<p>@ NROTCgrad
Thanks for your response. I understand what you are saying. I think we largely form these opinions from reading and hearing others say certain schools are good/great the best. To some extent it is group think. This thing called prestige is important in some circles and at least acknowledged in many but carries little weight in most of the circles I deal with. I don’t know where most of my co-workers went to school, we never talk about it. I met one of the Deans at Purdue today, he didn’t ask me where I went to school and I didn’t ask him where he did his graduate work. A few years ago, I was at the University of Michigan and met with several faculty members there, same story. Come to think of it, I don’t even know where our patent lawyers went to school. Prestige can help open some doors, kind of like networking does, but by and large I think most people care about results and what have you done lately.</p>
<p>I went to OSU. Prestige is definitely difficult to quantify. The nice thing is that everyone has heard of OSU. The bad thing, though, is that so many people associate OSU with its athletics program, for better or worse. </p>
<p>I can speak to what I did experience, and that is that I don’t feel that OSU is very invested in its individual students. And the university is getting more “corporate”–more expensive, more profit-driven, less interested in keeping the price low through scholarships and tuition discounts, and less interested in recruiting full-time faculty and keeping class size small. OSU has also gotten a lot of bad press in the past two years–for Gordon Gee, mostly, and for what he represents. So you might want to keep that in mind if you’re concerned with “prestige.” Bad press doesn’t really help the school at all, and OSU has a mixed rep in higher ed circles. (I work in higher ed.) </p>
<p>It doesn’t surprise me that tuition awards for OOS students have been competitive. OSU is very interested in recruiting OOS students because even with an out-of-state tuition waiver they still pay more than the average in-state student. There’s a bit of psychological trickery there–you believe you’re getting a “great deal” because the price you’re paying is lower than the sticker price you were originally shown. But the actual value of the education is another matter altogether. A public education like OSU is by no means worth $45k a year. Ever. It is an education delivered to you by teaching assistants and other temporary faculty. </p>
<p>I would urge people to not be swayed by websites that proclaim the school is more competitive than everywhere else, or that it’s recruiting the “best and the brightest.” Higher ed loves these lines. Heck, they told my class that we were the “best and the brightest” they’d ever recruited in the history of mankind. They say this every year. They say it at every school. They are never going to tell you that this class is not as talented as last year’s, or that applications are down. Schools have “marketing” programs, not admissions departments. They say they same thing down at Miami every year. They say it at Penn State. They say it at Kenyon. Everyone everywhere is always getting the best students ever. I have no idea where the not-best students are going. </p>
<p>Sorry but I have to disagree adjunctified, my education at OSU has not been delivered by TAs and temporary professors, there are many great professors in many disciplines. Sure you’ll get the bad one every once in a while, but that happens at every university.</p>
<p>Ohio State is attracting out of state students from Pennsylvania because with decent board scores (ACT of 28), they can get the National Buckeye scholarship ($12,000 off per year), which brings the tuition/room/board bill to about $3,000 less than Penn State and University of Pittsburgh for Pennsylvania residents (roughly $25,000 vs. $28,000). So, it might be a good deal for OSU, but it’s also a good deal for the Pennsylvania students. My daughter was also offered another $14,000 off as a Morrill scholar from OSU, bringing the cost down to around $10,500, less than half the price of Pennsylvania public flagships. Neither Penn State nor UPitt offered her anything comparable. Pennsylvania has the highest costs for public universities in the country for in-state residents (because taxes have been frozen, and support for public universities has fallen, so tuition has risen), and will likely see more and more of its top students go elsewhere.</p>
<p>NROTCgrad, I’ll respectfully argue that while tOSU is Purdue’s peer or perhaps better in many disciplines, I would place Purdue ahead of them in engineering. While being a much larger school engineering does not register among OSU’s top 5 major for graduates of 2012, the top being psychology at 6%. Purdue’s top major for graduates of 2012 was engineering at 20%. Not only are there far more engineering students at Purdue they put far more of their resources into engineering. OSU has superb medical research facilities, however if I were choosing a place to study engineering I would consider Purdue ahead of OSU all other things being equal.</p>
<p>As you can see, for engineering and technology, Purdue is ranked 50th worldwide with OSU at 53rd. Purdue has a raw score of 57.6, and OSU is 57.4. By way of comparison, MIT is ranked number 1 with a raw score of 93.1 and Georgia Tech is number 11 at 82.3. Among BIG-10 state schools, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota are all ranked higher than both Purdue and OSU. Penn State is slightly lower.</p>
<p>Not sure how valuable such a ranking is, but there it is. </p>
<p>NROTC- interesting article. I have personal biases that would incline me to want to refute the study but I have neither the resources or the time. As I said, interesting.</p>
Just this evening I spoke to a OSU admissions counselor and she said that every year for the last three the average ACT of the incoming class has gone up by one point and it is anticipated to go up another point in the next application period.
To me, I feel like OSU is somewhat underrated. I live in California and everyone in my high school seems to have the impression that schools like UC Irvine and Purdue are significantly better, but I definitely feel as though this is not the case.
Yes, i think the Ohio State University is becoming more prestigious. I base this on several facts: Based on the Common Data Set, over the past 5 years the number of applicants has increased significantly, demonstating the high regard for the school amongst applicants. For Fall 2011 the number of applicants was in the low 20,000 range. For Fall 2013 the number of applicants was around 31,000, for Fall 2014 the number of applicants was around 36,000 and for Fall 2015 i understand that there were approx 42,000 applicants. The 2015 Common Data Set in the Fall should confirm this. With the increase in applications, the Admissions Office has been able to become more selective, with acceptances dropping from low 60% range several years ago to 52% last Fall and perhaps even lower for this year’s entering class. Also, the average ACT score of admitted students now is at 28.5 and over 60% are in top 10% of their high school class. Prestige correlates with increased admissions stringency. Another factor contributing to the desireability and increase in number of applicants and academic credentials of OOS applicants is the National Buckeye and other merit aid scholarships offered, which makes the tuition around $13,000 --close to in-state tuition, and thus provides a great value for highly qualified applicants in comparison to the approx $30,000 tuition charged to OOS applicants at other state flagships (and even higher–triple surcharge–$42,000 tuition for Michigan). Finally, the OSU campus has a spirited atmosphere, with students rallying around the national champion football program and top Division 1 sports teams, thus supplementing the academic experience and making OSU even more desirable to attend!
If you are speaking of academic prestige, it might help to have a little quantifiable data, rather than just shooting from the hip. This is a very useful, updated table which ranks universities, public and private, according to their current standings in fifteen major graduate disciplines, according to the (somewhat dubious, but still useful) U.S. News rankings. I believe it factors undergrad in for the business programs. This is a representation of how academics perceive these respective institutions:
tOSU holds its own. It does not rate with the likes of Michigan, Wisconsin, UCLA or UT-Austin in terms of overall disciplinary strengths. Penn State, Minnesota and Indiana are all closer to tOSU within the Big Ten, but they are truthfully not that much further down the list. You should really be specific when speaking of a reputation, whether it is an academic discipline, or a field of employment.
You should absolutely not be concerned that you cannot obtain a fine education and research opportunities at tOSU. They are there. Most major schools on this table are receiving more applications in recent cycles, so it is not the best metric to use. Also, I recommend that you be proactive at any major flagship instituition; while the scholars, programs and facilities can be excellent, you should take the initiative to get the best out of a major research institution – worry less about reputation, and more about your individual performance. Who you work with, and what research you perform, will count more as you advance in academia.
Acceptance rate numbers for each college are published in the Princeton Review’s “The Best 379 Colleges” 2015 edition, based on the Common Data Set Data for the 2013 entering class. OSU accepted 56% of applicants for Fall 2013. Princeton Review’s 2016 edition, which will be published this summer, should indicate a 53% acceptance rate, based on the Common Data Set for the 2014 entering class (36,788 freshman applicants and 19,484 were accepted).
To update this thread…Rankings provide some perception of increase in prestige. So I mention the US New & World Report College Rankings 2016, which was just published online today, It lists Ohio State at #52, Getting closer to moving into the top 50 national universities!! OSU ranked high in many areas (undergraduate business, engineering, and amongst public universities, etc…) See http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges for more details.
I hope you people do know that it doesn’t matter where you go to college. I went to Ohio State in the 80’s and they don’t really care about you. As I get older I am more impressed with other schools. The reason Ohio State rejects so many people is 1) they can, 2) the common application gives them more applicants to reject and 3) by rejecting more people that is what the U.S. News and World report is based on (how many people you reject). So all of this is just a game and doesn’t mean Ohio State is a good school.
@la2740 - while there may be other schools that could be seen as more impressive, you can hardly compare the OSU of the 1980s (aka the OSU with open admissions) to the OSU of today. I started OSU in 2001 and graduated in 2004, and admissions were competitive for me even then - as a non-traditional transfer student. I hardly believe that the common app allows them to get more apps to reject so their numbers look good to US News for rankings. Their programs and majors are stellar, which draws more applications, thus making it more competitive for admission.
Try running your 1980s stats by the admissions office now and see if you would get in. Maybe you would, but you might be surprised. College as a whole is more competitive now than it was 30 years ago. You can be more impressed with other schools, but you can’t deny that OSU is impressive as well. And no, it doesn’t “matter” where you get your undergrad, especially since, unlike the 1980s, you almost have to get an advanced degree to get more than an entry level job.
What impresses me with OSU most is the bang for your buck. Nationally recognized school, excellent, high ranked programs, and a good value to boot.
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