<p>With all the commotion surrounding USNWR rankings, prestige, programs, ect, I've noticed that all of the debate has centered around the placement of the top 30 schools. While each thread has it's own "voice of reason", noting the presence of hundreds of "good schools" around the country and the trivial differences between those top 30, debate continues as if being good isn't quite good enough. </p>
<p>CC'ers assert that their favored top 30 school isn't just a good school, it's a GREAT school. This is where my question(s) comes in:</p>
<p>How many truly "Great" schools are there in the country, provided that many schools are good? While some schools might be a great fit for individuals, select schools must be "Great" for an aggregate (that point could be contested as well). What distinguishes the great schools from the good schools? What are some quintessential great schools to you and what leads you to choose those over others? </p>
<p>This can be helpful to prospective college students in the college search forum who are debating the extent to which fit, feel, or program strength should influence their college search and the extent to which choosing amongst "great" schools is the more effective option.</p>
This type of sentiment (assuming it is not tongue-in-cheek) is all too common at CC. What makes a school “Great” differs for different people. Academics, living conditions, availability of research/internships, job and graduate school placements, sports and extracurriculars (proportionate to the size of the school), living conditions, local neighborhood, class size, quality of teaching, etc. all take on different importance to different people. What is a great school for one person may have nothing to do with what is a great school for others.</p>
<p>I think that every applicant should make a list of the various factors (such as those above) and create a 1 to 10 weighting of them as to their personal importance to him or her. Then, it should be possible to “rate” the schools (again, 1 to 10 works) on each of these criteria, multiply each by the weighting factor, and come up with a weighted sum for each school. When an applicant has done this, they will know which are the “great” schools for their own personal interests.</p>
<p>The question should really be “at how many schools can you get a great education?” One can go to a great school and not get a great education, or one can go to an lesser-known school and get a great education. Getting a great education depends more on the individual than the school they attend.</p>
Over the years, I have seen dozens and dozens of individual posts where people are star struck over the Ivy League, and dismissive of other schools. They aren’t being sarcastic, although ilovebagels apparently was.</p>
<p>Not that you’re wrong, but this simply is not my experience. I have, however, seen posters who were under the impression that MIT and Stanford were Ivy League schools, but I’ve never seen a person dismiss any school simply because it wasn’t in the Ivy League.</p>
<p>One of the more annoying things about CC is that most folks are either obsessed about the top 30, or are so petulantly anti-snobbish as to basically assert it doesnt matter where someone goes to college , or at least that fit factors like location always trump academic rigor, etc. </p>
<p>I think the quality factors among the schools roughly from 30 to 80 or so in the USNWR ranking (with all its faults) tend to be neglected here. At least thats my impression. Though if you ask specific questions about them, you can sometimes get a good discussion.</p>
<p>Is that person implying that anything below 50 is not respectable? Why don’t you get off your pedestal and face reality. There are what, like 2500 four-year colleges/universities in the United States and only 25 are good? 50 respectable? Wise up you elitist. </p>
<p>I would say that the top 50 are all excellent to some capacity. Clearly, some may be better than others, but they can all be grouped into the same general category. In terms of “great” schools, the list goes well beyond the top 100. No one can honestly say that the general perception of colleges in their area is anything like the one you mentioned. Get off your high horse and learn some maturity. The fact is this: a graduate from a community college can go on to find greater success than a Harvard graduate. Clearly, this is atypical, but the point still holds. It’s what you make of your education that defines you, not the school you attend. Success is in the hands of the individual.</p>
<p>A student who is happy at a fourth tier public is just as likely to tell you that his/her school is great as is a student who is happy at Harvard. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but one thing is certain: anyone whose primary measure of the quality of a college or university is its USNWR ranking clearly doesn’t get it.</p>