Is BYU on par with Princeton?

College Search & Selection
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<p>When completely ignoring anything related to religion, how does BYU perform as a secular academic institution? Is it a top school? Mormons tell me it's equal to top 20 Universities, or even higher. Someone I know transferred from Princeton and thought BYU was equal to it.</p>

<p>Some questions... answer as you please...</p>

<p>1 - Is BYU prestigious?
2 - How's the academic reputation among the academic community?
3 - Is the BYU liberal arts education/foundation sufficient, in your opinions?
4 - Work recruitment? (top investment banking well represented?)
5 - Grad school placement? (are students frequently accepted to top programs?)
6 - Is BYU on par with top 20-ish universities; why or why not? (at the undergrad level)</p>

<p>---> Any facts/anecdotes on this school would be especially appreciated. In general, any comments you have on BYU besides flaming/bashing would be great. Thanks</p>

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<p>Mitt Romney transferred to BYU from Stanford, and graduated as valedictorian.</p>

<p>I think of it as comparable to Notre Dame, in a couple of ways.</p>

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<p>The problem with BYU is it has little attraction to non-LDS students. For Mormons, BYU gives students a safe environment (pretty much free of drugs, drinking, and things that chip away at religious tenets). I think in terms of prestige, it’s likely comparable to Notre Dame (personally, I’d consider ND a bit higher, but that may be because I’m from a Catholic family. Still didn’t apply =P). I know one of the top candidates for universities two years ago chose BYU over any other college. He was an IB candidate who excelled at lacrosse, football and soccer, and did extremely well in all his classes, and is now on his mission trip.</p>

<p>The thing is, though, is that if you’re not Mormon, you don’t really think of BYU much. It’s under-the-radar for most people. For me, anyways, Utah’s almost a blank space. I live in AZ, and have had Mormon friends (though in high school, they tended to drift towards each other, rather than with their middle school friends), and most people I knew would gladly consider school in Colorado, but not as easily in Utah. It’s hard to have a “normal” college experience without alcohol, without sex, without temptation.</p>

<p>For those who go to BYU, I think it seems like a top 20, even a top 10 college, because they prefer its atmosphere to other schools so much more. They want others as dedicated to their faith as they are, just as ivy-league kids want people as dedicated to academics as they are.</p>

<p>Now, as for stats:
Admit rate: 69%
Diversity: 4% Asian, 1% Native American, <1% Black, 4% Hispanic, 1% International, and 2% unreported
HS GPA: 62% = 3.75+
24% = 3.5-3.74
10% = 3.25-3.49</p>

<p>SAT CR mid 50: 550-660
Math mid 50: 570-680 (only 1/3 submit SAT though)
ACT mid 50: 25-30</p>

<p>These stats argue that BYU is NOT a top-20 university. It doesn’t attract the same groups of students that the ivies, berkeley, michigan, duke, etc. attract.
HOWEVER, form out west, if you’re not in California, and you want to stay in the west, BYU is likely better than pretty much every school east of California and west of Texas. So, for mountain states, BYU could very well be the best university, but again, not really a top-20. However, for many LDS kids, there’s nowhere else they’d aspire to but BYU, just like in my family many kids have always yearned to go to ND. Which makes it seem like the best university in the world. And to them, it is.</p>

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<p>BYU doesn’t have the draw of a princeton. That said, it’s a good school.</p>

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<p>Well, let’s compare, shall we?</p>

<p>US News rank: Princeton #1, BYU #71
Peer Assessment score: Princeton 4.9 (out of 5.0), BYU 2.9
Acceptance rate: Princeton 9.9%, BYU 69.3%
SAT/ACT 25th/75th percentile: Princeton 1390-1580, BYU 1120-1350
Freshmen in top 10% of HS class: Princeton 97%, BYU 51%
Average HS GPA: Princeton 3.9, BYU 3.8
Student/faculty ratio: Princeton 5/1, BYU 20/1
Freshman retention rate: Princeton 98.0%, BYU 86.8%
6-year graduation rate: Princeton 96.0%, BYU 79.0%
Classes with fewer than 20 students: Princeton 74.9%, BYU 47%</p>

<p>Bottom line: Princeton bests BYU on every dimension, in most cases by a wide margin. Anyone who tries to tell you these schools are on the same plane is seriously out of touch with the reality that 99+% of the world lives in daily.</p>

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<p>Not even close.</p>

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<p>BYU is way ahead of Princeton in athletics. Princeton is well ahead in academics, which of course is what counts. However, BYU grads do well getting into good grad and professional school programs. See this previous analysis from a couple of years ago. BYU is in good company among schools getting lots of grads into top law schools:</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/331960-undergraduate-schools-most-commonly-found-top-law-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/331960-undergraduate-schools-most-commonly-found-top-law-schools.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Both are big in the arts: F.Scott Fitzgerald went to Princton; Michael Jackson went to Bring 'em Young.</p>

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<p>One notable alternative to the USN&WR rankings is the so-called “revealed preference” ranking system. This system ranks schools by their success at winning cross-admits. For example, if students who are admitted to both School A and School B usually choose School A, then School A is ranked higher. </p>

<p>BYU has been ranked quite highly under the “revealed preference” system. For example, a 2005 study put BYU at #21 nationwide, ahead of schools like Johns Hopkins, Middlebury, Northwestern, and Berkeley. (for comparison, Princeton was ranked #6, behind Harvard, Caltech, Yale, MIT, and Stanford). </p>

<p>However, this may reflect a weakness of the “revealed preference” system. BYU probably gets relatively few non-LDS applicants, and so the the cross-admit pool shared by BYU with any other school is probably heavily tilted towards LDS students; such students are much more likely to prefer BYU.</p>

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<p>^you should also consider that BYUs tuition is really, really low, making the school even more enticing, especially to the wealthier families.</p>

<p>I’m sorry, but I’m ignorant when it comes to graduate/professional school admissions. Would being Mormon give a student an edge when it comes to graduate/professional school admissions? And would that edge be more or less than the edge given to an URM?</p>

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<p>^religion shouldn’t be factored into graduate school or professional school admission. However, if BYU is what you put under undergraduate institution and you don’t have heavy involvement at a synagogue or mosque, most people will just assume you’re mormon.</p>

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<p>The development of critical thinking skills is repeatedly cited by educators as the single most important goal of a higher education. Steven D. Schafersman on freeinquiry.com defines “critical thinking” as “reasonable, reflective, responsible, and skillful thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.” He says “A person who thinks critically can ask appropriate questions, gather relevant information, efficiently and creatively sort through this information, reason logically from this information, and come to reliable and trustworthy conclusions about the world that enable one to live and act successfully in it.”</p>

<p>Consider how crucial opportunities for the development of critical thinking skills are to the pursuit of excellence by colleges and universities while considering these quotes from BYU’s Mission Statement:</p>

<p>“The mission of Brigham Young University–founded, supported, and guided by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints–is to assist individuals in their quest for perfection and eternal life . . . To succeed in this mission the university must provide an environment enlightened by living prophets and sustained by those moral virtues which characterize the life and teachings of the Son of God . . . All students at BYU should be taught the truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Any education is inadequate which does not emphasize that His is the only name given under heaven whereby mankind can be saved.”</p>

<p>I am a Christian myself and I have no overt hostility toward BYU. But can a student truly learn to “reason logically from information, and come to reliable and trustworthy conclusions about the world” at a university that has so clearly done this reasoning for them and pre-ordained their conclusions? On an objective comparison of institutional statistics such as those offered above by bclintonk, BYU is nowhere near Princeton. But regarding the larger issue of universities which provide opportunities for the kind of critical thought that is at the core of higher learning, Princeton is without a doubt one of the half-dozen or so top universities in the world, while it could be argued that BYU is not in the same sense an institution of higher learning at all.</p>

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<p>^ Well said, mister.</p>

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<p>^ Me too. [10 char]</p>

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<p>That may be true for a solely secular schools, but it ignores the fact that originally and for centuries afterward the purpose of British universities and their Ivy league descendants was to train clergymen for The Church. For pretty much all universities then, and for religious universities still, higher education and religion were/are inseparable.</p>

<p>I speak as a parent who sent both my kids to highly-secular colleges that play in the same league as Princeton, but it seems to me that the higher education tent is big enough to encompass more than one model and one set of institutional values, especially given the history of universities in the Western world.</p>

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<p>Well, they probably think anything affiliated with the Mormon church is among the best anyway.</p>

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<p>^ definitely true and which I think is rdiculously false. I am kinda against mormonism and that may be why i am biased but honestly you dont want to know what they believe.</p>

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<p>That’s precisely the reason why I don’t trust that “revealed preference” survey thing. Even some super smart Mormons that I know would easily pick Berkeley over BYU if they’re given that chance.</p>

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<p>And I know some who have in fact made just the opposite choice in the Berkeley/BYU question. And that’s precisely why I would trust a survey of a broad population over a couple of anecdotes. The few people you know or the few that I know add up to just a few data points - insufficient to define general trends.</p>

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Ditto, except Duke/UNC instead of Berkeley. BYU has an exceedingly low cost of attendance, and in many cases churches will pay to have students educated there (my friend did this).</p>