<p>TheDad and dstark, Thank you for your kind words. I teach children from a multi-cultural, low income neighborhood in a Northern Californian City. I love to teach.</p>
<p>Mr.B, that's great. We need more teachers like you.</p>
<p>Amen......</p>
<p>IvyLeaguer, you still do not understand my groupings. They have nothing to do with the types of students they attract. I am grading institutions according to quality...plain and simple. Nothing else. And I do not follow your posts, nor did I accuse you of attacking others. All I know is how you behaved with me. I couldn't care less about how you interact with others.</p>
<p>Give me a break, Alexandre. UVa in Group III? Even your bible (a.k.a. U.S News rankings) places it at #2 w/ your alma mater Michigan.</p>
<p>Also, bravo Mr. B. Well stated!</p>
<p>Alexandre,
Michigan is obviously not better than U.Va.
The top publics (UVA, Berkeley, UNC, UCLA, W&M, Michigan, etc.) have so little difference in academic quality from one another that it is foolish to determine the exact rank among them.
1. The student qualities at these institutions are pretty much similar to one another. You wouldn't disagree with me in this regard.
2. The faculties at these schools are smart enough to teach and inspire their students. A person with a Ph.D., research, and teaching experience in a certain discipline obviously knows enough to teach their relatively ignorant undergrads. A big-prize winner (such as the Nobel Prize) is not required to teach the undergrads effectively. Superior research does not correspond to superior teaching, and this can be seen in many LACs that provide great instructions to their students even without excellent researchers.
3. Graduate rankings do not relate to the undergrad ranks. Graduate rankings tend to lean towards the research productivity. Undergrads, on the other hand, mostly require effective teaching rather than research. How does one conduct a research when he does not know the necessary material in the first place? Grad schools are for those who are already quite familiar with certain disciplines whereas UG colleges are for those who are new to academic fields and beginning to gain knowledge and experience.
Since graduate and undergrad schools are different in their characters, it is unreasonable to assume the undergrad ranks will be consistent with graduate ones.</p>
<p>where do you goto school?</p>
<p>I attend UVA.</p>
<p>Mr.B,</p>
<p>I really admire your words and find it refreshing to hear from people such as yourself on this forum. As a high school senior, Im constantly trying to consider such a message in my own college selection.</p>
<p>Buddah's last words were "Be a light unto yourself", and i detect some of this in your post. Ultimately, education is going to come from within. Furthermore, happiness will come from within, thereby meaning that being a CEO, as a result of landing a good starting job, as a result of attending a top school, is not the most important thing.</p>
<p>With this being said, and keeping Buddah's words to heart, for those who do not have unlimited funds, perhaps if we are our own greatest teachers, then theres no need to spend the extra $30,000 for a private school? </p>
<p>I for one am trying to learn that while I wanted to attend a small LAC (Skidmore) because of the kids i was hoping id meet, in reality i can find this sort of education anywhere.</p>
<p>Maybe im just tired...what do you all think?</p>
<p>the debate will keep continuing as the next class of applicants pour into CC. those who champion the schools that are not getting enough respect will never get tired. unfortunately, it seems that all we care about are rankings and prestige and such, and there are those in CC who want to maintain that elitism. fortunately, the majority of normal college applicants DONT need to come to CC to post. nevertheless, i have to commend those like alexandre and shyboy for their efforts in bringing attention to schools that more often than not get overlooked.</p>
<p>Bit of a conflict of interest don't you think? Not blaming them, I would defend my alma mater too</p>
<p>Alexandre this is your quote "Ivyleaguer, you seem to enjoy insulting people." once again I don't know how attacking or insulting you became plural. </p>
<p>Secondly, quality is exactly what I meant by academic environment so get a grip. It still stands those you grouped have very little in common with other as per my original response: here it is again with quality thrown in if that makes it beasier for you to understand:</p>
<p>Alexandre, there you go, once again spreading misleading information. What exactly do Cal-tech and Dartmouth have in common? Very little. Dartmouth is a liberal arts college and Cal-tech as it names suggests concentrates on anything but. These two school, attract VVERYdifferent students and offer very different QUALITY. Your grouping of these schools is almost based entirely on the U.S news ranking. Dartmouth and Columbia for example attract more similar students to HYP and have similar academic atmospheres to HYP than say MIT and HYP.</p>
<p>Your grouping motivation seeks to justify or rather, legitimize the fact that you attend ( or as you say "chose") a public university.</p>
<p>ivyleaguer- Once you leave the bubble of east coast academia you're going to be in for a rather rude awakening.</p>
<p>FYI, as I found this in another post and thought it was relevant to this discussion.BERKELEY UC Berkeley is the No. 1 engineering and information technology (IT) university in the world, according to rankings published today (Dec. 10) by the Times Higher Education Supplement. The weekly British newspaper also named Berkeley No. 4 on its list of the top 100 science universities. </p>
<p>This flattering news follows the THES's November announcement that Berkeley finished second in its first-ever list of the top 200 universities in the world, behind only Harvard University. The world rankings were based on an expert peer-review panel of 1,300 international academics that was weighted by subject specialization and location. </p>
<p>On the Top 100 Engineering and IT Universities list, Berkeley was awarded a "normalized" score of 200, closely followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at 191.15 points; Stanford University trailed in third place with 150.71 points. On the science rankings, Cambridge dominated with a weighted score of 200, Oxford with 169.8, and Harvard and Berkeley separated by less than a point weighted scores of 159.8 and 159, respectively. </p>
<p>The newspaper did not explain how or if the criteria for this and the science list differed from that used to select the top 100 world universities. Half of the scores for those rankings was based on a university's reputation as determined by the 1,300 expert peer-review responses; 20 percent depended on the volume of citations per faculty member; 20 percent on faculty-to-student ratios; and the final tenth based on how "international" the university was considered to be. (A Berkeleyan article, "We're No. 1! (Now what?)" from Dec. 2, discusses in more detail the reservations that the academic community has about both ranking methodologies and the subject of university rankings in general.)</p>
<p>UC Berkeley's reputation as a top research university is already well-established. The once-every-decade survey by the prestigious U.S. National Research Council puts Berkeley at No. 1 in the number of graduate programs that are ranked in the top 10 in their fields (97 percent of Berkeley's programs made the group's individual top 10 lists). The NRC will next update its rankings in 2006. </p>
<p>donpon, of course a person can learn without a school, that is where most people do learn, regardless of their degrees; but a good teacher enveloped in a good program can enhance both the quality and speed of learning. A degree can also open doors to positions where one can have leverage to be of greater help.</p>
<p>As a parent I would prefer small size classes with the best professors, but should my daughter decide to go to a large Public University like the UCs, I would not be disappointed. It is her choice and their are many reasons to pick one college over the others.</p>
<p>I don't believe in the concept of a best college, because two students at the same college can have divergent experiences. Even with advanced and dedicated research, there are so many unknowns that affect human life and satisfaction. Eliot Porter graduated from Havard with a BS in chemical engineering and a Medical degree, but made his mark on the world with a camera that he (reportedly) received as a graduation gift. I think you will find it is what you do with your education that will matter more than where you got it. Good Luck</p>
<p>Mr. B,</p>
<p>Of the following, which would you say would provide the best education, not by numbers alone but by quality of their students and professors? I'm a pretty liberal person so im not sure about Colgate...</p>
<p>Skidmore, Oberlin, Colgate, Connecticut College, University of Rochester, SUNY Binghamton, SUNY Geneseo</p>
<p>And would you say that an education at the victor school would be considerably better than that of Geneseo? $$</p>
<p>Im considering majoring in something like Psychology or English, but at this point I can't be certain.</p>
<p>The average SAT scores for students entering Skidmore, and SUNY Geneseo are almost the same. Acceptance rates are almost the same. Geneseo has more top ten students...49% to 41%. This is from the 2003 freshman class.</p>
<p>donpon, I don't know you and would be hesitant to direct you toward your future. I can tell you where I would want to go and where I would want to avoid. This is just an opinion and does not necessarily represent factual information.</p>
<p>I would avoid New York City because I don't trust the air quality after 911 (that was a lot of abestos released)</p>
<p>I wouldn't pick a college based on sports teams because I am not interested in sports outside of dorm on dorm. I don't mind if they have a team but I wouldn't want it to be the focus of the school.</p>
<p>So, I would want to go to a school outside of the city, I like rural.
I would want a great library, because I enjoy doing research and I don't like to wait for a loan book to arrive in a week (I am not that well organized to plan for the book need before I need it)
So I need a large library. So I am looking for a school with a huge library.</p>
<p>I want a large international body, because I have seen the tunnel vision of small towns. (My town thought it had all the world religions represented because we had Baptist, and Catholic churches)</p>
<p>I would prefer a research campus because I don't like to work with text books that are three years behind the current thought..so I would rather have a prof that was using drafts of her or his own book.</p>
<p>I enjoy music and would want live music venues. I like to eat so campus food is a mild consideration.(don't underestimate small considerations over a four year period of time)</p>
<p>I would want a college that had many majors with great depths of courses, because my expectation of a great school is that it will change me many times and that I could be exposed to a major interest that I am not even aware of today....like studying bug behaviors relationship to international monetary systems..(could happen) I like large campuses because my hometown was so small the school board members had to take turns as the village idiot)</p>
<p>Since money has not been an object when I chose careers, money would be an object when choosing a college and that knocks a lot of privates out of the picture. </p>
<p>So my first choice isn't on your list.
If I was a New Yorker, I would get to a state school at Cornell, (large library, strong research institution, rural, diverse population of students from all over this planet (and perhaps several others.) IfI was interested in phychology or English, I might consider the School of Human Ecology or Agriculuture and life for communication ( and then grab all the english classes at the arts school I could manage.) Suny Binghampton might be on my list, but I would also be looking at financial aid packages at some of the privates (Union, Colgate, Hobart/Smith, Hamilton)</p>
<p>I don't know much about Geneseo except Fisk includes it along with Purchase, Stoney Brook and a hand ful of state schools. That is a good sign. I would avoid Albany and Oneonta and several other state schools because I am not a big drinker.
U of R is sitting in my mind as a science place, I don't remember any great writers from there.</p>
<p>You can go to the Princeton review , the college board, and wired scholar and insert your stats, they will give you a list to start off of. Don't make your decision based upon these lists or my advice...search this out for yourself. If I was a teenaged girl, I would also consider the sisters. Good luck</p>
<p>Atlantic Monthly ranks top 10</p>
<ol>
<li>MIT </li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>California Institute of Technology</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>University of Pennsylvania</li>
<li>Brown<br></li>
<li>Swarthmore.</li>
</ol>
<p>forzagiovanni, what did it rank them for? Was it total number of research papers quoted, undergraduate teaching success, affordabiltiy. The problems with rankings are tied to the processes and values used to rank and how do they apply to the individual students needs. The use of ranks, even the ones I posted above, as anything more than a starting point can be dangerous.</p>
<p>If I wanted to rank colleges (based on affordability to me) the community college around the corner where tuition is $24 a credit and I can keep my job and live where I already live would come up first. Considering that I could transfer into Berkeley or UCLA to complete an undergraduate degree and it might be the top of a list of best buys.</p>
<p>If I wanted to rank colleges (based on average class size, or professors acquired degrees or on football scores) I would get different rankings.</p>
<p>Which of the colleges on your list would you not want to go for to study colonial art, which one would you choose as perfect for that major area of study? What if your interest was entomology? These lists will always be biased by the values placed on the selection criteria.</p>
<p>Preaching to the choir here, Mr. B. And, if as is often the case, one's priorities include a mushy combination of several factors, each individual's rankings are <em>really</em> going to vary wildly. Which is as it should be if you want individuals making their own decisions based on their own needs, not sheep whose choices are being dictated by the preferences of others.</p>