<p>Frankly being a superpower is way overrated. </p>
<ul>
<li>You get to “project power” to every corner of the globe - weeeeee! here we go!</li>
<li>Let’s start influencing foreign governments</li>
<li>Many times instilling “revolution”, backing insurgencies and ultimately implementing a “pro-USA” regime</li>
<li>Then you find out that the regime isn’t all its cracked up to be – they actually have their own agenda in mind. </li>
<li>You switch sides.</li>
<li>You develop a long track record of switching sides and burning bridges.</li>
<li>You lay the groundwork for a radical group of fanatics to seek their revenge against “the Great Devil”</li>
<li>You stretch yourself thin with military commitments and engagements around the globe</li>
<li>This military-industrial complex, while great for those fat cats in government and business living high on the hog, starts straining the country’s ability to balance a budget (not to mention the incredible amount of waste and corruption)</li>
</ul>
<p>Maybe its time to start focusing on fixing some things on the home front instead of sticking our nose every where. How about the economy, stupid? How about education? How about health care? Do we need another billion dollar stealth bomber, really?</p>
<p>But what about Terrorism? What about it? Secure our borders. What about Mexico for example? and let’s think about those terrorists for a moment, “why do they hate us”? There is a reason(s). Plenty of them.</p>
<p>Sorry for the rant, but again, being a “superpower”? Way overrated. Look what happened to Rome. If you ignore history, you are destined to repeat it.</p>
Yeah, lets all get jobs in government, education and healthcare and not manufacture anything super technical like a stealth bomber…:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Do we need another “billion dollar stealth bomber”? Probably not but we need to be developing/building the next generation of advanced military weaponry.</p>
<p>Why would you expect it to be appreciably different from the survey of 1,000 people? The numbers will bobble a bit, but bottom line, it’s going to be the same. Trust me. I’ve done market research for a living for 20 years. </p>
<p>And the only people who “care about what the masses think” are insecure wannabes. I love bclintonk’s response when his D got into Haverford and it elicited a lot of “huhs?” from his neighbors. His D said, “Oh, it’s a small, elite liberal arts school just outside Philadelphia. You probably haven’t heard of it” and then sailed on with her life, secure in the knowledge that the people who matter got what Haverford was. </p>
<p>Same thing about “what the Asians think,” too. Their perceptions aren’t based on any data, they’re just based on gossip and hearsay and general impressions, so they are about as worthless as what the average American thinks, which is heavily influenced by sports.</p>
<p>The point is we need to be smarter with our money. I’m all for advanced military weaponry. Why build 10 when 1 will do? I’m for efficiency and getting the most bang for your buck.</p>
<p>Our expenditures on defense / military have been an expensive lesson on waste, corruption and abuse.</p>
You wouldn’t get the cost efficiencies building just one. But I’m sure the US has some black program plane with one or two built (the stealth fighter/bomber was developed way back in the early '80s). Often the most advanced research and technological improvements are developed from these programs. </p>
<p>I agree about getting smarter with how the US spends its money.</p>
<p>You must have got this from google. No, they did not have money before, not information. Now, they are getting there with money and information.</p>
<p>LACs couldn’t compete with universities in terms of academic prestige due largely to their lack of research involvements. So I made a separate ranking for the Most Prestigious LACs based only on 4 criteria collected:</p>
<p>89.20 Wellesley
89.20 Bowdoin
87.80 Middleburry
87.60 Pomona
87.20 US Naval Academy
86.60 US Military Academy*
85.80 CMC
85.00 Colgate
84.40 Carleton
84.20 Wesleyan
84.00 Vassar
83.20 Haverford
82.80 Davidson</p>
<p>79.80 Bates
79.60 Grinnell
79.60 Barnard
79.00 Bucknell
78.80 Oberlin
78.00 Colby
77.80 Smith*
77.40 Macalester
76.60 Kenyon
76.20 Mt Holyoke
75.00 Washington & Lee*
75.00 Bryn Mawr
73.80 Scripps
73.20 Hamilton
72.20 Colorado College
72.20 Occidental*
70.00 U of Richmond
68.80 Lafayette*</p>
<p>Only 35 LACs are in the list, all of them are the top 35 LACs based on the USNews Ranking. The score is adjusted based on 100% as the highest and 65% as the lowest.</p>
<p>Williams and Amherst proved it that they are superior to the rest of the LACs based on these criteria, that despite not having the most well-paid graduates amongst the list.
US Naval is ahead of US Military Academy. HMC above Pomona and CMC.</p>
<p>Yes. (Sorry that I failed to indicate that right away.) Those are schools whose Selectivity Rank suffered (thus were given the lowest scores) due to the absence of data. If established, they would probably improve a little bit.</p>
<p>I am confused. Why did you include Forbes if part of their methodology is rate my professor.com. Seriously, rate my professor.com? That’s a joke. Any argument on “different methodologies” is silly when a different methodology is reallyyyyyyy stupid. It’s like arbitrarily ranking schools based on acceptance rate.</p>
<p>I also am curious of why you included the research rankings when they included graduate schools. If you were going to count graduate and undergraduate, why not the Times Ranking of world universities?</p>
<p>I don’t care what these rankings are or what schools are on top and bottom, but I think it’s silly to promote a system that is, as others have pointed out, pretty absurd.</p>
No, they did not have money before, not information. Now, they are getting there with money and information.</p>