Rank the top 20 NON-IVY schools

College Search & Selection
41

<p>I don’t think that it is possible to pick the top 20 non-Ivy schools. The US has way too many excellent universities. I think it would be far more productive if one were to take the following groups of schools into consideration:</p>

<p>1) Top 20 private research universities
Boston College
Caltech
Carnegie Mellon
Chicago
Duke
Emory
Georgetown
Johns Hopkins
MIT
New York University
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Rice
Southern California
Stanford
Tufts
Vanderbilt
Washington University-St Louis</p>

<p>2) Top 20 LACs
Amherst
Bowdoin
Carleton
Claremont McKenna
Colgate
Davidson
Grinnell
Harvey Mudd
Haverford
Middlebury
Oberlin
Pomona
Swarthmore
USAA
USMA
USNA
Vassar
Washington & Lee
Wesleyan
Williams</p>

<p>3) Top 10 public universities
Cal
Georgia Tech
Michigan
Texas
UCLA
UIUC
UNC
UVa
William & Mary
Wisconsin</p>

<p>There is obviously going to be a pecking order in the list above, but I don’t think drawing a line at just 20 colleges and/or universities is going to accomplish anything. There may be a clear distinction between the top 2 or 3 (MIT or Stanford) and the bottom few (take your pick from the schools above), but there is no distinguishable difference between #15 and #25, or between #20 and #35.</p>

42

<p>^ College rankings ultimately depend on the criteria one applies, and there is no one-size-fits-all set of criteria. Moreover, there is probably a large margin of error in some individual metrics such as the US News PA scores.</p>

<p>pbleic, it sounds like you and I basically agree on some broad principles (some like chocolate, some vanilla) but disagree on details.</p>

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<p>Maybe so. At Chicago, kids used to camp out overnight in lines to get into some courses taught by very popular professors. I was never that hard core, but still wound up with excellent professors. </p>

<p>On the LAC side, I don’t know how serious the course breadth/depth trade-off is. Since Middlebury and Chicago are placed on an equal footing in #5, I took a look at Midd’s offerings in Mathematics (such an important subject for Social Science and Natural Science work). In the current term, Middlebury offers no classes in Probablility, Combinatorics, Topology, Abstract Algebra. These are not exactly arcane graduate-level-only subjects. Is this typical? Does it not also occur at some top national universities? I’m not sure, but I’ve noticed this issue before in discussions about LACs.</p>

43

<p>“In the current term, Middlebury offers no classes in Probablility, Combinatorics, Topology, Abstract Algebra. These are not exactly arcane graduate-level-only subjects. Is this typical? Does it not also occur at some top national universities? I’m not sure, but I’ve noticed this issue before in discussions about LACs.”</p>

<p>That’s the tradeoff. A LAC will offer a more personalized and individualized experience, but the depth and dreadth of courses availlable will not match those at major universities. At a LAC, most major departments will generally have between 10 and 15 faculty members. At a major research university, they will typically have between 40 and 60 professors.</p>

44

<p>tk:</p>

<p>I looked at Middlebury’s math courses: [Math</a> Courses](<a href=“Courses | Middlebury College”>Courses | Middlebury College) and all of these are offered. Probability/Stats is a 2 semester sequence (as it should be, when taught well), so Stats is only in the Spring. Combinatorics is a Fall course, Abstract Algebra has been given both semesters, but recently only Spring, and Topology once every two years - which is certainly enough for a math major to get it during their 4 years.</p>

<p>My point about women’s colleges again appeared in Alexandre’s list: as before, Wellesley is #4 USNWR, #6 Forbes (includes RUs and LACs), #11 on the “Revealed Preference” list (includes RUs and LACs), #15 on the WSJ feeders list (includes RUs and LACs). If it wasn’t an oversight (which it might have been) than there can be no rational reason for excluding it from the “top 20 LACs” other than a bias against women’s colleges.</p>

<p>PS - checked Wellesley too - they offer all of the courses, mostly both semesters.</p>

45

<p>

Alexandre: I agree with your assessment completely. The question is, how much depth and breadth do undergraduates need in their major? They can only take so many courses. And, how many faculty members are there per student? You might be surprised to find that the LACs will have at least the same, if not more with faculty:student ratios of 1:7 to 1:9.</p>

46

<p>Ranking or not ranking, do a high ranking school make your own dream come true
Does it meet your personal educational goal ?
You guys should read this thread:
“Honors graduate with 174 LSAT shut out at top law schools”
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/936860-honors-graduate-174-lsat-shut-out-top-law-schools.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-chicago/936860-honors-graduate-174-lsat-shut-out-top-law-schools.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

47

<p>

I can agree completely with that statement.</p>

48

<p>As someone who’s international, this is how I would group the elite US schools (Ivy exception): </p>

<p>Group 1 - MIT, Stanford, Caltech</p>

<p>Group 2 - UC Berkeley, JHU, Northwestern, Chicago, Duke</p>

<p>Group 3 - Michigan, Rice, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Washington U@StL, Vanderbilt, Emory, UCLA, NYU</p>

<p>Group 4 - Texas-Austin, UIUC, UCSD, GeorgiaTech, William&Mary, Tufts</p>

49

<p>While I’d probably add a few more schools (Wake Forest, Tulane, Lehigh, others), Alex’s list in # 41 is a good compilation and a reasonable statement of schools that good students around the USA should be looking at. (Alex-don’t faint that I’m agreeing with you. :slight_smile: ) </p>

<p>These constant and arbitrary “Top 10” and “Top 15” and “Top 20” lists that we frequently see on CC often miss several fine places. Making these finite distinctions can be unfortunate as it masks the great breadth of choices that aspiring students can consider. </p>

<p>There are certainly differences among these colleges in what they offer the student, but IMO all are legitimate considerations for any Top 20 Non-Ivy List.</p>

50

<p>Hawkette and/or Alex:</p>

<p>Can one or both of you address the issue of women’s colleges that I raised?</p>

51

<p>pbeic, I did not list colleges that are only availlable to women because they are not open to all students. Unless I am addressing a female applicant specifically, I will not generally list women’s colleges.</p>

52

<p>The YAR ranking is indeed interesting, and was the subject of a thread recently: [YAR</a> Thread](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/924541-new-ranking-system-desirability-ratio.html?highlight=YAR]YAR”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/924541-new-ranking-system-desirability-ratio.html?highlight=YAR)
In that thread, it was noted that the YAR is best for comparing peer schools, and that…

</p>

53

<p>Left out the thread, but edited it in. I am talking about the ratio of yield and acceptance rate. It works well at the very top, then degenerates into odd behaviors because it is a ratio, sensitive to specific idiosyncrasies about BOTH the numerator and denominator.</p>

54

<p>1) Top 10 private research universities ( non-Ivy leagues)
Standford
Chicago
Southern California
Northwestern
Duke
MIT
New York University
John Hopkins
Rice
Vanderbilt</p>

<p>3) Top 10 public universities
Cal
UIUC
UCLA
UNC
UVa
Iowa
Texas
Wisconsin
William and Mary
Ohio State University
Florida
Pennslyvania State University</p>

55

<p>Morty, although you have the right schools, you have them in the wrong order. This is how they were ranked:</p>

<ol>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Maryland-Baltimore County</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>William and Mary</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Miami (Ohio)</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Bowling Green</li>
<li>Howard</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>UC-Berkeley</li>
<li>U of Chicago</li>
<li>U of Michigan-Ann Arbor</li>
<li>UNC-Chapel Hill</li>
<li>U of St. Thomas</li>
<li>Wake Forest</li>
</ol>

56

<p>

Update: Error with rankings</p>

<p>3) Top 10 public universities
Cal
UIUC
UCLA
UNC
UVa
Iowa
OSU
Wisconsin
William and Mary
Florida
Pennslyvania State University
Texas</p>

57

<p>“that is because I dropped the Ivy league schools, as I clearly stated, since this thread is about the top non Ivy schools”</p>

<p>Good point Mortimer. Then you would have the following ranking.</p>

<ol>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Maryland-Baltimore County</li>
<li>William and Mary</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Miami (Ohio)</li>
<li>Notre Dame</li>
<li>Bowling Green</li>
<li>Howard</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>UC-Berkeley</li>
<li>U of Chicago</li>
<li>U of Michigan-Ann Arbor</li>
<li>UNC-Chapel Hill</li>
<li>U of St. Thomas</li>
<li>Wake Forest</li>
</ol>

58

<p>Forbes 2009 ranking (along with the Center for College Affordability & Productivity): </p>

<p>United States Military Academy
California Institute of Technology
Williams College
Wellesley College
United States Air Force Academy
Amherst College
Stanford University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Swarthmore College
Columbia University
Centre College
Haverford College</p>

59

<p>Coolbrezze, OSU, Iowa, Florida and PSU but no Michigan? hehe!</p>

60

<p>

As you yourself being a University of Michigan alumni I’m sure you understand. I was not able to rank University of Michigan due the preferred ranking you listed by ranking top 10 publics etc… also OP aske for top 20 schools that are non-ivy which eliminates University of Michigan.</p>