<p>I was thinking more of the quality of the school faculty, facilities, and other assets.</p>
<p>Eh...living on the West Coast, I assume I get more propaganda about U/Wash. Gotta calibrate for that. Neither are chopped liver, neither are elite. And as I said, I think the fine gradations thing gets overdone on CC. I'm only faintly surprised that we haven't yet seen posts like "For <em>freshman</em> year, college X is best but for <em>sophomore</em> year, college Y is best."</p>
<p>I live in Seattle so I might have a little bias but I think the facts are pretty clear. Udub has more good/excellent departments as evidenced by its #4 research ranking and other faculty rankings. They have been building new buildings at a rapid rate and have superior library and computer assets. The student quality is pretty close and UW's standards are going up faster than PSU's at this time as UW has finally limited freshmen enrollment to a realistic level. Both had bad football seasons but at least UW has basketball now.</p>
<p>Barrons, I toss out the research rankings when looking at undergrad. Some of that leaks down at the large institutions but not much.</p>
<p>For grad school, I'd probably have to rate U/Wash over PSU in a shot. And I always throw out sports...it can be nice but it shouldn't be a decision maker.</p>
<p>The sports part was a little joke.
As to the students--UW fall 2003 had a 1070-1310 SAT interval and 48% top 10%, 82% top 25%.</p>
<p>PSU Fall 2004 was 1090-1290 SAT, 41 % top 10% and 80% top 25%. I would say UW has now passed PSU in this measure.</p>
<p>look, it really depends what dept you're looking at. I've been to uw too, and I can tell you that their astro dept is utter crap in comparison. I'm sure that uw has some better depts too, but I have problems ranking colleges "overall", as each has its own positives in various areas.</p>
<p>How many ugs ever darken the door of an astro dept.--outside of Caltech and MIT--??</p>
<p>at psu they do. they do research, and most are primary authors on a paper before they leave.</p>
<p>btw, mit and caltech from what I hear are ultra-graduate focused when it comes to astro.</p>
<p>As I thought, PSU had about 8 majors graduate this year--not exactly a large number. Now the dept does look excellent from what I saw, but this is a very small niche area for most undergrads.
BTW how is Wisconsin these days for astro?</p>
<p>NRC rankings put Wisconsin at #14 with 3.46 and Penn State at #21 with 3.00. Those rankings are old, but they don't change as much as USNWR makes it seem. I doubt Penn State could have overtaken Wisconsin by as much as astrophysicist2b claims.</p>
<p>are you sure that doesn't include satellite campuses as well barrons</p>
<p>Official PSU literature states that, at University Park, the 25-75 is 1180-1340</p>
<p>Yes, Penn State is a solid school and it's at the top of my brother's list, but I've also heard about social problems like racism on campus, which I hope is an isolated problem.</p>
<p>I was using the PSU-UP Common data set. </p>
<p>uw in my post=washington... as that was what the previous uw reference was to, I think. and what are these nrc rankings you speak of? are they just for astro? if so they're probably for graduate astro, something psu is not as great in. anyway, by darken the door I thought you meant have influence in the astro dept as an undergrad outside of class... ok, so there aren't many, but does that make it bad? most drop out after they take astro 291, b/c they learn they can't cut it.</p>
<p>I see the rankings. again, they're for grad school, and yes, things have changed a lot in the past few years.</p>
<p>example 1 of psu's astro greatness- swift telescope. psu chosen above harvard, princeton, berkeley, mit, caltech, and the like to run it.</p>
<p>holy crap, I just read the intro to the nrc reports "In 1993, the National Research Council studied universities granting doctorates in each of the following 41 areas: ". 1993? ppl, things change in 11 years. and they're talking about grad school, which is often quite different than undergrad programs.</p>
<p>one last thing... if you ppl don't trust me about the greatness of astro at psu, then I don't know who you will trust. I spent all of last summer and the summer before working 25 hours a week in their astro dept. they are continually bringing in new profs, and have a ridiculous number of research grants. most of the profs went to the big-name astro schools for their phd. they're constantly referenced in astro news blurbs like the ones on the chandra and hubble sites (as I mentioned before they're what I consider to be the top 6 in astro publishing). in addition, at how many universities do you see undergrads as primary authors on papers? not many.</p>
<p>Since you seem pretty up to date, I was just asking about Wisconsin. I know they have built a couple new telescopes around the world but I am no expert on astro.</p>
<p>I live about 40 minutes from PSU and my town is home to one of the branch campuses. PSU is great for areas like engineering and some very specific majors. But, I think it is a rip off out of state. 21k to be one of 40,000? It has good name recognition by the average joe, but is that what matters to you? When I was making my college decision, I visited another large school U of Michigan and was much more impressed. I don't mean to bash Penn State, I may go there for grad school, but in some ways it's 2nd class. And the fact that i know many a idiot that got in there kind of scares me. As a public school does a great job, but if you're a serious student, i don't know if non-academic factors would make up for that, when smaller schools that are ranked somewhat higher can offer just as much opportunity.</p>