<p>How do ya like them apples? </p>
<p>Oh, well, it still beats the hell out of potato mashers landing in your foxhole.</p>
<p>Yawn. </p>
<p>Ok, so what?</p>
<p>Now that it’s out of top 20, more people will consider Emory outside of its ranking. Which is a good thing. No more “top 20 elite college” bull#@%$.</p>
<h1>20 vs #21-- big whoop! The ranking is so ridiculously subjective. It’s like quantifying what is a better vacation: surfing in Maui or skiing in Jackson Hole?</h1>
<p>My daughter is a current senior who is applying to Emory- she loves it. I don’t really care about the rankings. </p>
<p>Now that’s the right attitude, twogirls. </p>
<p>We all knew this hellfire was coming. Let me say this much about rankings: whether we want to acknowledge it or not, they do matter because of the attention they draw to the university. I don’t suppose for a second that ranking accurately reflects educational quality, but they do allow universities to draw better students. And higher ranked universities typically have more resources than do lower ranked ones.</p>
<p>However, as @GMTPlus7 pointed to, dropping one spot is totally insignificant, and won’t alter anyone’s perception of the university. Anyone that removes Emory from consideration because it no longer technically carries the empty title of “top 20 university” clearly isn’t the kind of student the university wishes to attract. Keep in mind the motives of US News: as an organization, they can’t simply publish the same ranking each year (even though it’s unlikely that any measurable shift in “prestige,” or whatever they rank on has occurred), or the rankings themselves will lose attention. </p>
<p>People want to interpret this as some signal of the university’s demise. If anything, I’d argue the university is likely to move up in future years. Remember that these rankings are largely composed of peer evaluations, or how outsiders perceive Emory. You don’t think that external awareness and favor of Emory has increased with the national coverage of the two (and now three) Ebola patients? Clearly, undergraduates weren’t involved in this whatsoever, but the positive publicity will likely seep into others’ perception of Emory as a whole regardless. </p>
<p>The university brought in two Ebola patients (first time Ebola patients have come to the USA) and cured them.
Obama was on campus today.</p>
<p>We dropped one spot in the rankings. We suck.</p>
<p>@aluminum_boat: Silly aluminum…many of the undergrads. attracted to these places are hardly interested in substance and what exactly the uni is doing so much as whether their ego will be stroked by attending and whether or not it is easy to make high grades. </p>
<p>In the mean time, this is nice as well for all of you non-premed life science majors: <a href=“http://college.usatoday.com/2014/09/13/top-10-colleges-for-a-major-in-biology/”>http://college.usatoday.com/2014/09/13/top-10-colleges-for-a-major-in-biology/</a></p>
<p>I have to give it credit for trying harder than when I was here. They are legitimately improving. If chemistry is successful/makes some actual progress with the 1.2 million grant they, things will be even better. But again, seniors don’t actually care about these issues (we weren’t mature enough, and our view of the college experience hardly includes a realistic view on the academics and mostly reflects our notions of the social environments at such colleges. Level of academics in our mind usually=ranking. You know, because Rice, Georgetown, Berkeley, and Emory are actually lower than Cornell, Brown, and Vandy…USNew hype leads some to such stupid conclusions. I just hope those folks don’t end up at Emory in the future). And these things matter more than the rank in my opinion. That’s a function of faux prestige, marketing, and SAT scores. </p>
<p>@bernie12 Exactly. I bet you know better than most that people (or, in this case, undergraduates) of “substance” are always in the small minority wherever you go. There are more at Emory than, say, Georgia State, because smarter people are more likely to have substance. But not by much unfortunately; they are still too few. However, when you have the uncommon (if not rare) opportunity to listen to two people of substance talking with each other–and you are one yourself–it always puts a smile on your face. </p>
<p>I guess “substance” is your term, but I personally don’t know what to call it. </p>
<p>@CrispyBullet : You must appreciate the potential of Emory when you recruit the right students and put them in the right academic environment (instructors and courses that inspire and challenge, such as Dr. Spell): <a href=“REDS: Rapid Ebola Detection Strips | Indiegogo”>https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/reds-rapid-ebola-detection-strips</a></p>
<p>Even if it does not work, it is the big thinking that counts. Emory needs the return of big thinking undergrads. I just wish those two knew that there were more ways to use their thinking than to just be pre-med as a future career path. That’s one weakness of the Emory environment. Even if you have big ideas, you start off or continue on some linear/straight path because it is what everyone else is doing. Those two may actually have more potential to make a difference in public health, industry, or academic research careers.</p>
<p>But either way, we need recruitment that leads to a return of that level of ambition and thinking that brought about things like solazyme (also came from Emory Alum). That in conjunction with an increasingly solid curriculum/teaching in sciences and elsewhere has potential to make Emory truly special. I’m willing to accept that Emory will be pre-dominantly pre-professional if we get even more students who at least try to pursue their biggest, most outlandish ideas that may change the world. We’re doing well in this category lately overall, but I am just pleased to see it come back to the fellow science oriented students (especially life sciences which is largely populated by very straight and narrow pre-health types that pretty much just “follow the rules”). </p>
<p>Bernie, the pre-health & pre-professionals didn’t make the rules. They are forced to play the “GPA game” and most dislike it as much as you. They just don’t have the academic freedom most other students enjoy so cut them some slack. </p>
<p>@bud123 : For one, I am mainly talking about EC’s. Also, it is not as sensible to choose the easiest intro. biology instructor possible when the concepts taught in that class are so important for the MCAT (choose the easiest ochen instructor…that makes the most sense). And they have a choice…you can tell that the attitudes of the pre-healths at certain schools influence the curriculum and level of rigor a lot at certain schools. Certain institutions get tougher pre-healths (maybe ones that are more “open” to begin with in terms of where to take their science talent if they have any). It could be a chicken and egg type of thing where the institutional culture dictates what types of science and pre-health students schools get (especially elite ones), but I am just arguing that Emory’s are relatively dull and are soft in comparison to say, Chicago, JHU, Cornell, and WashU (I guess the latter 3 are ones that you would expect to be similar). Also, one can argue that many have different attitudes toward science than those who consider other tracks with it. They may not like having to complete specific requirements, but you would have a hard time convincing me that most would take more challenging science courses and instructors if the GPA requirements were not so strict. Because, from observation, many still look on in shock even when they see non pre-healths taking difficult courses. It’s a “stepping stone” (as in, get through as seemlessly as possible without really having to work hard) attitude that you see at many places. At places with more hardcore curricula in the sciences, it seems many may have this, but are more open (or perhaps numb) to the idea of being challenged more than normal simply because that is the norm at such schools (many of these places have high success despite their students’ GPA’s being deflated relative to other schools. 3.6-3.8 is not really needed from such places). Also, you’ll notice that many such places even do things like encourage freshmen w/AP credits in science or math to “move on” or take more challenging things. At Emory, it simply isn’t the case…Our system (we aren’t the only top school like this) is more conducive to granting success to those who merely want to play the GPA game and be stereotypes (and that scheme has limited success in our case. It seems like tons of students here were advised such that they do it in a way that it is almost obvious to the reviewer that they are playing “games”. Med. schools know they do it, but it shouldn’t be blatant). Part of it is the recruitment and the next part is the advising. I’m saying that Emory’s system now fosters the stereotypes and I don’t think it was always like that. Another issue I brought up was the fact that people just come in “pre-med” and almost seem completely unaware or misinformed of other options in science. “Pre-med” at Emory is treated as some gold standard of sorts. Freshmen who come in considering some other health professions like public health are even oddballs (you think we’d get lots interested in that considering how good we are). </p>
<p>I just know I’m glad we recruited those two. </p>
<p>@bernie12 I just know I’m glad Emory recruited you. </p>
<p>This is so ridiculous. Emory is a top notch university regardless of the USN&WR rankings. Now it dropped 10+ places or something…</p>
<p>@franko5150 You got me curious, so I looked it up: Emory was ranked #9 in 1998, tied with California Institute of Technology, Columbia, Northwestern, and Brown. In 1997, Emory was ranked #19. In 1999, Emory was ranked #16.</p>
<p>@CrispyBullet:</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s weird. I know there was some weirdness in the 90s in the rankings. Apparently they actually made some mistakes or counted the wrong data. Now they’ve “fixed” it such that such things hardly happen and that there is a “predicted” pecking order in the top 10-15 for example. It was very volatile back then, kind of like how b-school and law rankings are now (especially outside of that range I mention). At least the new methodology in undergrad. rankings results in less volatility. Although, honestly, I could potentially see Emory being better academically back then than it is now (there is perhaps some evidence. By academics, I don’t mean selectivity). I can’t necessarily see it in league with Caltech, but maybe NU and Columbia, and I think Emory is essentially on par with schools like Brown and Cornell all of the time despite it being much different academically. But I think the 90’s was that weird “liberal arts-like school transitioning to R-1” phase. The new phase is “figure out how to be an even better and more robust research environment while also strengthening the academics again”. It’s just plain hard…growing pains. Again, at least the school is taking a look at its academic environment. One can only ponder if any such investigations will lead to successful action (such as the QEP, the “revisioning”, and some other things).</p>
<p>@bernie12 Interesting. Will you please elaborate on why you think Emory is on par with Brown and Cornell academically?</p>
<p>@CrispyBullet : My perspective is from the science background (non-engineering): From what I have seen, I would at least Emory is at least the same level of rigor in areas that are popular majors. In addition, just looking at the biology stuff I found from Cornell, I think Emory lacks diversity (unless you include neuroscience), but there appears to be much more innovation in pedagogy. For example, the things I have seen from Cornell were recent and many (if not most) of the core freshman AND sophomore courses were exclusively using multiple choice assessments. This to me suggested (ok, and I got a hold of some syllabi somehow a while ago. Don’t know if I would be able to find them again) that the classes were likely very large and were taught in the pure lecture format (no major activities, pbl, projects, discussion sections. BTW, I do not count recitation as discussion sections because classes with discussion sections at Emory focus on primary literature reading and analysis, and it appears they have penetrated about 1/4/-1/3 of intermediate and advanced biology courses). In honesty, Emory and Brown seemed more similar in the sciences from what I have seen. In addition to that, Emory is really solid at the UG level in some key social science and humanities areas. Again, the cool thing about Cornell is the size and diversity of options offered making them more so resemble a public school. One potentially cool thing about Brown is the kind of “open” curriculum they have. Many like this (I personally am more of a Chicago type of person, so I could care less). I suppose I would just say that Cornell and Brown are more “interesting” than Emory academically more so than higher in quality. Like I do not think the level and nature of instruction at either of those too is actually better than Emory’s in areas where we can compete (which are a lot in my opinion). In addition, the proliferation of multi and interdisciplinary departments at Emory (like QTM, Human Health, and new options in the Environmental Studies Dept to study in Rollins or GBS) is beginning to make it a slightly more interesting place to study for people who don’t necessarily fit the pre-professional mold of many of the other students.
One area we get killed that distinguishes us is in computational sciences (math, CS) and physics. Sad thing is, there seems to be no effort to improve the undergraduate experience in those depts. They have some great researchers, but the level of teaching and of the undergraduate experience in those depts (maybe except physics at the advanced level) just pales in comparison. </p>
<p>But again, looking even outside of the sciences, we seem to match up to many selective schools including some Ivies. There is lots of grade inflation, but a heavier than normal (say average state school…again, many humanities and social sciences are pretty standard across schools in general except that many selective privates may do some things differently. Like intro. to Political Theory at Emory will not necessarily look like the same course at UGA. UGA may just stick to a textbook and Emory will use several books tarting with The Republic or something…a much different approach. And this is indeed often the case. Other intro history and polisci courses at a place like Emory may include or encourage additional supplemental readings from primary lit. or whatever) reading and writing load in many of the courses, especially the small ones. As far as I’m concerned Emory vs. Brown or Cornell or any near ranked school is a matter of taste (which does indeed include whether or not the curricular offerings and structure are in line with the students’ interests) and ones drive for prestige. For example, a pre-health majoring in general biology, or basic chemistry at any of these schools is likely to have a similar quality experience. Nuances occur when a student says: “I wanna major in neuroscience” (in which case I think you entertain Emory or Brown more? I forget if Brown has Neuro concentration) or “I wanna major in environmental studies” (in which case you entertain Cornell more, but perhaps Emory depending on the angle/professional interests because both programs are good and take good advantage of their locations…)</p>