<p>
Comparing to an Oakland Raiders game? I agree that would provide a very different viewpoint from Ann Arbor. :)</p>
<p>^^</p>
<p>I tried to give Alexandre and the Lil Wolverine a break by flying them to OAK versus SFO. The destination is still the around the famous Red Square. </p>
<p>And, fwiw, there might be fewer professional football players in Oakland than in Michigan. Just perhaps!</p>
<p>
Why does it matter what “I think” Alexandre? The data speaks for itself; WUSTL and Chicago students are on average stronger academically than Brown and Cornell students. This will vary based on the specific major and course of study at each school of course.</p>
<p>Stanford lags behind HYPM because of its athletes that constitute as much as 15% of the overall student body. These men and women are more academically gifted than the average Division I NCAA athlete but they do not compare to a typical HYP student in terms of intelligence. Stanford values athletic excellence as much as academic excellence. That’s why its the most well-rounded university on the planet.</p>
<p>
Congratulations Alexandre, you have managed to convince me that Duke is inflating its S/F ratio by not including doctoral candidates in its calculation who utlize the same professors who teach undergraduates. However…</p>
<p>1.) Duke’s S/F ratio would be 9:1 after accounting for this fact since it awards about 400 degrees to students enrolled in “Doctoral degrees for research and scholarship”; thus, if we extrapolate this out to about 5 years which is typically how long a PhD program lasts, then there are approximately 2,000 graduate students at Duke. Berkeley’s S:F ratio is still 17:1 which is not even close to Duke’s 9:1.</p>
<p>2.) As far as class sizes go, only 2.1% of Duke’s classes have a 100 or more students enrolled while the comparable figure for Berkeley is 6.6%. A similar difference exists when looking at the number of classes with 50 students or more or 20 students or less between both schools.</p>
<p>3.) Berkeley’s financial resources pale in comparison to Duke. Even after incorporating state funding received, Duke U. is still 3x times wealther per student at least.</p>
<p>
Not an apples to apples comparison. Berkeley’s numbers don’t include its medical research campus. Duke’s does.</p>
<p>“Why does it matter what “I think” Alexandre? The data speaks for itself; WUSTL and Chicago students are on average stronger academically than Brown and Cornell students. This will vary based on the specific major and course of study at each school of course.”</p>
<p>You are basing this entirely on SAT ranges. I do not think it is an accurate metric.</p>
<p>“1.) Duke’s S/F ratio would be 9:1 after accounting for this fact since it awards about 400 degrees to students enrolled in “Doctoral degrees for research and scholarship”; thus, if we extrapolate this out to about 5 years which is typically how long a PhD program lasts, then there are approximately 2,000 graduate students at Duke. Berkeley’s S:F ratio is still 17:1 which is not even close to Duke’s 9:1.”</p>
<p>Do you have a link that proves your stats goldenboy. Your claim that only 2,000 of Duke’s almost 9,000 graduate students are in departments and programs that contain both undergraduate and graduate students seems a little off. According to the figures I have seen on Duke, there are 2,200 graduate students enrolled in the Duke Graduate school alone. That does not include the 800 graduate students enrolled in the Pratt School of Engineering. I am not sure how many graduate students are enrolled in the Nicholas School or in the Sanford School, but I assume it is over 500. Regardless, there are far more than 2,000 graduate students missing from Duke’s student to faculty ratio…more like 4,000. That would make Duke’s s:f ratio more like 11:1. Still better than Cal’s, but honestly, not that impressive. 7:1 sounds much more impressive. </p>
<p>“2.) As far as class sizes go, only 2.1% of Duke’s classes have a 100 or more students enrolled while the comparable figure for Berkeley is 6.6%. A similar difference exists when looking at the number of classes with 50 students or more or 20 students or less between both schools.”</p>
<p>And this makes Duke better? This is a matter of opinion, don’t you agree? What if one does not care that much about class size. I personally do not think it matters whether 50% or 70% of a university’s classes have fewer than 20 students…or whether 10% of 20% of a university’s classes have more than 50 students. In the end, class sizes are hard to compare if one does not have a common frame of reference. For all we know, one university may have a curriculum that requires far more smaller classes. If a university has a great deal of seminars, it will have a lower percentage of large classes relative to smaller classes. Class size alone does not make the university better or worse…not without properly analyzing the nature of those classes.</p>
<p>“3.) Berkeley’s financial resources pale in comparison to Duke. Even after incorporating state funding received, Duke U. is still 3x times wealther per student at least.”</p>
<p>Duke is definitely better off than Cal, but I am not sure the difference would be that significant…certainly not 3X greater as you suggest. Also do not forget to take into consideration economies of scale. Also, Cal does not have to fund a very costly hospital and medical program.</p>
<p>I’d taken classes at publics and privates and have been to different kinds of health clubs.</p>
<p>Public vs private is like higher-end gyms vs lower-end gyms. You can achieve similar fitness goals at both places; the higher-end gyms are more comfortable, cleaner, and less crowded with less wait for machines/swimming lanes BUT also more expensive. The cost-benefit analysis is highly subjective and personal. For average persons, most would probably pick lower-end gyms, just like at the full-price, most would find the publics are of better value. But if they cost similar or just a little extra after financial aids, it’s an easy choice for most to pick the privates.</p>
<p>I am not sure about the public university you attended Sam Lee, but the one I attended had better facilities and similar sized classes as the private university I attended…and the private university I attended is an Ivy League. It is hard to lump all publics together, and certainly my public is not “standard”, but it is, nevertheless, a public.</p>
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</p>
<p>Oops, and I thought that Cal’s purported medical school (that poor UCSF) was not only a source for chest-beating about fundraising but also for a few dollars. </p>
<p>Let’s assume that is what is meant by using “de facto” when convenient. Even there is not a shred a bona fide support for the position.</p>
<p>Pfffffff aka the sound of UCB’s ego filled balloon. Time to pick him up from the floor.</p>
<p>[Top</a> universities by reputation 2013](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2013/reputation-ranking]Top”>World Reputation Rankings 2013 | Times Higher Education (THE))</p>
<p>
I’ve shown plenty of support. You just don’t want to believe it.</p>
<p>[Times</a> Higher Education - Reputation rankings show ‘super-brands’ escaping chasing pack](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=422877&c=1]Times”>News | Times Higher Education (THE))</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Alexandre,
If what you claimed is true, then Michigan is the best value in the nation. BUT what you claimed just doesn’t seem to pass the “number/ratio” test. If Michigan has 4x more undergrads than that Ivy school, it would then need to have 4x more faculty to have “similar sized classes” without their faculty having heavier teaching load for the undergrads. Does Michigan have proportionally more faculty? Or do the faculty just have heavier teaching load (which in a free market, would lead to higher turnover)? The same applies to volume of books in the libraries and number of swimming pools/lanes, etc.</p>
<p>Don’t think library volumes needs to be tied to enrollment so much. It is either big and deep, or not. How many art museums do you need?</p>
<p>Haha, welcome to the return of the garbage produced by the Super Peer Assessment of Graduate Programs. If the results of the USNews Peer Assessments were not enough to demonstrate how biased and manipulated the exercise of asking the Ivory Towers insiders to rank themselves truly is, now we have the same garbage on an international scale.</p>
<p>All shining in its irrelevance for almost all undergraduates in the nation, but giving the pompoms-waving public research universities fanboys who have thus far religiously felt compelled to post the “information” in the wrong forums that little boost in their ever so low self-esteem.</p>
<p>At least they admit that “A spin-off of the annual World University Rankings, the reputation league table is **based on nothing more than subjective judgement ** - but it is the considered expert judgement of senior, published academics…”</p>
<p>barrons,</p>
<p>I agree that library collection is a bit fuzzy and I can also see how the differences would be partially offset by the presence of grad students, esp for those schools with a huge number of them (Columbia is probably among the worst - tiny campus with huge number of grad students).</p>
<p>Sam Lee, first, I addressed your claim that public universities are poor and shabby. Not all of them are. Some have world class facilities that even the majority of private universities would envy. Perhaps the higher-end/lower-end gym analogy does not </p>
<p>As for faculty size vs student body size, are you conveniently omitting graduate students who share that same faculty? That’s what private universities do, so I assume you are as well. Take Northwestern for example. Northwestern claims a 7:1 S:F ratio, which truly sounds impressive. But that is based in 8,000 undergraduate students. What of the 3,100 graduate students enrolled purely in Northwestern Graduate School. That does not include graduate students enrolled in Medill, Bienen or the SESP, which add up to 1,000. When you include those 4,000 graduate students, Northwestern’s S:F ratio is in fact 11:1. Still excellent, but quite as impressive as 7:1. Northwestern is not alone. Most private universities choose to omit graduate students in their s:f ratios. If they included graduate students as public universities do, most elite private universities’ s:f ratios would be in the 10:1-13:1 range. Michigan’s S:F ratio is 16:1. There is difference, but it is hardly worth noting. </p>
<p>And while classes at Michigan are sometimes large, they are not significantly larger than classes at their smaller private peers. Virtually all private universities have a significant number of classes with 300 or more students. </p>
<p>Michigan is obviously not the best value in the nation because most of its private peers provide generous financial aid to bridge the gap and Michigan is costly for OOS students. But to suggest that all public universities lack the resources to provide a “high-end” experience is plain wrong. Michigan is proof of this. Only a handful of private research universities have the resources required to provide a truly better, more “high-end” academic experience.</p>
<p>It’s always “garbage” when Xiggi does not like the results. But the ROW likes these and ARWU just fine. Xiggi remains on Xiggi Island. By himself.</p>
<p>Dear Barrons, for someone who swears by research, what is your evidence that I do not like the results, and hence do not like the attention placed on such rankings? Or do you assume to actually know which schools I like or not, and how the results are not to my liking? What if I happened to agree with the rankings as long as … they reflect clearly what they pretend to measure, and as long as they are not massively misinterpreted, especially in the context of THIS forum! </p>
<p>On the other hand, could I not simply ping-pong the compliment --or allegation-- and suggest that you only like the unveiling of the Chinese and British graduation school rankings because it elevates the schools … close to your heart?</p>
<p>And to respond to your “statement” that is without foundation, you should know that I have been highly critical of rankings in which the schools I have no problem admitting to like are … extremely well-represented. Can you do the same? </p>
<p>I have no problems criticizing the lack of integrity and irrelevance of rankings based on their faulty and misleading methodologies, and this regardless of the results. </p>
<p>It does not get simpler than that!</p>
<p>
Alexandre, most undergraduates aren’t conducting groundbreaking research that require hardon colliders, marine laboratories, echocardiogram machines, etc. First and foremost, they need to be paired with research mentors who are willing to invest in their development as student scientists and give them the proper training to analyze basic experiments.</p>
<p>Any top 50 or so research university has the resources to offer this to motivated student including many that are far worse than Duke or Berkeley.</p>
<p>
Please refer to Duke’s CDS Alexandre: <a href=“http://ir.provost.duke.edu/facts/cds/Duke%20CDS_2011-2012.pdf[/url]”>http://ir.provost.duke.edu/facts/cds/Duke%20CDS_2011-2012.pdf</a> </p>
<ol>
<li>Masters students enrolled in the Graduate School typically pursue PhDs and stay for an additional 3 years so its important not to double count them in a S:F analysis.</li>
<li>Professors who teach undergraduate and graduate courses may only teach one or the other in a given semester so its possible there isn’t an overlap at all. If a professor teaches 2 graduate seminars in the Fall and does independent research while teaching 1 large lecture class in the Spring to undergraduates, then it would be misleading to count graduate students as part of the S:F ratio since they aren’t diverting faculty time away from the undergrads.</li>
<li>Engineering, Sanford, and Nicholas have a lot of stand-alone graduate instructors who don’t teach undergraduates period and only cater to graduate students. If any of these professors do teach undergrads, its one or two courses a year so there is some overlap but its not notable.</li>
<li>Fuqua, Law, Medicine, and Nursing are stand-alone professional programs and they alone enroll ~3,500 Duke non-undergrads.
Medicine: 413 students
Nursing: 771 students
Other Health and Medical Professions (MHS Degrees): 608 students
Fuqua: ~1,700</li>
</ol>
<p>[The</a> Duke MBA?Daytime](<a href=“http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/programs/duke_mba/daytime/]The”>Daytime MBA | Duke's Fuqua School of Business)
[Facts</a> and Statistics - Duke Medicine](<a href=“http://www.dukemedicine.org/AboutUs/Facts_and_Statistics/]Facts”>About Duke Health | Duke Health)
[Class</a> of 2014 Profile | Duke University School of Law](<a href=“http://law.duke.edu/admis/classprofile]Class”>JD Class of 2026 Profile | Duke University School of Law)</p>
<p>
There is a different of a S:F ratio of 9:1 or 10:1 compared to 17:1 in the case of Duke and Cal. I don’t agree that a “significant number of classes” at private schools have 300+ students. Maybe at USC, BU, and NYU but Chicago, Duke, and Princeton? Absolutely not.</p>
<p>Alexandre,</p>
<p>You actually overstate the dilution effect from graduate students. In any given year at Northwestern, 40% of the degrees conferred from the Graduate School are PhDs. Some other schools may be different but Northwestern doesn’t run massive masters programs. Many PhDs don’t take classes beyond their 1st year. Even if they take classes beyond 1st year, it’s usually just one course here and there per term. Using your numbers, the graduate students : undergrad students at Northwestern is 1:2. Well, I can guarantee you if you browse the courses schedule of various departments, the number of undergrad courses/sections (100-300 level courses) are way more than twice as many graduate courses (400 level or above).</p>
<p>So including all those gradaute students in the calculation when so many of them don’t take any classes is definitely incorrect.</p>