<p>Weak academic programs? What do you mean by that? What’s bad about a commuter school? As for endowment it’s not nearly as old and UF and it’s cheaper. Athletic programs I don’t care for at all. For alumni I can’t say much. The faculty at FIU are much better than community colleges if you’ve seen/taken any of the junior level + classes.</p>
<p>When I took calc 3 as a dual enrollment student at MDC there was a guy from UF who said calc 3 at UF was easier than at a college like Miami Dade college and he had a much harder time in the course than I did. Keep in mind MDC is about the same in term of material covered for 1st/ 2nd year courses . I thought the student from UF would at least offer some competition since UF is older than FIU and has a better name but the courses he took at UF seem the same if not worse than the ones at FIU/MDC.</p>
<p>“Weak academic programs? What do you mean by that?”</p>
<p>FIU does not have even ONE ranked program according to USNews. Whereas UF is ranked highly in almost every single program that is offered.</p>
<p>“What’s bad about a commuter school?”</p>
<p>Commuter schools are fine, but they are not on the level of Miami, UF, or even FSU for that matter.</p>
<p>“As for endowment it’s not nearly as old and UF and it’s cheaper”</p>
<p>So what. You asked for tangible evidence for why you can’t comapre FIU to UM & UF and I gave them to you. Also FIU costs almost the same as UF, the only difference is UF is allowed to charge Tuition Differential. They are both under $4,000 a year in tuition.</p>
<p>“The faculty at FIU are much better than community colleges if you’ve seen/taken any of the junior level + classes”</p>
<p>According to USNews: FIU has a terrible Peer Assessment Score. It’s behind UF, UM, FSU, USF, and UCF.</p>
<p>I’ll keep that in mind when I go to FIU. Just in case FIU happens to be some horrible school I’ll transfer out. Maybe the university itself is better but the students in the exact same major I doubt. If you take the same exact class that UF offers at FIU it will be pretty much the same. The course work for engineering is standardized (ABET) so how exactly do they rank academic programs? Percentage graduate , fail , job obtained etc? So I guess most of the rankings don’t deal with the actual coursework but how rich the university is and world famous professors , sports and something with the academic programs that make them better although the coursework is almost identical.</p>
<p>When I think of coursework I put UM , FIU , UF and other state universities in the same boat but even if the coursework is the same other factors determine the popularity of the university. When I use to hear people going to UF I used to think their classes were extremely hard but it’s actually the same as many other state universities. It’s just harder to get in as a freshmen among the other reasons listed(relative/absolute).</p>
<p>work ain’t got nothin’ to do with it, its what you learn. Which may mean there is more work, but there might not be more work at all.</p>
<p>Depends on your major , some majors have less work and you can still learn a lot but for like a major like math you are expected to do much more work and even learn from your own work. That’s why I can’t understand the ratings sometimes. I want to see how many people major in what at UF.</p>
<p>del_psi…your argument is essentially implying that all ABET-accredited schools are effectively similar. This is an argument that has been made before on CC, and now you are just focusing it down to a comparison between FIU and UF. It is true, at the undergraduate level anyway, that a good self-directed student at FIU can learn as much as a student at UF, or even MIT for that matter. However, rankings, like it or not, are not really about what individual students can learn. They are about broad-based metrics. Things like peer and recruiter assessment scores, depth of program offerings, student quality, research expenditures, journal papers, patent approvals, quality of faculty. In this regard, UF is ranked way ahead of any school in the state and is, in fact, internationally recognized.</p>
<p>This is not to say you cant learn everything you need to be successful at FIU because you can. Your opportunities would likely be better at UF, though.</p>
<p>^ rogracer has nailed it! </p>
<p>Which proves my original statement: don’t compare FIU to UM and UF.</p>
<p>Of course, these rankings are based off of what peers at other universities have heard from OTHERS about the school. They haven’t necessarily experienced it firsthand. This is why Ivy League schools always come out on top in these rankings, while there are other books and opinions out there that name other universities as the best in the nation. How? By experiencing the university firsthand! And sure, the endowment of UF dwarfs that of the other public universities of Florida, but how much of that money improves the quality of instruction, and not just the research coming out?</p>
<p>Athletic success also does a lot to improve peer assessment scores. I highly doubt UF would be where it is in the rankings without their national championships. Similarly, I expect UF to jump a considerable amount next year because of the recent win.</p>
<p>SSobick, a more personal question, if I may. Have you seen FIU, UCF or USF in-person recently?</p>
<p>“Athletic success also does a lot to improve peer assessment scores. I highly doubt UF would be where it is in the rankings without their national championships. Similarly, I expect UF to jump a considerable amount next year because of the recent win.”</p>
<p>That would be awesome if our Peer Assessment went up on account of a silly game. It has not helped with the last 3 National Championships. It does have an effect on the quality of the student body though (last year we had an additional 6,000 applications).</p>
<p>Peer Assement Scores are a tricky thing:</p>
<p>UF a couple years back went up from a 3.5 to a 3.6 overall because of the Gatornation Campaign. It was a public relations blitz that really showcased how the University of Florida has grown over the years. Research innovations such as: Gatorade, Trusopt, the UF Health Science Center, McKnight Brain Institute, IFAS, the Nuclear Reactor, the George Smathers Library System, the new Cancer Hospital, the partnerships with Burnham Institute & Moffitt Center were brought up. In addition we talked about the our partnership with the Gran Telescopio Canarias, Zhejiang University, and the Large Hadron Collider project.</p>
<p>This counts as 25% of the overall ranking.</p>
<hr>
<p>“Have you seen FIU, UCF or USF in-person recently?”</p>
<p>I went to the UCF campus in 2006. Was ultra-modern and was 13 miles from the downtown area. Overall it was descent but I just prefer the traditional collegiate campuses. I know you all have Lake Nona under construction, but it’s really not going to make research expenditures shoot thru the roof like the Orlando people seem to think. It’s going to take decades to bring in the Superstar faculty & Graduate Students to bring in the NIH Grants. UCF still has a long way to go.</p>