<p>yeah and cornell is something like 250. </p>
<p>i understand shaking things up a bit, but really? come on, now. we at least deserve to be in the one-hundreds!</p>
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[QUOTE=Elses]
Um, so much for academic selectivity. An institution which openly considers race a criterion and limits age, marital status, and the ability to have children should hardly even make it onto any sort of top list.
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<p>???</p>
<p>They consider race at West Point? I thought that it was every school EXCEPT for West Point that considered race.</p>
<p>JLaw45: Okay then here is one of the main issues I find with war in general. While republicans are off running their mouths on how democrats keep spending buckets of money on programs to improve our nations economy, health, and welfare, they choose to ignore that they brought about the absolute biggest money sinkhole of all. In addition to subjecting our own american citizens overseas to death and maiming through roadside bombs, ambushes, general unpleasantness, they have (since the war’s beginning in 2001) cost $899 billion in spending on this fiasco (costofwar.com).
With that much money, they could have done any of the following:
- Provided 947,000,000+ homes with renewable electricity
- Provided 7,000,000+ affordable housing units
- Provided 403,000,000+ children with health care for a year
- Provided 19,000,000+ public safety officers for a year
That’s a hell of a trade-off if you ask me.</p>
<p>I mean, if you look at it, really I’m on your side here. I want to keep yourself and your children safe from tragedy overseas. If you want to attack me and call me “un-American” for wanting your children safe, be my guest.</p>
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<p>While I respect the complexity of your analysis, I do actually believe its aim to be a little too vague for this argument.
If the total expenditure total you’ve come up with were in relation primarily to the Iraq War, I’d probably agree with you. I suspect(but cannot precise) that were the costs for the conflict in Afghanistan removed, the vast majority of that large sum would still be around, and we would probably agree that said sum could have been spent more wisely.</p>
<p>That being said, since no clear differentiation is made here, I cannot honestly say that I believe the entirety of that sum to have been wasted. The conflict in Afghanistan was necessary. Leaving al-qaeda entirely alone(as had been largely done prior to 2001 after prior Al-Qaeda attacks) was not an option.
Granted, I believe the large scale diversion of resources to Iraq(where the real threat was not actually located) did take away from our mission in Afghanistan, and in fact may still be preventing us from fully realizing the completion of said mission. Simply not bothering, however, was not feasible given the fact that we are faced with people who in many cases cannot be reasoned with and have nothing to lose.</p>
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<p>In absolute fairness, DeadMonkey, I don’t see this as a particularly strong argument. These are soldiers who knowingly sign up to serve with full knowledge of the nature of conflict. War is generally unpleasant-it always has been, and likely always will be. This is why, generally, decisions regarding the waging of conflicts both past and present have been weighed heavily by most(sane) world leaders.
These soldiers are fully aware of this fact. Thus, I can’t say that your phrasing of the phenomenon constitutes an entirely accurate reflection of their situation during deployment. Yes, they suffer, but they choose to make that sacrifice. This is why they’re generally respected.</p>
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<p>It is a hell of a trade-off…that is, if you make the assumption that all of the money was spent unwisely and nothing necessary or beneficial was gained from it. Perhaps that was the case(at least for the most part) in Iraq. But when you consider truly vital conflicts(of which there have been, currently are, and likely will be many in the future), the financial cost is more than worth it.</p>
<p>Again, in order to really quantify the magnitude of this trade off, more detail regarding the various conflicts and the spending put forth for each one would be needed. </p>
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<p>We both agree on the protection of future generations. Our disagreement, I believe, lies in how to do it.
I don’t believe that we will ever completely be able to prevent some of our young men and women from suffering tragedy overseas in the midst of conflict. Conflicts will rear their head for as long as we exist, and some people will sacrifice in order to stand up and ensure that we come through it ok. Unfortunately, some will make the ultimate sacrifice in the process, and it will indeed be tragic…but sadly, necessary for the protection of the greater good.</p>
<p>For those who are interested in college ranking:</p>
<p>The US News 2010 Best Colleges is out and in Newsstand and bookstores today. </p>
<p>Please post your thoughts and the rankings if you have a copy at hand.</p>
<p>Wow–now that took a while to read this thread. </p>
<p>In all honesty it is unfair to other colleges and universities to be rated against West Point. The real truth of the matter is that the majority of “top tier” university students couldnt even get admitted to West Point, let alone survive there for 4 years. Qualifying physically, medically, and academically and then going through the nomination process on top of that just to even COMPETE for an appointment, is a daunting undertaking. The first summer would send many of them home to mama, and the crushing academic schedule mixed with the daily life of a cadet would weed out all but the most organized, disciplined, and determined individuals. </p>
<p>Yup, its unfair to harvard, yale, etc., as West Point is in a league of its own.</p>
<p>I think this ranker should spend a week undercover at West Point, HYPS, Williams, and Amherst:
then evaluate. Now THAT would be an interesting list.
Even though it’d be biased, it would probably be more truthful.</p>
<p>"Yup, its unfair to harvard, yale, etc., as West Point is in a league of its own. "</p>
<p>Agreed. I couldn’t survive as I am now at West Point.
Thus poses the difficulty of ranking colleges. How does one rate one institution over another if they attract such different types of students and are founded on different educational goals?</p>
<p>I.E. Julliard cannot be ranked against Harvard, quite obviously.</p>
<p>“I.E. Julliard cannot be ranked against Harvard, quite obviously.”</p>
<p>True but that has more to do with the type of degrees each offers. Many of the degrees at Harvard are also offered at West Point. In fact everyone at West point graduates with a BS in their field, vs BA or BS at Harvard because of the course load at WP being so much more heavy in required science, engineering, and foreign language related courses, even for a history major (and West Pointers do it in 4 years).</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter what type of institution a student choose for his or her academic career. If it fits their personality and career of choice, then thats the number 1 choice of school for that, specific individual. Also, anyone, if college is means to becomes a somebody, can get a Harvard or West Point education is he or she works diligently and aggressively. The pivotal reason why this debate is on-going is because of the individual pride we have in our personalized school. So cares what other people thinks whether its Forbes or USNews about how our colleges are ranked. If you can get that million dollar career through your college, then does the ranking really matter?!</p>
<p>…just my little two cent</p>
<p>-kpsong87</p>
<p>Any ranking methodology is going to be flawed. Especially when you are comparing apples to oranges. For me and many others West Point is the #1 college in the nation. For others, they would rather not go to college than go here. Ranking colleges has a place-- but I don’t think it goes much further than here are the Ivies, here is Harvey Mudd and its sister schools, the top engineering schools (ie GaTech, MIT, Stanford), etc etc. It’s downright silly to say #1 college in the nation (at everything for everyone).</p>
<p>Some food for thought…</p>
<p>The Army values a West Point education at $70,000 per year. Maybe the fact that they’ve got a HUGE budget to use for just about everything factors into why it’s such a good school. Also, this study puts a lot of stake in how well alums do - average salaries and stuff like that. All West Point grads are officers in the Army for at least 5 years after they leave the school, which gives them TONS of leadership experience and a real advantage over other 20 somethings, so maybe some of these results reflect how successful a military officer is over his or her lifetime as well, not just how well West Point prepares these folks.</p>
<p>Can you believe that this [idiotic] item is still highlighted as a “big news” post on the WP board? CC: get over it. This is old, old news and suspect to begin with. Take the nag headline OFF!</p>
<p>All I’m saying is that I was at the West Point Summer Leaders Seminar this year, and they brought up the Forbes article basically whenever they had the chance.</p>
<p>Yup they should–</p>
<p>I’m at a major college with a bunch of very smart and motivated people who work hard and are amazing in many ways. But I would not trust half of them to cover me in combat without killing themselves or me in the process. Common sense is remarkably uncommon. Maybe that’s what sets USMA apart.</p>