<p>I saw an interesting post on rankings of colleges in Virginia. It got me thinking about tiers. I have heard that there are 3 tiers. What makes a tier 1 college different from a tier 2? The rankings looked like this. 1. UVA 2.William and Mary 3. University of Richmond 4. Virginia Tech 4. JMU 6. VCU. So whats the cut off for a tier 1 school, after University of Richmond or before. Are Virginia Tech and JMU tier 1 schools? Before you answer and say yes Virginia Tech is a tier 1 think about the schools that are really tier 1 schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UPenn, Stanford, and yes UVA. What makes these schools better then others? What does Virginia Teach have to do to become a tier 1 school if not?</p>
<p>Va Tech is tier 1 for engineering. UVa is not in the same league with HYPS. Unless you expand that league (tier) to top 30 schools. Then UVa and W&M both fit.</p>
<p>Public school wise UVA and W&M are both tier 1. In terms of undergraduate i'd say UVA might be tier 1, they have one of the best undergrad b schools. VT is a great school for engineering but its arguable to rank them up with MIT, Carnegie Mellon, Cooper Union, and other high selective engineering schools.</p>
<p>It depends, as it so often does, on what you want to do. Architecture or Engineering (there are others too, those are just the two that come to mind)? VT is excellent. In engineering no, we're not up there with, say, Cal Tech or MIT, but who is. Other majors? We're still a very good school, but I wouldn't rank us "tier 1" whatever that means. But to the individual student the overall "rating" of the school doesn't matter nearly as much as their programs "rating."</p>
<p>I think VT is a great school and I'll most likely be attending. I choose the school because of many factors that they are tier 1 in in my opinion. For instance football, food, people, and some other stuff are tier 1 (tier 1 meaning the best possible). Academically, i think VT is what you put into it. However for everything other then engineering and caus, I think the name recognition for the program isn't very strong</p>
<p>Eh, there are other programs which have good name recognition as well. But I'm not going to lie and say we're a top school in all (most) majors. All I can speak for is Engineering, since thats all I have experience with.</p>
<p>The business school and veterinary science program are very well respected also, as I am sure are many other programs at VT.
I agree with you Hyunwoop, that there are many factors that you need to look at and above all, choose a school you will be happy at. VT has a very high retention rate too, so if the kids are staying, they must be happy there. Son was also impressed with internship opportunites and job placement (he is business major). There are so many things to consider.</p>
<p>I have heard great things about their natural sciences, too, especially the biology, chemistry and physics departments.</p>
<p>One thing for sure is that their food and football are tier 1 :) and I have a question for chuy. What's better Five Guys or West Inn burgers (I think it's called West Inn)?</p>
<p>It's called "West End" actually. They're different types of burgers, West End's being more like a restaurant burger and Five Guys being the Mecca of fast food type burgers. I prefer Five Guys but that could also be because of the cajun fries; just depends on what you want (plus Five Guys has got to be a lot worse for you.). West End is on the meal plan though, which makes it a lot cheaper to eat there.</p>
<p>The food is #1 in the nation, and is in the top 2 almost every year. It's seriously amazing.</p>
<p>edit:
[quote]
I have heard great things about their natural sciences, too, especially the biology, chemistry and physics departments.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>How is the physics department doing now? They were in pretty terrible shape a few years back. Any recent rankings that say they've gotten better?</p>