Most Elite Colleges & Universities for Academics--2020 Fiske Guide To Colleges

College Search & Selection
101

In response to @firmament2x’s question on the other Fiske Guide To Colleges thread:

The University of California at San Diego received ratings of:

5 Pens for Academics

3 Telephones for Social Life

4 Stars for Quality of Life

Overlaps: UCal-Berkeley, UCLA, UC-Davis, UC-Irvine, UC-Santa Barbara, Georgia Tech, UNC & USC.

Quote: “The students at UC San Diego are exceptionally serious…”

“…seaside paradise.”

“Six undergraduate colleges break the university down to a more manageable size. Best known for science, engineering, and the famed Scripps Institute of Oceanography.”

Each of the university’s colleges has its own housing complex, with either dorms or apartments.

102

Another interesting feature of the Fiske guide To Colleges 2020 edition is:

“A Guide For Preprofessionals” which lists colleges & universities with unusual strength in nine professional areas:

Architecture

Art/Design

Business

Communications / Journalism

Engineering

Film / Television

Dance

Drama

Music

The Fiske Guide editors need to update their intro to this section as it now includes eleven (11) areas of study having added:

Environmental Studies

International Studies

Additionally there is a section on Learning Disabilities which lists 33 schools with “Strong Support For Students With Learning Disabilities”.

103

Your basic premise is correct, but I wonder if sometimes the details are a bit over the top. There are lots of schools in the Fiske Guide that are far from rich kid colleges, and I have never thought of the Fiske Guide as a book aimed primarily at the wealthy.

As for the book being advertisement for the schools, well, yeah. Of course, the profiles are positive (at most, a student might be quoted saying that her large flagship has a lot of red tape), but I don’t think that the person who buys or borrows the book is expecting anything other than general, anodyne write-ups. The profiles are the print version of the college visit. Few families can afford the time or money to visit dozens of schools all over the country, and no family can visit 300+ schools. Thus, the Fiske Guide gives readers a general sense of what each school is like. I am fine with that. There’s value in that. Most students/families know to look deeper than the guided on-campus tour or any book’s profile of a school. That’s what return visits and overnight stays are for.

Yes, it is frustrating when students/families build college lists based on acceptance rates, or how many times have we seen a student post her list of twenty schools and–surprise, surprise–she’s simply cribbed the “top 20” national universities from US News? Equally annoying is, as you point out, the colleges’ complicity in all this. Admissions offices may hate the rankings, but they have orders to do what it takes to move up in them (or, if a school has a very high ranking, to not lose ground). I find it helps to sigh and move on.

104

Under the heading “Architecture” there are 3 sub-categories:

Private Universities Strong In Architechture (22 schools)

Public Universities Strong in Architecture (also lists 22 schools)

A Few Arts-Oriented Architecture Programs (lists 7 schools).

For Example:

The 22 Public Universities Strong In Architechture are:

Univ. of Arizona
UCal-Berkeley
CalPoly–San Luis Obispo

Univ. of Cincinnati
Clemson University
Univ. of Florida

Georgia Tech
Univ. of Illinois
Univ. of Kansas

Kansas State University
Univ. of Maryland
Miami Univ. of Ohio

Michigan
Nebraska-Lincoln
New Jersey Institute of Technology

Univ. of Oregon
Penn State
SUNY–Buffalo

Univ. of Texas at Austin
Virginia Tech
Univ. of Washington

The Seven (7) Arts-Oriented Architechture Programs are:

Barnard College
Bennington College
Pratt Institute

RISD (Rhode Island School of Design)
Savannah School of Art and Design
Wellesley College

Yale University

105

SUNY Albany the academic equivalent of Notre Dame? Hmm.

106

Yay! Both of my kids’ schools get 4.5 pens!

Viewing these ratings in isolation without the context of the rest of the Fiske entry is not super helpful. I have a Fiske from 2015. Yes, my D did look at the ratings Fiske uses, but she read the entries in full. The full entry is why my daughter was interested in Bates, but not Bowdoin or Colby. I’m pretty sure that the intent of the entries in Fiske is to give a broad and fairly accurate picture of what a college is like. Otherwise students and parents could just look at a basic rankings list. It’s about reading the full entry so that students can make a good list of colleges that interest them.

107

The list of 4 pen schools is one of the most bizarre lists I can ever recall seeing.

108

@Publisher, what is the dance list?

109

No, not actual social science majors. I was referring to those who major in whatever is easiest (at least for them), so that they can have the best social life at college.

110

“SUNY Albany the academic equivalent of Notre Dame? Hmm”

That one jumped out at me as well. And not just Notre Dame. Emory, Vandy, and CMU as well. I’ve lived my whole life in NY and have known a lot of people who have gone to Albany. Perfectly good school that provides a quality education and is also a good value. But it’s not in the same class as those schools. Not even close.

111

@milgymfam :smile:

Fiske Guide To Colleges 2020 edition:

Performing Arts-Dance: (list of 18 schools)

Arizona State University (ASU)
UC-Irvine
UCLA

UC-Riverside
Case Western Reserve
Florida State University

The George Washington University
Howard University
Indiana University

University of Iowa
Univ. of Minnesota
New York University (NYU)

Ohio University–Athens, Ohio
Southern Methodist University (SMU)
Univ. of Texas at Austin

Texas Christian University (TCU)
University of Utah
Washington Univ. in St. Louis

112

@xhaavic : Regarding your post #104 above:

I too think that Notre Dame academics are every bit as good as those at SUNY-Albany. After all, Notre Dame is much more than just a football school. And I am not writing that because I am Catholic, I truly believe it.

SUNY-Albany:

Quote from the Fiske Guide:

“A new, $180 million Emerging Technology and Entrepreneurship Complex is expected to open in 2021.”

“The New York State Writers Institute is the least traditional of UAlbany’s offerings and has enhanced the university’s reputation in creative writing.”

“Strong in anything related to public policy, including criminal justice and social welfare.”

“Students can sign up for one of 30 B.A./M.A. programs or opt for a six-year law degree in conjunction with UAlbany Law School.”

“Thanks to New York State’s Excelsior Scholarship program, in-state residents whose annual household income does not exceed $125,000 qualify for free tuition.”

113

Agreeing a lot with what @Hapworth has been saying. Our fascination with rankings has so much to do with socio-economic signaling and reinforcement. Let’s be frank: how many families have the resources - even with ample financial aid - to support one or more children living away from home, studying a language or, theoretical physics for four years? And yet, these are precisely the sorts of subjects that we tend to associate with academic rigor. Marketing, accounting and education, not so much.

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114

Our family has used the Fiske guides for two students, along with US News and Princeton. I think the pen ratings are helpful as a broad brush guide to schools. We never took them too literally, just saw them as a rough comparative guide to academics, social life and quality of life.

The individual school narratives are the best feature of the Fiske guide IMO. They are mostly spot on and give the reader a good overall feel for the each institution, better than Princeton and US News. Fiske is more subjective in his treatment of each school, not entirely data driven, and I for one find that refreshing.

115

Hey, I was on my soapbox, being over the top is normal up there ?

116

@Publisher makes a very good point

“While some may be disappointed with a favorite school’s academic ranking, Fiske remains the most respected authority in the field of college guidebooks.”

Although, they do not provide transparency in ranking metrics, the Fiske academic ratings make perfect sense.

According to Fiske’s ratings,

SUNY-Binghamton
St. John’s College of Santa Fe
U. of Kansas
Earlham College
St. Mary’s College of Maryland
New College of Florida
UNC-Asheville, …

are all academically superior or equal to:

North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Wake Forest
Notre Dame
Boston College
Carnegie Mellon
Vanderbilt
University of Southern California
Emory, …

All pay homage to the most respected authority in the field of college guidebooks.

117

Included in the 2020 edition of Fiske Guide To Colleges are the profiles of four (4) Canadian universities.

From among the 90 Canadian institutions of higher learning, the Fiske Guide offers profiles of the University of British Columbia, McGill University, Queen’s University, and the University of Toronto.

In this post, I will share the number of students at each school & the overlap schoools.

University of British Columbia:

Total enrollment = 49,400

Total Undergraduate Enrollment = 39,450

Male/Female = 45%/55%

Overlaps: Univ. of Washington, UCLA, Univ. of Colorado-Boulder, NYU, UCal-Berkeley, Univ. of Victoria, Univ. of Toronto, & Simon Fraser University.

McGill University:

Total enrollment = 30,380

Total Undergraduate Enrollment = 22,900

Male/Female = 42%/58%

Overlaps: Univ. of British Columbia, Concordia, Univ. of Montreal, NYU, Queen’s University, & the Univ. of Toronto.

Queen’s University :

Total Enrollment: = 23,072

Total Undergraduate Enrollment = 18,935

Male/Female = 40%/60%

Overlaps: Western Univ. of Ontario, Univ. of Toronto, McMaster, McGill, Univ. of Alberta, Univ. of British Columbia, & Dalhousie.

University of Toronto:

Total Enrollment = 82,109

Total Undergraduate Enrollment = 65,050

Male/Female = 45%/55%

Overlaps: Univ. of British Columbia, McGill, Univ. of Michigan, Univ. of Pennsylvania, UCal-Berkeley, Ohio State, Univ. of Saint Andrews, & NYU.

118

All four (4) Canadian schools received 4.5 Pens for Academics from the Fiske Guide.

Three received four (4) Stars for Quality of Life, while the Univ. of Toronto only received three (3) Stars for Quality of Life.

Social Life: Two (2) Telephones for UBC, Four (4) Telephones for McGill University, Four (4) Telephones for Queen’s University, & Three (3) Telephones for the Univ. of Toronto.

119

@bloomfield88:

Would you rather a regurgitation of US News rankings ?

Or are you open to other viewpoints ?

P.S. It would be helpful to know which schools are rated equal versus higher than your second list of schools.

P.P.S. After checking, all of the schools listed in your post #115 received Academic ratings of 4 Pens except for SUNY-Binghamton & St. John’s–both of which were rated at 4.5 Pens.

Not really much to be upset about once one reads the accompanying text & profile of each school.

1 Like
120

Other viewpoints? No metrics provided. Have no idea how they arrived at their quite curious list. Guess it sells books.

St. John’s College of Santa Fe is two tiers higher than USC. Ok, I am to believe that based upon?

No, it is not a viewpoint, if it is backed by absolutely nothing. Are you open to a viewpoint that the world is flat without any scientific explanation behind it? Fiske says the world is flat.