<p>“If programs are ranked within 5 or even 10 spots of each other, fit should take over. But where departments are ranked 20-30 spots apart, quality of department should be considered”</p>
<p>Alexandre, this part of your post should be put in bold print for any college bound student who is pretty sure about his/her academic focus. I feel way too many kids get caught up in some schools’ overall reptutation (due to rankings or whatever) and don’t look at the strengths of individual programs at the schools.</p>
<p>I also totally agree with Alexandre’s last paragraph. </p>
<p>Alums, students and other supporters need to realize that when they hear/see that their school isn’t considered as strong as other schools in certain areas, it isn’t a knock on their entire school’s reputation. </p>
<p>Every school has certain departments that are stronger than others. These in turn get more funding, are more attractive for recruiting the best academics in that field, etc. It is what it is.</p>
That’s because some people keep making unfound statements like "Virginia’s engineering program is improving rapidly’', and “UVA is much higher in science than people are listing”…lol</p>
<p>The internal document barrons referenced is quite recent. There is no indication that UVa is making great progress in the science and engineering areas. For example, UVa has merely 4 NAS members and 3 NAE’s, compared to VTech (3/3), Michigan (20/22) and UCB (127/74).</p>
<p>Even if both schools are out of state, UVA is significantly less expensive. Michigan is not even in the top 50 for in state and out of state value (Go to princeton review or look at my previous links), where as UVA is number 1 in state and top 10 out of state. As for engineering and sciences, I never said UVA’s engineering program was better or even on par with Michigan’s; I simply said it was improving. The fact of the matter is that UVA is not a bad college for engineering and CERTAINLY not for sciences. A focused student, regardless of major rankings, will do well at either school in sciences or engineering. There are great opportunities at both schools. If you are in the state of Virginia, however, why would you not even look at Virginia Tech for engineering?</p>
<p>As for UVA being over rated, I respectfully disagree. UVA is an excellent school that deserves to be neck and neck with schools like Michigan, Cal, UNC, etc. The fact that UVA is one or two spots ahead of Michigan doesn’t mean that Michigan is significantly worse… it simply means that they are both excellent schools. Btw, weather is not a factor in the rankings. Such a small difference in rankings is insignificant, and people really should not take offense to it. One thing is clear though: UVa is easily in Michigan’s league.</p>
<p>Ahmed, if you think $165,000 is “significantly less expensive” than $185,000, that’s fine. Personally, the way I see it is as follows:</p>
<p>At $165,000, UVa is expensive. At $185,000, Michigan is slightly more expensive than UVa. And I don’t think family wealth changes thing. To a middle income or lower income family, both are prohibitively expensive. To wealthy families, both schools are affordable. I suppose to upper middle income families, Michigan can be considered “more expensive”, but even then, I would not use the word “significantly” to describe the gap.</p>
<p>Alexandre, I do not intend to say that UVA is cheap out of state. However, when you compare the two, there is a four thousand dollar difference. When two schools are academic peers and one is four thousand dollars less per year, it can make the difference in the college decision. Even if you don’t want to use the word significant, it’s definitely something to take into account (certainly isn’t negligible unless one college is much better than the other in your major such as engineering).</p>
<p>They are both expensive out of state; I never disagreed with that. However, a total of 20,000 dollars even to wealthier families, should be considered when two or more academically similar colleges are being compared out of state. </p>
<p>According to Salaries.com, city-data.com, and the Michigan/UVA websites, Charlottesville is cheaper than Ann Arbor for cost of living. (This takes each city’s respective salary into account) </p>
<p>One of the three or four lists that I was referring to for value (Kiplinger) considers more than just tuition :</p>
<p>We look at:</p>
<pre><code>* Total cost for in-state students (tuition, mandatory fees, room and board, and estimated expenses for books)
Average cost for a student with need after subtracting grants (but not loans)
Average cost for a student without need after subtracting non-need-based grants
Average percentage of need met by aid (need-based assistance)
Average debt a student accumulates before graduation
</code></pre>
<p>To determine out-of-state rankings, we run the academic-quality and cost numbers again, this time using total costs for out-of-state residents and average costs after aid.</p>
<p>Michigan did not rank in the top 40 for either of these lists. Not to say 4k a year should stop you from going to an excellent college at Ann Arbor, but I think we can agree that it’s something that applicants should consider.</p>
<p>I definitely agree that cost is something to consider, and to some, $20,000 over 4 years is definitely something to think about. I personally don’t think the value rankings are well conducted personally. In the end, Michigan is typically a little more expensive than UVa…and all things being equal…both of those universities are a great value given the amazing undergraduate experience they offer students.</p>
“UVas School of Engineering & Applied Science improved its ranking this year, jumping from 35th to 28th”, Wood said.
[/quote]
That’s not real improvement … much less ‘rapid improvement’. UVa’s peer assessment score was almost identical this year (3.46) and last (3.4x), except for the last decimal place. USNWR presents schools scoring between 3.46-3.55 as one group and 3.36-3.45 as the group below. So the difference might be as trivial as 0.01 point and it’s a matter of rounding up or down. There are 7 schools sharing the 28th place with UVa bringing up the rear at 3.46 … thus UVa is actually ranked 34th this year and 36th last year … if that really matters.</p>
<p>Yeah they are both great schools that prepare students well for their next levels of education and/or careers, which easily justifies the respective costs of the schools.</p>
<p>Peer assessment was not the only criterion for the list. UVa is not going to be a top 15 school for engineering overnight. On the USN list it specifically states that UVA has improved in every single category. That is a good sign, even if it is just a list. I do not wish to argue about this any more, though. We both agree that Michigan’s engineering program is better. </p>
<p>They are both good schools, but I would not advise anyone to pay 100,000 dollars more for Michigan, even for the majors that you listed. (Seriously though, check out VA tech as well… campus is very nice, students are diverse, and Blacksburg is great!)</p>
<p>Peer assessment (for engineering) is the only criteria USNWR used to rank UG engineering programs:</p>
<p>“The U.S. News rankings of undergraduate programs…for Engineering and Technology are based solely on the judgments of deans and senior faculty who rated each program they are familiar with on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished).”</p>
<p>As I stated in post #53, UVa’s engineering peer assessment score has not really improved this year … and its USNWR engineering ranking has at most ‘jumped’ from 36th to 34th.</p>
<p>
I couldn’t find this statement in the link you provided (post #45). Where did USN state that? In fact, why would USN make such a statement when it’s not even true (e.g., SAT range and selectivity dropped; financial resource rank dropped).</p>
<p>I keep posting it because many people apparently have not read it–and it is a rare and unique find. A “top rated” school basically being told–actually you pretty much suck in these areas. That is gold. Now it is reflected in other state like the poor ranking in NAS members and in the academic analytics and SJTU reports. Just neat to see it all come together to prove UVa is one overrated school. The only things it has that are in UM’s league are Law and Business.</p>
<p>Ahmedkhokar
Is UVA secret society still active on campus?
what are they?
are they control student government?
Do you like big “Z” (secret society symbol)every where UVA campus?</p>