Notre Dame vs. Yale

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Notre Dame
21

<p>Check out the other thread for a more in-depth response, but I'll add a few thoughts here. Yale does have an academic edge and a better reputation, but Notre Dame has an amazing network of alumni and some very highly ranked departments. Also, I wouldn't say that the academic difference between the two is what it is made out to be. Don't pay too much attention to the international rankings either. I've looked at some of those before and the University of Minnesota was ranked above Dartmouth... So, for academics, I'd say you can't really go wrong. As for music, I can't tell you a whole lot. I have a lot of friends who sing in the choirs here, but it does seem like the majority of musical opportunities are religious choirs, etc. As for your last factor- there is absolutely no way you can beat Notre Dame. Yale might be 25% Catholic, but I bet you anything very few of them are practicing. I have friends at Yale and some of their stories are almost scary. The social atmosphere there is definitely more liberal (not just politically, but on the things that the student body embraces or that the administration lets slide). If you are looking for a spiritual aspect to college life, you really can't beat Notre Dame. </p>

<p>I did turn down Dartmouth and Amherst to come here (money was not a factor), and I know people who turned down offers from places like Harvard and Caltech. I have never regretted my choice. You can get a good education at all of the above, but there really is no substitute for Notre Dame.</p>

22

<p>Amen Shellzie!</p>

23

<p>That's not true, danbrenn. The Newsweek Global University Rankings are only partly based on diversity and international culture. Mostly they are based on academic quality. Also, A) any other ranking would show the same thing and B) the gap between being in the top few and being ranked 200th is pretty huge.</p>

<p>Also, the ability to attract a large number of top international scholars, as anyone who has attended a truly "global" university in the United States or abroad would immediately attest, is partly a marker of academic excellence and definitely one of the attractive things about studying in such an environment. ND simply doesn't have that.</p>

<p>Please see my post on the other thread; perhaps another visit is warranted.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

24

<p>I was just saying it is unfair to rank ND as 200-300 using a "global university" ranking, when you are making it seem like ND is that low for academics only.</p>

25

<p>The World University ranking is actually an "academics only" ranking, and has Notre Dame in the 200-300 category. </p>

<p>The Newsweek "Global University" Ranking, which considers international students as a small part of its measures, only ranks the top 100 programs, and, although it is highly correlated to the academics only ranking, it is possible that Notre Dame is somewhere in the 100-200 range.. we don't know for sure.</p>

26

<p>alright, you are right about the World University Rankings, but they also have the University of Arizona 13 spots before Duke. Rankings are so unreliable, because you can use any criteria you want to rank schools. The publication in question ranks based on number of scientific publications on the web. Everyone has an hidden motive, and the World University Ranking system is no exception. </p>

<p>"With these rankings we intend to provide extra motivation to researchers worldwide for publishing more and better scientific content on the Web, making it available to colleagues and people wherever they are located"</p>

<p>I may be Bias, but ND is a little better academically than you are making it out to be. I guess the best thing to do is just go with what feels right.</p>

27

<p>There is a great catholic church down the street from Yale. They have a campus ministry program for catholics. Theology on Tap is in New Haven. My daughter was mugged there about a month ago as she was walking with a priest and there was an armed robbery the same night on one of the streets she was walking on.. My sister graduated from Yale and has no "family " allegience to it where my uncle graduated from ND in 1932 and we all feel forever tied to the ND family. My youngest will be attending in the Fall. Yale is a great school you should go where you feel the best. ND has the intangibles that are hard to describe but everyone feels them. Good luck</p>

28

<p>What the global rankings are probably doing is discounting Notre Dame because we have a weak graduate school and hence weak research (though great research opportunities for undergraduates). While they are working on fixing this, it is important to note that we follow a Princeton model where we focus on the undergraduate and not the graduate education. THIS IS IMPORTANT PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS. At a lot of schools, if you want to do research, you are going to play second fiddle to graduate students. That is not the case at Notre Dame, I personally have met with my thesis adviser more this year than either of her graduate students, lol. The opportunities are here!</p>

<p>As for the rankings, posterx, give it up! It is obvious that those are not valid rankings. If you really believe that the University of Arizona is better than Duke, I hope you aren't at a prestigious university wasting your money. Rather, you should have gone to any public U that is huge and has high research output. Rankings should pass the "common sense" rule in my mind, and those rankings simply don't pass in my book!</p>

<p>Kr123, sorry that I missed this but is your youngest coming to ND or Yale? I can't remember and I am a bit confused.</p>

29

<p>Irish our youngest is going to ND you were kind enough to read her essay.</p>

30

<p>Danbrenn and irish68178, the University of Arizona is an academically up-and-coming and highly-ranked university. It's one of the best in the country now. Duke is overrated. Furthermore, the rankings of UA and Duke are very close. I would consider them equals. Meanwhile, the difference between Yale and ND in the rankings (and hundreds of other similar measures) is utterly enormous.</p>

<p>In terms of crime rates, here is a list of 200 metropolitan areas ranked by per capita murder rates. You will notice that South Bend is one of the most dangerous metro areas in the country, with a rate of 8.2 killings per 100,000 residents, worse than Newark, Philadelphia and New York City, while New Haven is one of the safest, with a rate of 3.3. South Bend is clearly not as bad as New Orleans, but everything I've ever heard about the area around Notre Dame has been far from positive, while almost everything I hear about New Haven is that it is one of the nation's best college towns, in the league of Burlington, Madison and Northampton (not to mention very close to some of the country's most exciting large cities and most beautiful beaches and mountains).</p>

<p>1 Bangor ME 0
2 Sioux Falls SD 0.6
3 Nashua NH 1
4 Stamford-Norwalk CT 1.1
5 Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers AR 1.2
6 Madison WI 1.2
7 Boulder-Longmont CO 1.3
8 Danbury CT 1.5
9 Flagstaff AZ 1.5
10 Green Bay WI 1.7
11 Portland ME 1.9
12 Honolulu HI 2
13 Bismarck ND 2.1
14 Grand Rapids MI 2.1
15 Portland-Vancouver OR-WA 2.1
16 San Jose CA 2.1
17 Salt Lake City-Ogden UT 2.2
18 New London-Norwich CT-RI 2.3
19 Albany-Schenectady-Troy NY 2.4
20 El Paso TX 2.4
21 Lincoln NE 2.4
22 Boston MA-NH-ME 2.6
23 Des Moines IA 2.6
24 Orange County CA 2.6
25 Utica-Rome NY 2.6
26 Lansing-East Lansing MI 2.7
27 Peoria-Pekin IL 2.8
28 Seattle-Bellevue-Everett WA 2.9
29 State College PA 2.9
30 Austin-San Marcos TX 3
31 Hartford CT 3
32 Minneapolis-St. Paul MN-WI 3
33 San Diego CA 3
34 Ann Arbor MI 3.1
35 Davenport IA-IL 3.2
36 Santa Barbara CA 3.2
37 New Haven-Meriden CT 3.3
38 Scranton PA 3.3
39 Johnstown PA 3.4
40 Providence-Fall River-Warwick RI-MA 3.4
41 Binghamton NY 3.5
42 Sarasota-Bradenton FL 3.6
43 Top of Form
Abilene
Bottom of Form TX 3.8
44 Bridgeport CT 3.8
45 Bryan-College Station TX 3.8
46 Champaign-Urbana IL 3.8
47 Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle PA 3.8
48 Brockton MA 3.9
49 Charlottesville VA 3.9
50 Lafayette LA 3.9
51 Laredo TX 4
52 Tacoma WA 4
53 Huntsville AL 4.1
54 New Bedford MA 4.1
55 Springfield IL 4.1
56 Elkhart-Goshen IN 4.3
57 Lubbock TX 4.3
58 Owensboro KY 4.3
59 Brazoria TX 4.4
60 Buffalo-Niagara Falls NY 4.4
61 Hagerstown MD 4.4
62 Tyler TX 4.4
63 Yakima WA 4.4
64 Casper WY 4.5
65 Orlando FL 4.5
66 Syracuse NY 4.5
67 Denver CO 4.6
68 Oklahoma City OK 4.6
69 Omaha NE-IA 4.6
70 Pensacola FL 4.6
71 Rochester NY 4.6
72 Spokane WA 4.6
73 Tallahassee FL 4.7
74 Topeka KS 4.7
75 Wichita KS 4.7
76 Gadsden AL 4.8
77 Jersey City NJ 4.8
78 Pittsburgh PA 4.8
79 Benton Harbor MI 4.9
80 Burlington VT 4.9
81 Cincinnati OH-KY-IN 4.9
82 Great Falls MT 4.9
83 Kokomo IN 4.9
84 Yuba City CA 4.9
85 Dover DE 5
86 Fort Worth-Arlington TX 5
87 Jackson MI 5
88 Knoxville TN 5
89 Tulsa OK 5
90 Wilmington NC 5
91 Toledo OH 5.1
92 Panama City FL 5.2
93 Sacramento CA 5.2
94 San Francisco CA 5.2
95 Santa Fe NM 5.2
96 Youngstown-Warren OH 5.2
97 Fort Lauderdale FL 5.3
98 Tuscaloosa AL 5.4
99 Vineland-Millville-Bridgeton NJ 5.4
100 Albany GA 5.5
101 Jackson TN 5.5
102 Longview-Marshall TX 5.5
103 Athens GA 5.6
104 Macon GA 5.6
105 Bloomington IN 5.7
106 Fort Wayne IN 5.7
107 Kalamazoo-Battle Creek MI 5.7
108 Corpus Christi TX 5.8
109 Terre Haute IN 5.8
110 Lynchburg VA 5.9
111 Ocala FL 5.9
112 Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill NC 5.9
113 Reading PA 5.9
114 Trenton NJ 5.9
115 Auburn-Opelika AL 6
116 Dayton-Springfield OH 6
117 Louisville KY-IN 6
118 Texarkana TX-AR 6
119 Norfolk-Virginia Beach-Newport News VA-NC 6.1
120 Daytona Beach FL 6.2
121 Fort Smith AR-OK 6.2
122 Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point NC 6.3
123 Cleveland-Lorain-Elyria OH 6.4
124 Greenville-Spartanburg-Anderson SC 6.4
125 Nashville TN 6.4
126 Newark NJ 6.5
127 Columbus OH 6.6
128 New York NY 6.6
129 Anchorage AK 6.7
130 Salinas CA 6.7
131 Waco TX 6.7
132 Rocky Mount NC 6.8
133 Lawton OK 6.9
134 Danville VA 7
135 Galveston-Texas City TX 7.1
136 Lake Charles LA 7.1
137 Milwaukee-Waukesha WI 7.1
138 Colorado Springs CO 7.2
139 Fresno CA 7.2
140 San Antonio TX 7.3
141 Bakersfield CA 7.4
142 Columbia SC 7.5
143 Riverside-San Bernardino CA 7.5
144 Wichita Falls TX 7.5
145 Visalia-Tulare-Porterville CA 7.6
146 Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill NC-SC 7.7
147 Goldsboro NC 7.7
148 Dallas TX 7.8
149 Oakland CA 7.8
150 Philadelphia PA-NJ 7.8
151 Indianapolis IN 7.9
152 Chattanooga TN-GA 8
153 Kankakee IL 8
154 Monroe LA 8
155 Tucson AZ 8.1
156 Las Cruces NM 8.2
157 Merced CA 8.2
158 Phoenix-Mesa AZ 8.2
159 South Bend IN 8.2
160 Atlanta GA 8.3
161 Kansas City MO-KS 8.3
162 Houston TX 8.4
163 Myrtle Beach SC 8.4
164 Sumter SC 8.4
165 Greenville NC 8.7
166 Miami FL 8.7
167 St. Louis MO-IL 8.7
168 Columbus GA-AL 8.8
169 Flint MI 8.8
170 Jacksonville FL 8.9
171 Asheville NC 9
172 Birmingham AL 9.1
173 Fort Myers-Cape Coral FL 9.1
174 Biloxi-Gulfport-Pascagoula MS 9.3
175 Charleston-North Charleston SC 9.3
176 Washington DC-MD-VA 9.4
177 Albuquerque NM 9.6
178 Anniston AL 9.7
179 Chicago IL 9.8
180 Montgomery AL 9.8
181 Las Vegas NV-AZ 9.9
182 Stockton-Lodi CA 10.1
183 Little Rock-North Little Rock AR 10.3
184 Detroit MI 10.9
185 Mobile AL 11
186 Richmond-Petersburg VA 11.2
187 Hattiesburg MS 11.5
188 Los Angeles-Long Beach CA 11.8
189 Baltimore MD 12
190 Fayetteville NC 12.8
191 Savannah GA 13.7
192 Shreveport-Bossier City LA 14
193 Alexandria LA 14.2
194 Baton Rouge LA 14.2
195 Jackson MS 14.4
196 Gary IN 14.9
197 Memphis TN-AR-MS 15.1
198 Pine Bluff AR 16.4
199 Victoria TX 17.1
200 New Orleans LA 24.4</p>

<p>Also, according to the Department of Education's statistics, Notre Dame reported 87 campus burglaries and 57 residential hall burglaries. Yale reported only 63 campus burglaries and 35 residential hall burglaries. The schools have virtually identical student populations.</p>

<p>In terms of campus loyalty, I think it would be ridiculous to say ND alums are more loyal than Yale alums, given that the per capita dollar amount of alumni giving (e.g., not counting the people who only contribute a dollar) to Yale exceeds that of every other university in the country except Caltech almost every year, while ND is rarely among the top 10.</p>

31

<p>Sorry about that Kr123, I look over so many things it is hard to keep everything straight :). </p>

<p>What further need for discussion is there, you just said that Arizona is equal to Duke! I doubt you could find people on the Arizona board that would say that! I have to wonder, honestly, about any person or rankings which believe that. Nothing against AZ, but come on!</p>

<p>South Bend does have a high crime rate, I will not argue against this. However, Notre Dame is a VERY safe campus in my opinion. I have never felt threatened in any way walking acorss campus. </p>

<p>
[quote]
The schools have virtually identical student populations.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Did you honestly research before posting this? Yale enrollment: 5,303...ND enrollment 8,346 (source Princeton Review). Notre Dame is almost 40% bigger! Don't try to mislead. Here is the link to the ND security information from NDSP themselves, the best source. <a href="http://www.nd.edu/%7Endspd/clery06.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nd.edu/%7Endspd/clery06.pdf&lt;/a>. Judge for yourself but I think we have a pretty safe campus, especially given that South Bend isn't the safest city.</p>

<p>As for networks, I don't know if Yale alums give more, props to them if they do...but that doesn't affect you directly. ND has a larger alumni network and they have been known to bend over backwards to help out other ND alums. That is why our alumni network is so well-known. I will not use stats or anything like that on this one, I will let their actions speak for themselves. I would put our alumni up against ANY school in the world. I really would. LOVE THEE NOTRE DAME!</p>

32

<p>PosterX that ranking is a load of bullock. Quoted Hawkette:</p>

<p>According to Newsweek International, their List uses the following methodology in composing its ranking:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>50% of score divided equally among three measures
a. the number of highly cited researchers in various academic fields
b. the number of articles published in Nature and Science
c. the number of articles listed in ISI Social Sciences and Arts & Humanities indices</p></li>
<li><p>40% of the score divided equally among four measures
a. the percentage of international faculty
b. the percentage of international students
c. the citations per faculty member (using ISI data)
d. the ratio of faculty to students</p></li>
<li><p>10% of the score is decided by library holdings (number of volumes)</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Just to put this in perspective, UC Berkeley is 5th, U Michigan is 11th and UCLA is 12th. By contrast, Princeton is 15th, Brown is 56th, U Virginia is 80th, Emory is 93rd, and Dartmouth, Rice, and Notre Dame (among other notables) are not ranked. Clearly, this ranking is using a methodology that is out of sync with how the vast majority of Americans would view these schools. </p>

<p>In the second List, the methodology is not disclosed, but seems to rely on a combination of factors involving Alumni, Awards, and some factors called HiCi, N&S (Nature & Science?), SCI, and Size. The results are again highly inconsistent with how most observers would see American educational institutions. For example, UCSD is ranked 13th and UCLA is 14th while Duke is 31st, Northwestern is 33rd, Brown is 85th and Emory, Dartmouth, Notre Dame and other top privates are not ranked in the top 100. </p>

<p>It appears that neither of these rankings give any weight to measurements of the quality of the student body nor to nearly all of the Graduation/Retention, Faculty Resources and Financial Resources measurements that are useful for evaluating the quality of an undergraduate experience.</p>

33

<p>As you can see, those rankings don't really make any real sense. The day you find someone who picks UCLA over Princton (no financial reasons), call me collect.</p>

34

<p>SweetLax,</p>

<p>i'm sure the rate of people picking UCLA over Princeton is about the same as people picking ND over Princeton...</p>

35

<p>Yes, she is very happy an Notre Dame. My mom, on the other hand...</p>

36

<p>SweetLax, actually, UCLA is a world famous research university, and one of the best in the world, just like UCSD and UCSF/UC-Berkeley. Princeton has some good departments, but in terms of research, it isn't at the same level as a global university like, say, MIT, Yale or Harvard. See <a href="http://www.sciencewatch.com/sept-oct2002/sw_sept-oct2002_page1.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.sciencewatch.com/sept-oct2002/sw_sept-oct2002_page1.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I'm sorry you don't agree with the rankings, but they are what they are. And, as world university rankings, they are remarkably consistent in showing schools like Harvard, Yale, MIT, Oxford and Cambridge at the top, while universities with smaller endowments, fewer resources, and far less groundbreaking research or academic activity like the University of East Anglia, Brown, ND, Tufts, Emory, University of Delaware are (in the case of ND) in the 200-300 ranking range and far below what some people think of as their peers.</p>

<p>Irish, the enrollment figures on the US Dept of Education website are virtually identical (both schools at 11,000) because of the graduate and professional student populations.</p>

37

<p>jags861 and posterx, Do ya'll just hate Irish Catholics or something? You keep attacking Notre Dame with rediculous rankings and misinformation that have no revelance at all. The World University ranking has to do with how much research is published on the Web by professors...I guess that is what makes a school academically competant.</p>

38

<p>There are a lot of people here who picked ND over HYPS.</p>

39

<p>I would hardly say that the Newsweek Global University Ranking has no relevance, given that tens of millions of people around the world have read it and it is considered to be one of the definitive rankings of global universities out there. Add it to the other rankings I've cited, which are also widely cited by thousands of other people, and you probably have hundreds of millions of people. </p>

<p>Yes, there are many measures of academic competence and I've always said that forget the rankings -- the best way to find out where you will do best is to visit for 3-4 days, talk to as many students and professors as possible, and find out where you will succeed academically. But when all the available rankings out there show an enormous gap (of hundreds of spots) between a couple of schools you're choosing from, you might want to do a bit of extra research and think carefully. That's all.</p>

<p>If you want to move away from research or how many students go to the top graduate schools (both of which measures ND lags far behind), look at a few other factors, like how many students receive Fulbright, Gates, Rhodes or Marshall Scholars.</p>

<p>Here is a list of institutions producing Fulbright Scholars this year, from Chronicle of higher education. Note that the number of applicants is fairly consistent from each school (although large schools like UC Berkeley have a few more than smaller ones), but the number who win from each school is very different:</p>

<p>1 Yale U. 31
2 Harvard U. 25
3 Brown U. 24
4 Columbia U. 21
4 U . of California at Berkeley 21
4 U. of Michigan at Ann Arbor 21
7 U. of Chicago 18
7 U. of Pennsylvania 18
9 Cornell U. 15
10 Duke U. 14
10 Johns Hopkins U. 14
10 Northwestern U. 14
10 U. of Wisconsin at Madison 14
14 Boston College 13
14 Ohio U. main campus 13
14 Pennsylvania State U. at University Park 13
14 Princeton U. 13
14 U. of California at Los Angeles 13
14 U. of Texas at Austin 13
20 New York U. 12
21 Arizona State U. at Tempe 11
21 George Washington U. 11
23 College of William and Mary 10
23 Stanford U. 10
23 U. of Arizona 10
23 U. of Pittsburgh 10
Notre Dame: Fewer than 10 (did not register)</p>

<p>And now Rhodes Scholarships:
- Since the scholarship was created in 1902, Notre Dame has had 14 Rhodes Scholarship winners, almost all of them prior to 2000.
- Since just 2002, Yale has had more than 15 Rhodes Scholarship winners; since 1902, it has had nearly 200.
[Even though Yale is one of the smallest universities in the country by undergraduate enrollment and much smaller than ND, it has produced more Rhodes Scholars than any other university except Harvard by a huge margin.]</p>

40

<p>PosterX, no one said ND was a great grad school or research school. Most of us don't want to do research, we want a great education, and in my case, family of alums. Of course its not going to be on the best international school research list...its not a research school. I still stand by what I say, no one picks UCLA over Princeton.</p>