NYU on the way up or down?

<p>I'm wondering what people, unbiased as possible, think about NYU as a whole. Is it improviding and on the way to competing with more highly-regarded schools? Or is it losing competition against its peer schools and losing ground? </p>

<p>Currently, NYU is ranked 37th in the USNews & World Report. I would be the first person to dispute the validity of any ranking system. However, I was alarmed by the fact that the ranking went down from the previous year if I remember correctly. Although the rankings do not tell the whole story, why the drop? </p>

<p>I do not believe NYU has any significant weakness in its programs, undergraduate or graduate except the lack of world-class engineering and medicine programs. From economics, business, law, politics,education, and other social sciences and humanities to even a top-notch Tisch program, NYU is extremely well-rounded. Yes, horrible financial aid situation and lack of funds, especially from the alumni base, hurt the school. However, in terms of quality of the program and education, I believe NYU ranks in the high upper-echelon in both US and the world, although clearly not a Harvard or an Oxford. </p>

<p>What do you people think? Please comment with as little bias as possible but feel free to share any information/thought.</p>

<p>If you've read up even a BIT on NYU, you'd know that the only reason that it's not close to uno is that it has terrible financial aid.</p>

<p>That's an interesting topic...I haven't heard anything about this (decline in rank amongst top schools that is). I don't have much factual evidence to back up an opinion on this topic, but I think radix makes some good points. Personally, I hold NYU on the same level as other private universities such as Rice and Stanford. I say that only because I have friends attending those universities, and I've done a lot of research on Rice (yay for tenth grade research projects). I don't know much about other Ivies, with the exception of YALE and a little bit about Harvard...so I don't know how I would rank them in comparison (probably not above, though).</p>

<p>What about student life? Does this play a factor in the rankings? You would probably have to consider NYU's lack of interest in most intramural sports (competitively speaking), and the fact that there is not a specific central campus. As far as the location, I consider it a pro, but for other reasons it could be considered a con.</p>

<p>Who really knows. I'm not worried about a drop in it's ranking, as long as the programs at NYU don't lose their integrity and top-notch quality (and NYU doesn't begin to get even tighter w/ finaid), I still consider it the #1 school for me and my interests. Cue sappy music...</p>

<p>hahah :) </p>

<p>well, I don't remember when, but this topic came up earlier and it boiled down to financial aid......I do remember that the conclusin we came to was that the rankings were reflections of the IDEA of the school, rather than it's acual quality....</p>

<p>"so I don't know how I would rank them in comparison (probably not above, though)."</p>

<p>I meant: "so I don't know how I would rank NYU* in comparison (probably not above, though).</p>

<p>I agree that NYU has a "persona", as do most other top-notch/famous schools, and I think the location is a big factor in that. This is all just opinion, from someone who is yet to experience NYU life (so, I'm fairly unbiased), and therefore I guess another example of an opinion of the school based on that "IDEA". (To simplify- yea, I agree with you)</p>

<p>nyu good: easiness of getting help from profs, outward effort by administration to create school unity/community, safety, remarkable simplicity in starting a club (only need 4 people!), LOCATION, quality of academic programs</p>

<p>nyu bad: fin aid, or lack thereof, immense difficulty to get anything done without pulling your hair out, aka red tape, lack of proper staffing in some departments (a lot of classes are taught by phd candidates...especially in the undergrad math department), unwise spending of money on useless things (for those of you who are going into your frosh year, check out the hundreds of plasma screen t.v.'s in silver and kimmel - and how they arent showing anything substantial, or are just plain off - and thats just the tip of the iceberg!)...there are other things, but i'd have to be back there to be reminded of them. oh wait, its EXPENSIVE.</p>

<p>nyu misnomers: intramural sports ARE competitive - at least if you are competitive yourself. people do go to sporting events, but it seems that people shy away from them because everyone comes to nyu with the idea in their head that sports arent a big deal here and are brainwashed into thinking that. at the last few men's and women's b-ball games, nyu held free t-shirt and food promotions to get people to come...and they did. a lot more came back after that, even without the free stuff. lets see, what else...the nyu stereotypical student (you know what i'm talking about) isn't true, to a certain extent.</p>

<p>oh, and the dropping of a few ranks for nyu doesnt account for the fact that it has the most applications of any private university for the past few years (over 35k) AND it's the number one dream school. all in all, i think nyu is doing what it does best, and frankly, it doesn't have to worry about competing with other schools. mainly because we buyout the contracts of all of their professors and steal their applicant pool, lol. suck on that us news and world report!</p>

<p>what i meant by my statement nightboy is that i have yet to here of someone who went to nyu for athletic purposes first and foremost. of course i didn't mean that the sports aren't competitive at all, but nyu is not high up on the list of top-notch schools who have renowned athletic records.</p>

<p>A kid in my high school graduating class went to NYU because he got a golf scholarship. Does that count, lindseygs? :)</p>

<p>I don't think NYU is any less of a school because it doesn't have much in the way of sports. Frankly, with each year's budget being pretty tight, I think we can continue to do without. :D</p>

<p>I guarantee you he didn't get a golf scholarship to NYU.</p>

<p>It's goin up my hombre</p>

<p>i read on msn.com (i think it was a newsweek article) that nyu is one of the top 25 schools that are "ivy-league" material. </p>

<p>here is the article:
<a href="http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14325172/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14325172/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Marauder: Alright, so it was a school rumor. I didn't right-out ask him, but our high school's grapevine never let me down. :) Plus, the guy's a dang good golfer.</p>