Rank Colleges on Prestige Alone

College Search & Selection
261

<p>“Do you honestly think that most students who choose to attend college do so because, at age 16, they know they want X job at Y company in Z city? You think that?”</p>

<ul>
<li>No, I don’t think it is ALWAYS that extreme, however, that’s not what you said. You said:</li>
</ul>

<p>“I would say many (nay, most!) students choosing colleges aren’t thinking about what job their going to be getting come graduation time.”</p>

<p>-And I happen to think that is a HUGE stretch. Maybe kids don’t know EXACTLY which job they want, but I do believe that they have a pretty good idea of what they’d like to do with themselves - of where their strengths and weaknesses lie. </p>

<p>“Explain this to me, how come most students CHANGE their majors in college?”</p>

<p>-This only goes to support that many people go to certain colleges and choose certain majors BECAUSE they want a PARTICULAR outcome - that is, they go into a certain major because they want X job as a result. Their changing their major may be a result of their changing the outcome they want, but it doesn’t negate the fact that they had a particular goal in mind at the beginning. </p>

<p>“Also explain this to me. What if a student–GOD FORBID–doesn’t want to go into business??? Believe it or not, there are students who become teachers, go to grad school, etc”</p>

<p>-Teaching and graduate degrees prepare people to WORK - that is, a students saying, “I want X job as a result of my studies”. Also, a teaching degree is a preprofessional one, which often requires that a student goes to a college with an education program, which would mean that students would indeed have to choose one school over another because “at age 16, they know they want X job”, so what exactly are you talking about? </p>

<p>“How many graduates of the University of Alaska are working on wall street their first year out of college?”</p>

<p>-What a strawman…</p>

<p>“How many students coming out Harvey Mudd are looking to be investment bankers?”</p>

<p>-I’d say several.</p>

262

<p>Hawkette…How nice that you could live with a separate PA. You have absolutely no regard for the expertise of academics, and, frankly, since you are participating in a conversation about education on these boards, and NOT EMPLOYMENT, you really ought to give it a rest. </p>

<p>The kids that read these posts are interested in the next step in their young lives, and NOT what an employer, at least 4 years down the road, might or might not think about the PA metric of his/her college of choice. Really. There must be an employers’ blog somewhere on the net. Perhaps you should work on convincing employers that USNWR PA numbers are meaningless, but that you have established the correct rankings for the colleges and universities, and that you would be happy to share those numbers with them, so that they might hire from the schools you deem BEST?! Stop campaigning so strenuously…or should I say, lobbying?</p>

263

<p>Hawk…Where do I try to make PA sound precise??? I know it is opinion, but opinion that has some value. Employers’ opinions do not.</p>

264

<p>Hawk…Where do I try to make PA sound precise??? I know it is opinion, but opinion that has some value. Employers’ opinions do not.</p>

265

<p>Hawk…Where do I try to make PA sound precise??? I know it is opinion, but opinion that has some value. Employers’ opinions do not have any meaningful place in this arena.</p>

266

<p>UCBChem. I agree with you. This thread “jumped the shark” some time ago.</p>

267

<p>kk,</p>

<p>all i can say is, with the exception of the few friends i had in high school who said “i want to be a doctor, i want to be an engineer” none of them really knew what they wanted to do. I thought I was going to be a business major. I ended up concentrating in history and music–i’m a 4th year, and I still don’t know what i’m going to do. I think you’re taking a generalization of the most motivated people at the very best schools and broadcasting it over the million or so students who go to college every year.</p>

<p>I will say this, saying “i want to work in business” isn’t knowing what you want to do when you apply to college.</p>

<p>hawkette,</p>

<p>the point of the basketball analogy wasn’t to show the discrepency between the schools to the common person (is there that much of a difference between no. 27 and no. 30? no not really). But it is the discrepancy between the academics giving assigning a PA. Like I said, these schools are classified as national research universities–which is the academic equivalent of “the total package”–offering high levels of performance on all levels. How can you give comparable PAs to 2 schools when the level of comparison isn’t there on all fronts?</p>

268

<p>Students choose colleges for all kinds of reasons, including the weather and the food, but it seems to me that there are two serious questions:</p>

<ol>
<li>What is the quality of the education that I, personally, will get?</li>
<li>How much will this education help me in my future life?</li>
</ol>

<p>I would argue that PA doesn’t really measure either of these, especially with regard to large research universities. The idea that having a lot of superstar research scholars who publish major works equates to quality in undergraduate instruction is, to me, highly questionable. What “product” is the PA comparing–research or undergraduate educations?</p>

<p>Again, this is the problem when you talk about “prestige”–prestige according to whom?</p>

269

<p>“Again, this is the problem when you talk about “prestige”–prestige according to whom?”</p>

<p>I think that is the moral of the story, and should be the end of the thread…</p>

270

<p>People are defending UC-Berkeley way too much and taking everything as a personal attack on the school and its students. Its getting ridiculous! UCB is really not all that prestigious in New England. We don’t think highly of public universities. Its Ivies, and then major national U’s like Notre Dame and Georgetown and then the top LACs.</p>

271

<p>PA sucks because catholic colleges and universities are rated lower because of their affiliation with the Catholic church. Academics are biased in many ways. Their liberal agendas are what makes them rate Catholic U’s lower. I can’t stand when I see such prejudice from a liberal academic community. Its ridiculous!</p>

272

<p>Conlax i guess Berkeley isn’t a major national university just being one of the top research universities in the world. I’ve been to New England numerous times and while Berkeley’s repuation isn’t as prestigious as on the West Coast, it is very well respected. Most people I’ve talked to don’t even no Berkeley is a public school. Berkeley’s admittance rate is lower than Notre Dame which also reserves a percentage of the incoming class for alumni childeren. Berkeley also probably has about the same admittance rate as Georgetown. Most educated people know of Berkeley’s quality and thats basically all I care about. Conlax i find some of your comments about Berkeley may be based on your own bias against perceived liberal institutions like Berkeley.</p>

273

<p>Hoya Saxa…Georgetown Forever.</p>

274

<p>“Its Ivies, and then major national U’s like Notre Dame and Georgetown and then the top LACs.”</p>

<p>Um…what? Nobody in New England thinks more highly of Notre Dame or Georgetown than they do Amherst or Williams.</p>

<p>It’s:</p>

<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT
Stanford
the other Ivy League schools, Amherst, Williams, Duke
Georgetown, Northwestern
eh.</p>

275

<p>This thread was long exhausted. No need to necro-post, ConLax11.</p>