<p>I agree that OSU is good, but it's simply not top-10 material.</p>
<p>UC Boulder doesn't belong either.</p>
<p>Berkeley
Michigan
Wisconsin
Virginia
UCLA
UNC
Georgia Tech
UTx
Illinois
UCSD</p>
<p>Cal or UVA(depending on what you want to study)
UNC
UCLA
Michigan
William and Mary</p>
<p>Then on a different (though still quite good) level- most notably in the quality of the students, but also in all the fields not considered their "top". </p>
<p>Wisconsin
Texas
Georgia Tech
U of Illinois</p>
<p>The students at UW are virtually the same in quality as UNC. UNC is just very limited in OOS slots so it is harder to get into OOS. The 25-75 ranges are 25-30 on the ACT for UNC and 26-30 for UW. On the SAT it is 1780-2070 for UNC and 1770-2010 for UW.</p>
<p>"OSU is really underrated!! It's gotten pretty selective...even in-state, most kids need a 25 ACT/3.4 Gpa to get in!"</p>
<p>The top 3 UC's have over a 4.0 GPA and higher standarized test scores.</p>
<p>Berkeley
Michigan
UVA
UCLA
UNC
William and Mary
UCSD
Wisconsin
Georgia Tech
Florida
Texas</p>
<p>Wisconsin has top Econ, Political Science, and Biological Science programs. These are all top 10 programs nationally, I believe. I think the only thing Madison may lose out on is selectivity; however I still think the students are far superior to almost every other state school's student body. </p>
<p>Selectivity really doesn't mean anything(outside of bragging rights) as long as the school has a large and successful alumni base. </p>
<p>Best Publics:
William and Mary
Berk
UCLA
Michigan
Wisconsin
UNC
UVA
UF
Georgia Tech(for hard sciences and math)</p>
<p>UT is pretty good, but I wouldnt put rank it quite as high as the others on this list</p>
<p>I agree UT is not Top 10 material</p>
<p>Tulsa. They are darned underrated.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I might agree with you if you are only basing it on selectivity. Otherwise, UT Austin is every bit in the same league with every school on that list, and from a faculty quality standpoint, ranked higher than about half of them. I'm not sure I agree with including Georgia Tech and excluding UT either... Yes, GaTech excels at engineering. But so does UT (and UT has a higher % and number of faculty in the NAE). Then UT also excels in the natural sciences, which GaTech does NOT (check the NRC or USNWR natural science rankings vs. UT). And liberal arts, and business, and fine arts, and law, and public affairs, and film, and...</p>
<p>UT undergrad is not top 10 for state schools (esp with the top 10% rule and capping the number of OOS students). Graduate programs, probably top 10 overall. Grad school does not equal undergrad. Just look at LACs, Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton, etc etc.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech is way ahead of UT in terms of their undergraduates.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>My point wasn't about selectivity, it was about institutional strength. Georgia Tech simply does not match the academic breadth and depth of UT-Austin. How can a school really only strong in tech be compared to a school like UT-Austin that is strong across the board? And everyone always thinks of GaTech as an engineering and science school, but it is really just an engineering school. If you look at hard science rankings (from NRC, USNWR, etc.) Georgia Tech actually does not perform that well at all for a "science school". It appears to be only recently Georgia Tech passed UT-Austin as an engineering school. According to the NRC rankings, UT-Austin was ranked higher than GaTech in nearly every engineering discipline! Granted, that was back in 1995, so perhaps GaTech at least improved in this one area that is their focus. Still, it's interesting to point out that UT-Austin is 4th after only MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley in terms of faculty in the prestigious NAE, even as schools like GaTech (and even UVA!) continue to poach away star faculty. Faculty NAE membership: UT-Austin - 48 Georgia Tech - 25</p>
<p>Another point regarding undergraduates is that Georgia Tech is primarily a tech school, so I would completely expect the average GaTech undergrad to be stronger than the average UT-Austin undergrad. Your point is kind of silly in this regard, since UT-Austin's undergrad population consists of majors from areas like fine arts, communications, etc.., which are full of people not as likely to have the same numerical stats as a school full of tech people. It would be interesting to compare the stats of the average UT-Austin ENGINEERING, computer science, architecture, business, or Plan II undergrad to GaTech's average. Admittance to UT-Austin does not guarantee acceptance into these programs, which are much more selective. That would be a fair comparison and I think it would change what ever point you were trying to make.</p>
<p>JWT, Have you been collaborating with the folks over on the Michigan threads?? Your many rationalizations about why UT does not measure up sound just like what the Michigan people repeatedly offer as "proof" that they belong to the mega elite. IMO, it's a weak argument. Most of the difficulty lies in the inherent structure of state institutions which are required to take very high numbers of in-state students (which lowers the average quality of the student body while inflating the admissions rate) while not having enough public (and private) funding to compete on the quantitative statistics that are heavily influenced by money (Faculty Resources, Financial Resources, and Alumni Giving). Your suggestion about a separate category for public schools is probably a good one. Given the current political environment in the state capitals of top state schools (CA, VA, NC, MI, TX, FL, WI, IL), the funding problem and the % of in-state students requirements look to get worse before they get better. So for USNWR, the publics will continue to lose ground unless the metrics are changed or the political environment changes.</p>
<p>I also agree with you that UT does not get enough respect. If you look at the schools located outside of the Northeast and CA, you will see lower PAs on average than comparable schools. Unfortunately, we will never know the facts behind the PAs as there is no information on who responds to the USNWR surveys nor is there any information on what they say.</p>
<p>Not sure what you mean by "not measure up". That's not the point I'm trying to prove at all, because in the minds of academics it clearly measures up as nearly every scholarly ranking shows. I'm not the one trying to prove anything since all the rankings already say that. It's just in the minds of non-academics completely focused on undergraduate student body strength where it "doesn't measure up". And frankly, I don't think state universities - even ones with world class programs and faculty - should have to be that much more exclusive. Their primary focus is to serve the citizens and future needs of the state, a job they do quite well. You could almost argue a school like UT-Austin, with its state law requirement of at least 90% of undergrads from in-state is actually doing a better job of this than a school like UVA, which tries to be more on a national scale by admitting more out of state and being more selective. In the end, UT-Austin still has the stronger programs and faculty and is doing a better job of serving its state.</p>
<p>Best publics:</p>
<p>UC Berkeley
Michigan
UCLA
Virginia
UNC
UCSD
Wisconsin
William and Mary
Illinois
Georgia Tech</p>
<p>Honorable Mentions:
Texas
Washington</p>
<p>Come on guys. Florida and Ohio State are fine Universities, but on the same list as berkeley and michigan. Come on. Were talking about the best publics in the country. If were talking about sports and such included with adademics, then those schools could be considered. but academically that is ridiculous to put in schools like ohio state and leave out UCSD and William and Mary. Clearly these schools dont have sports, but their academics are generally far above schools like ohio state. UCSD's average GPA is above a 4.0 and SAT average was almost 2000. And what is all this about only 1 school per state (so we shouldnt include UCLA and UCSD, which are clearly top 10 publics) and other crap such as oh this school is serving its state better because it admits more in state and is easier to get into, so therefore it should be on the list, and oh virginia is to selective so therefore it doesnt serve its state well. That is simply people trying to put their schools on a list where they do not belong my manipulating the criteria. If thats the way were going to judge public schools then hell Cal State Stanislaus is easy to get into, cheap and has smaller classrooms, so i guess it belongs on this list too.</p>
<p>For the record, WM does have sports and our athletes actually go to class and leave school (by graduating) with a degree. An interesting concept, I know.</p>
<p>I believe we hold the most conference championships of any school in our conference (which are obviously not the big time sports schools).</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wow, how accurate. Appears to be based on speculation and popular opinion. Do some research on these schools and I assure you you will have a different top 10.</p>
<p>Look at some important factors: Endowment, Grad Rates, % Faculty w/ highest degree, Facilities, etc.</p>
<p>It's time to turn away from what people hold as high and holy, US News and World Report Rankings, and look beyond those numbers. More and more schools are evading those rankings for their major flaws. Notice the lack of change each year.</p>
<p>There needs to be a ranking system that emphasizes the quality of teaching, academic rigor and student success after earning their degrees.</p>
<p>Also, although I have written to avoid giving too much emphasis to these things in the college search, I would like to see a college ranking system that looks at what really matters to the day-to-day life of most college students: dorm facilities, the quality of dining hall chow, number of hours you have to spend studying each week, and, of course, the quality of the number of parties each weekend. That would be interesting.</p>
<p>All I'm saying is look past US News, there are much better resources out there.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well you got us there. A school's selectivity doesn't really measure its quality at all. Faculty resources couldn't matter less (you could have no resources and it still wouldn't affect students at all). Graduation rate isn't important. After all, who comes to college to graduate? No no, what REALLY measure a school's quality of education is how good its food is! Or how wild the parties are! That's what college is all about. That's what will get you those lofty jobs later on. I mean if you go to a college with great food, you're set for life.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Come on guys. Florida and Ohio State are fine Universities, but on the same list as berkeley and michigan. Come on. Were talking about the best publics in the country. If were talking about sports and such included with adademics, then those schools could be considered. but academically that is ridiculous to put in schools like ohio state and leave out UCSD and William and Mary. Clearly these schools dont have sports, but their academics are generally far above schools like ohio state. UCSD's average GPA is above a 4.0 and SAT average was almost 2000. And what is all this about only 1 school per state (so we shouldnt include UCLA and UCSD, which are clearly top 10 publics) and other crap such as oh this school is serving its state better because it admits more in state and is easier to get into, so therefore it should be on the list, and oh virginia is to selective so therefore it doesnt serve its state well. That is simply people trying to put their schools on a list where they do not belong my manipulating the criteria. If thats the way were going to judge public schools then hell Cal State Stanislaus is easy to get into, cheap and has smaller classrooms, so i guess it belongs on this list too.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Agreed. In fact I was surprised that ucchris was the first one to put UCSD up there at all when in my mind it is clearly better than say, UF or UT Austin.</p>
<p>"For the record, WM does have sports and our athletes actually go to class and leave school (by graduating) with a degree."</p>
<p>-haha yea UCSD also has sports programs. I was referring to nationally prominent division 1A programs. Schools like UCSD and william and Mary, clearly two of the top public schools in the country, often get overlooked in broad discussions because of their lack of prominent nationally recognized sports programs. </p>
<p>"Agreed. In fact I was surprised that ucchris was the first one to put UCSD up there at all when in my mind it is clearly better than say, UF or UT Austin."</p>
<p>-Yea, I think other people listed UCSD and William and Mary, but i was surprised about how some people listed Ohio State and Florida and such and not UCSD and William and Mary... I also find that very odd.</p>