<p>For New York State: </p>
<p>Columbia
Cornell
NYU</p>
<p>My three choices considered the whole institution: research output (knowledge creation -- very important) and quality of its departments (undergraduate and graduate) and programs (undergraduate and graduate), not just SAT scores of students.</p>
<ol>
<li>Swarthmore College </li>
<li>Haverford College</li>
<li>Grove City College</li>
</ol>
<p>Grove City over Bryn Mawr? Lafayette? Franklin-Marshall? Allegheny? Dickinson? Villanova? Muhlenburg? Washington-Jefferson? (and many more).... Methinks your right-wing, conservative biases are showing Pat2323</p>
<p>Haha, you caught me Quincy4. Is Villanova considered an LAC? If so, I would definately place it ahead of Grove City. I should have listed it along with Lehigh, it really is an excellent school. None of the others would be ahead of Grove City, though. Bryn Mawr would probably be the next closest.</p>
<p>Massachusetts:</p>
<h1>1: Boston College (educating those who didn't get into Harvard since 1863)</h1>
<h1>2: Umass-Amherst (Mass economy needs this school to stay competitve, those Harvard kids aren't going to stay here and save our state)</h1>
<h1>3: Community Colleges (same argument as #2)</h1>
<p>Runners-up:
Harvard
MIT
Amherst
Tufts
Williams
Wellesley</p>
<p>Oregon:
Reed College
University of Portland
Lewis & Clark</p>
<p>New York
1. USMA ---> how the hell can you miss this guy ?
2. Columbia
3. Cornell</p>
<p>Milltary service academics, such as USMA and USAF, should not be included because of their curriculum (strong emphasis on military skills obviously), compared to the other schools traditional curricula.</p>
<p>"Plus, if you want to do a comparison of the actual education, I'm sure many of NYU's graduate schools (e.g. law) are much more prestigious than Vassar, Colgate, etc."</p>
<p>Considering that Colgate, Vassar, Hamilton don't have any grad schools, this wouldn't be too hard to accomplish. </p>
<p>I don't know how big the Tisch school is, but with over 5,000 students a class at NYU, I doubt its impact is that significant on overall stats.</p>
<p>florida:
New College of Florida
UF
Honors College of FAU</p>
<p>^^^lol</p>
<p>UF is indisputably tops in Florida.</p>
<p>New College is pretty good, I've heard good things, but FAU Honors is nowhere near the top. If you're including honors colleges, then UF Honors would have to be on top of your list.</p>
<p>^:rolleyes:</p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't know how big the Tisch school is, but with over 5,000 students a class at NYU, I doubt its impact is that significant on overall stats.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>According to the 2006-7</a> stats, there are over 3000 students in Tisch, comprising 15% of NYU's total undergraduate enrollment. I don't know what the average SAT score / top class percentile of a Tisch student is, but I do know it's lower than the average score of CAS/Stern. There's also GSP, which is like a "semi-waitlist," where people did not do well enough to get into the school they wanted, but will be able to if they maintain a minimum of a 3.0 GPA or something after 2 years.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Military service academics, such as USMA and USAF, should not be included because of their curriculum (strong emphasis on military skills obviously), compared to the other schools traditional curricula.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>They should absolutely be included -- these are academic institutions first, although enveloped in a military environment. USMA, USNA, and USAFA have engineering programs that are recognized as among the best in the country and USMMA is recognized in marine engineering as the best. They also have a full selection of liberal arts majors such as english, poli sci, economics, etc. </p>
<p>The military activities at these schools are part of who you are as a student and only take the place of sleeping and partying, not academics.</p>
<p>The military acadamies are universally regarded as some of the top academic institutions in the world.</p>
<p>In my opinion the academies are also closest to the traditional definition of a LAC. In addition to 30 hours of hard science and engineering you are required to take english, speech, history, law, econ, philosophy, and others. Most LACs I am familiar with have gone to a block approach where you can pick a class to fill a general requirement (and there can be a very tenuous connection between the two).</p>
<p>I see what some of you are saying.</p>
<p>The reason why I believe the military academies should not be included is due to different missions: The academies' main objective is to prepare you for a military career, albeit with an academic degree, while the traditional schools prepare you soley for a civilian career.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the criteria I have used for my assessment is research output and the quality of programs and departments in the entire school; that is, undergraduate and graduate.</p>
<p>Duke
Wake Forest
UNC</p>
<p>Missouri</p>
<p>Washington University in St. Louis
St. Louis University
Truman State University</p>
<p>Minnesota</p>
<p>Carleton
Macalester
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities</p>
<p>St. Olaf maybe has an argument for the third spot, but probably not.</p>
<p>Georgia</p>
<p>Emory
Georgia Tech
UGA</p>