Before choosing my college, I researched a bunch of choices – one of which was Liberty University. I read claims like “your degree won’t be recognized by most grad schools”, and “their acceptance rate is over 90%”, “the average SAT of students accepted is 900” and “it’s just a religious school and doesn’t have accredited majors outside of religion”. And those were the nicer things that people said!
There are over 275 fully accredited majors, from Engineering to Aeronautics to Law to Molecular Biology (http://www.liberty.edu/undergrad/?PID=23849). They are regionally accredited like all other universities in the US, by the same accrediting agency, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, as every other institution in the region (http://www.sacscoc.org/details.asp?instid=43000).
The Engineering program, which I have been looking at, has an employment-before-graduation rate of 95%.
In short, I discovered that a lot of people with anti-Christian bias slander Liberty with wild, unsubstantiated claims that are not borne out by even cursory research (check out Bill Maher, for example, and the correction at the bottom of the article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/19/bill-maher-new-rule-liberty-university_n_1530400.html). If someone isn’t a Christian, I can see why they wouldn’t want to go there. But why would they go to such lengths to spread such lies? It really doesn’t make sense to me. I visited, met the people, went to classes, was in awe of the amazing campus. What a fantastic school. SO – I turned down scholarships to two other Engineering schools and decided that this was the place for me. Make your own decision, but I would encourage you to do your own research and not believe the lies that anti-Christian zealots spread about this great school.
I don’t really know anything about Liberty but the math doesn’t seem to make sense to me on the 22% admission rate. I looked it up in the NCES data base, and it does say 22% of 48,054 applicants were accepted, with a yield of 45% *roughly 5000 students). What makes no sense is how that gives 47,464 total undergraduates unless students are all staying for ten years. The graduation rate is a very concerning 50%, but perhaps that includes online students??
@OrchidBloom – see, that’s what is so weird to me. Why are you suspicious? I spent the last year choosing my college, and I want to share what I found with other people. What are you suspicious of? Why can’t someone share real experiences about Liberty without baseless skepticism? Oh, well. I know my choice is a good one, and it doesn’t really matter what people with closed minds think about my choice.
In general, many posters tend to equate acceptance rate with selectivity, OP, and you have done the same. Other Virginia colleges such as Washington & Lee, William and Mary and UVa are listed as most selective by USNWR. Liberty is indeed “selective,” but that is a category two levels removed from these other schools.
“Why can’t someone share real experiences about Liberty without baseless skepticism?”
It’s not baseless. Your behavior pattern is similar to what people do on Yelp and Trip Advisor and all the other review sites. They get paid or put up by the owner to post a review. They open a brand new username and have no other posts whatsoever under that user name.
Liberty has about 13,800 on-campus students and 80,000+ on-line students.
Yes, the admission rate is around 21% for what appears to be on-campus students only, according to http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1531 . However, admission rate does not tell anywhere close to the whole story on its selectivity, since the admitted frosh class high school stats are not that high (see that same web page – 3.34 HS GPA, 515/506/501 SAT, 22 ACT).
I’m in VA so we have news articles about Liberty that probably would not have national interest. There was an article last month that said when Ted Cruz made his announcement that he is running for president at an assembly on Liberty Campus, the honchos made it a mandatory student meeting. Students who failed to attend got gigs on their records. Too many gigs and a student is expelled.
I have no problems with it being a Christian school but expecting all students to lock step for the same candidate is oppressive.
As for selective, I know what my daughter got on her PSAT. I know what my son got on his. Her score is fairly average and they will not leave her alone! She has received about nine phone calls and many, many, mailings from them. He has received none and he is a very high stats kid. Believe me when I say his feelings are not hurt.
That doesn’t sound very selective to me. In fact, if the 22% admission rate is to be believed, Liberty would have to receive about 100,000 applications per year. And it definitely does not.
Neither does this:
You’ll note that that SAT score is right around the national average. Not a particularly high bar. In fact, [! Yikes. And since you made a comparison to UVA, how about this data point:
UVA average GPA: 3.68 - 3.89
UVA average ACT: 29-33
UVA average SAT: 1870-2180
Popular forums are targets for shills, that’s why people get suspicious. And didn’t you notice you answered a question that nobody asked? So you want a discussion on Liberty? OK, 'cause we are not going to rely on a high school kid who has no life experience or points of comparison.
Just because people say things that are not true about Liberty, like they are not accredited, doesn’t make it true. People say many things and if they are factually incorrect you can easily refute them and show the accreditation. Accreditation is a fairly low hurdle. However the admission rate used to be 90% fairly recently. They have had a couple of massive marketing pushes and funds are flowing in from the campaigns for online programs and military folks who have education benefits. Smart. It may be an okay path especially for working adults.
But let’s face it. Liberty doesn’t get flack because it is Christian affiliated. It is stuff like this, from student Kevin Roose:
"I remember opening my first Creationist Biology exam to find the question: “True or False: Noah’s Ark was large enough to accommodate various species of dinosaurs.” (According to my professor, the answer was “True” - since dinosaurs and humans cohabited the earth after the Flood, they would have had to find a way to squeeze onto the Ark. He suggested that they could have been teenage dinosaurs, so as to take up less space.) "
So best wishes in your faith based education. I hope you do not like hugs that last more than 3 seconds.
Not saying OP is a shill.
But selectivity, number of majors, etc, say zip about the quality of the education or how one’s critical thinking is honed.
We hope you are happy and become well educated wherever you land. But you can’t miss that US News ranks them #80, within the southern region. Their own listing of majors doesn’t show 275, it’s far fewer and those subsets OP linked are concentrations within a major, not unique majors themselves. (How did you figure Guitar Performance, Music Instrumental, Music & Worship, Music Vocal, Music & World Cultures, Song Writing, Piano Performance, String Performance, Vocal Music, Vocal Performance, Woodwind, Brass or Percussion Performance, etc, qualify as separate majors?)
Here’s a better breakout of majors: http://www.liberty.edu/academics/?PID=6908 Fewer than 80 Bachelors residential programs. No idea where OP got the 95% employment figure for engineering.
And you can easily see comments their faculty is entirely non-tenured.
So, the idea the critiques are anti-religious is blather.
As a geology student it always makes me cringe when the same people who believe the earth is 6000 years old drive cars powered by oil or use anything metal. Do they not realize that all of the models geologists/geophysicists use to find oil/ ore deposits rely on the assumption that the earth is orders of magnitude older than 6000 years old?
Even worse than that is when a university, which likely heavily manipulates or outright lies about its acceptance rate, requires that students learn such nonsense before they graduate.
Don’t cringe because many of us Christians do believe in the biblical history of the world. You cannot judge these kids’ education based on a couple of bio. courses that appear to be consistent with the book of Genesis.
OP, if you feel Liberty is a good fit for you, and you’ve done the research (and hopefully visited the campus), then by all means consider it. It’s comparable to schools like Valdosta State University, Troy University, Union College and Jacksonville University(FL). But as others have said, don’t get too wrapped up in the 21% acceptance rate.
Not looking to debate this issue with anyone. This argument has played out here many times. In the interest of accurate info, however, it should be noted that Liberty requires all students to attend Convocation, regardless of who is speaking. This requirement was not specific to Ted Cruz. Previous speakers have been quite varied. Students were NOT required to support Ted Cruz, and many do not.
Just responding to the OP–
Congratulations on making an informed choice that is a great fit for you! My daughter will attend Liberty this fall as a NMF in the Honors Program. While Liberty is not selective in general admissions, you will find many extremely bright, motivated students there. We were very impressed with this program, and she is so excited! Honors Program info can be found here. http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=20813
@luvmygirls: Some of the debate may have come from a reasonable doubt as to whether the OP is for real. Personally, I’ve read this thread to learn about a university that I have some curiosity about. Congratulations on your daughter’s NMF recognition and in her selection of a college.
merc81 – Thank you!
Just a heads up-- CC might not be the best place for an unbiased/accurate representation of Liberty, and accurate online stats are hard to come by, as grad rates and incoming student scores are wildly skewed by the inclusion of online students in those numbers. My recommendation would be to talk to those with actual first-hand experience with the school. We have met Liberty graduates who are happy with their experience and successful in their chosen fields.-- I think that’s what we all want for our kids (:
I discovered Liberty University early in my college journey (like sophomore-junior year). As a homeschooled student, it did appeal to young me and I was interested…I am still receiving mail after May 1. As time passed on, I realized that Liberty wasn’t the greatest fit for me and moved on. However, I saw many proud, happy Liberty students who were eager to talk about their school and share their experiences; and I also saw many prospective students and families quite interested in the school (or maybe they just came by for the free pens…)
It’s like any other college. Fit and suitability is important. Liberty isn’t for everyone and that’s okay, but for some people, it’s the best choice they could have made. Liberty does get a lot of flak for its heavy Christian influence and creationist views in science; but those factors do not detract from the quality of the students’ intelligence and potential.
Wow, after seeing this thread, I just had to sign up for an account (despite those of you who will be convinced that Liberty is paying me for it!). My son just made his final choice of going to Liberty, and I completely agree with the original poster. How many of you who are posting have actually been there? How many of you have met their graduates? How many of you have researched by actually looking at their curriculum? I have. Yes, instead of spouting off with a pre-conceived bias, my wife and I actually went through the process with our son. Our son is graduating from a prestigious prep school in Raleigh, NC, got a stellar SAT score, got accepted into every school he applied to, and was offered scholarships from all of them except the state school he applied to. And we were all convinced that Liberty was his best choice. Judging from all the responses above, some of you will start throwing insults at me. The fact of the matter is, successful, educated professionals like us send our smart, accomplished children to Liberty, and we are completely supportive of his choice. For those of you who are intent on your pre-conceived notions, that doesn’t mean much. But to those of you who are actually interested in knowing something about Liberty as a college choice, I’d say do the research yourself, meet the people, listen to their philosophy, look at their curriculum and seek to make an informed decision like we did.
