in hell!"</p>

<p>"To hell, to hell with Pennsylvania,
To hell, to hell with Pennsylvania.
To hell, to hell with Pennsylvania.
To hell with U of P-- P-U!
We were only, only, foolin',
We were only, only, foolin',
We were only, only, foolin'--
The hell we were! P-U! P-U!"</p>

<p>Here's another:</p>

<p>"Harvard's run by Radcliffe
Radcliffe's run by Yale
Yale is run by Vassar
And Vassar's run by tail.</p>

<p>"Princeton's for the pretty boys
The drunks all go to Penn
But high above Cayuga
There's a race of hairy men
Ohhhhhhhh!</p>

<p>"We are a race of hairy chested men – ugh!
Hairy chested men – ugh!
Hairy chested men – ugh!
Oh, We are a race of hairy chested men
We are from Cornell!" </p>

<p>We are from Cornell!
We are from Cornell!
Oh, We are a race of hairy chested men
We are from Cornell!</p>

<p>Well Hawkette, I would not go as far as 20 top 10 programs, but 12-14 top 10 programs sounds about right. I just don't think there is a clear cut 10 programs that make up the top 10. </p>

<p>And I agree that dominant regional programs ( Emory, UNC, UT-Austin and Vanderbilt to name a few) should be included because they attract many extremely talented faculty and students who have financial or familial obligations that ties them down to them. Perhaps those can be included but assigned less weight.</p>

<p>i had always been of the persuasion that georgetown was on par with penn, columbia, cornell and the others on that tier below harvard, yale, princeton, stanford, and MIT...is this an incorrect placement?</p>

<p>Hey Alex,
What do the co-eds sing at Cornell? Hopefully not "hairy-chested men." :eek:</p>

<p>Agree about the numbers and the regionals though I don't think many folks who go to these places are losing a lot of sleep about not being included in the WSJ survey. The WSJ target market is mostly the DC-Boston I-95 corridor and so it's no surprise that they create a survey that reflects best in favor of schools in that geography. </p>

<p>casey,
Georgetown is an exceptional college and has many reasons why it should be included in that next group of colleges just below HYPSM. But they lack the same level of financial resources and this inhibits their ability to improve their offering at a superior rate to these other colleges. Furthermore, their religious history/current ties probably reflect negatively in the eyes of the academics who have never been noted for their love of religion.</p>