<p>“As for W&M, I think you guys don’t know the school, don’t know the graduates and don’t know how it’s viewed in the American workplace, at least in the East. I will concede that its reputation within academia is much lower than your favorites. IMO, that is academia’s problem, not W&M’s, and reflects academia’s shortcomings and its fixation on research accomplishments rather than the welfare of its undergraduates.”</p>
<p>hawkette, no one on this thread denies the College of William and Mary offers an excellent undergraduate education. However, it is not as well-rounded (at least research-wise) as Berkeley, Michigan, UCLA, and other elite publics. Most elite publics are prestigious because of the reputation of their research and professional education (the same argument applies to the Ivies and other private peer schools), not because they offer the “best” undergraduate experience. If you want to compare William and Mary to these schools OVERALL (undergrad + grad), you will not find it among the top ten list.</p>
was in response to the poster asking why the heck we were talking about music while simultaneously discussing the prestige of schools. In essence, I was suggesting that his comment implied it should be excluded.</p>
<p>These are actually very good points, quite germane if a bit trenchant. International prestige (as well as popular reputation) rests very largely upon graduate and professional schools which “make waves” e.g. researchers who cure diseases or win the Nobel prize, law-school profs who join the supreme court, economics professors who move to Washington to make policy, etc etc etc. This is what most people read about in newspapers and magazines or see on CNN. But in the context of CC, which is largely (though not exclusively) geared toward young people choosing undergraduate schools, this kind of emphasis is misplaced at best. </p>
<p>While it’s easy and quite popular to bash the USN&WR rankings, I have at least noticed that they have become more responsible–and responsive–over the years. The relevant example here is their ‘undergraduate teaching’ metric which–however imperfect and however derived–is more relevant to high-school students searching for colleges than some prizewinning chemistry researcher whom they will never meet. Unless perhaps, years hence, they go for a Ph.D which will then be a separate discussion with its own issues. </p>
<p>The OP asked which public schools are the most prestigious. He/she didn’t ask which one’s had the best “undergraduate teaching metric.” I think it’s interesting that some posters here on CC think that undergraduate focused schools are the be all and end all of education. As I have stated on many occasions prestigious world class universities focus on teaching AND research both at the undergraduate and graduate level.</p>
<p>hawkette, prestige in academia is often defined and measured by:</p>
<ol>
<li>how respected is the institution amongst the academics/scholars</li>
<li>how respected is the institution amongst the employers</li>
<li>how well-known is the institution</li>
<li>how rigorous are the programs the school offers</li>
<li>what their alumni have accomplished whilst at the university and after leaving the university</li>
</ol>
<p>simply put, academic prestige is = respect + popularity </p>
<p>Based on such definition, explain to us why W&M is more prestigious than UC Berkeley.</p>
<p>I have no question as to the claim that W&M may be is more desirable a college to attend that is Berkeley, but the bigger question here is: Is W&M more prestigious than UC Berkeley?</p>
This is another myth perpetuating through CC. The ONLY reason why any student never meets these prizewinning professors is because he/she never makes any effort or takes the initiative to meet them. Another myth is that these prizewinning professors never teach undergraduate courses. At Michigan, all of the ChE professors are required to teach at least one undergraduate class each year.</p>
<p>Today’s students can also participate in undergraduate research, as early as the first semester of their freshman year … and get on the team of the best professors in their fields.</p>
<p>Well, if you read up on W&M’s place in American history and the accomplishments of its alumni, you’d realize that its at least a peer of Berkeley if one factors out “popularity.”</p>
<p>It’s confusing to me that anyone who cares about an institution’s preftige would also care what the plebs think.</p>
<p>I was reviewing one of the top 19 USNWR lists for undergraduate teaching quality and it appears that some of the very large public universities are in the list, ahead of many smaller private universities.</p>
<p>What happened to MIT, CalTech, Penn, Columbia, Northwestern, WashUStl, Johns Hopkins, Cornell, Vanderbilt, Emory, Carnegi Mellon and Tufts?</p>
<p>**Best Colleges: Undergraduate Teaching at National Universities</p>
<p>Best Undergraduate Teaching**
Rank<br>
Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 1<br>
Princeton University Princeton, NJ 2<br>
Yale University New Haven, CT 3<br>
Stanford University Stanford, CA 4<br>
**University of Maryland–Baltimore County Baltimore, MD 4 **
Brown University Providence, RI 6<br>
**College of William and Mary Williamsburg, VA 6 **
Duke University Durham, NC 8<br>
Miami University–Oxford Oxford, OH 8<br>
University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 8<br>
Bowling Green State University Bowling Green, OH 11<br>
Howard University Washington, DC 11<br>
Rice University Houston, TX 11<br>
**University of California–Berkeley Berkeley, CA 11 **
University of Chicago Chicago, IL 11<br>
**University of Michigan–Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 11<br>
University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, NC 11 **
University of St. Thomas St. Paul, MN 11<br>
Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, NC 11</p>
<p>Nobel won by people who were faculty before or at time of award (not - “they ate in the university cafeteria once so are therefore affiliated”):</p>
<p>UC Berkeley - 25
UC San Diego - 16
U Minnesota - 11
UIUC - 10
UW Madison - 6
UC Santa Barbara - 6
N. Carolina - 6
U Washington -5
UCLA - 4
U Texas - 2</p>
<p>This is actually to the point as well: when you are one of 42,000 students (as at Michigan) or 37,000 (as at Berkeley)–to take two flagship universities from states currently suffering extreme financial distress–your chances of finding available space in your own desired classes (much less extensive face time with someone else’s thesis advisor) tend to diminish. Princeton, Yale, and Caltech can certainly exemplify the ideal combination of cutting-edge graduate research and intimate undergraduate attention, but few publics can compete with that; least of all the “megaversities”…</p>
"U-M booming
Instead of laying off staff, the Ann Arbor campus is hiring faculty. The university is in the midst of a $30 million effort to add 100 instructors to broaden its interdisciplinary studies program, on top of normal hiring. </p>
<p>Because U-M’s historic competitors for faculty nationwide – Harvard, Stanford and the University of California at Berkley, for example – are not hiring, it has been able to scoop up more of its first choices for faculty. </p>
<p>“It has been amazing – we got our top choices every single time and managed to raid specialists at various levels from many centers of excellence around the country,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate dean for entrepreneurial programs in the College of Engineering. </p>
<p>U-M President Mary Sue Coleman boasted of the school’s ability to “capitalize on the economic downturn” during her annual State of the University speech in October. “If there is a benefit to the recession and the fact our peers are not making (job) offers, it is that the University of Michigan is in an opportune position to recruit … (and) move forward with a research expansion unlike any other in higher education,” Coleman said…
Meanwhile, the sounds of construction echo across the sprawling campus. Nine major buildings have been completed recently or are under construction, with five more prepared to break ground. Coupled with the $108 million purchase of the 30-building, 174-acre former research site of Pfizer Inc., it’s one of the biggest building booms in school history, totaling more than $1.7 billion and adding or renovating 17 million square feet." (Detroit News, March 2, 2010)</p>
<p>Does it sound like the University of Michigan is suffering from extreme financial distress? Check your facts before you post.</p>
First of all, the undergraduate student bodies at Michigan and UCB are around 25,000-26,000. Your figures include graduate/professional students … which has little or effect on undergraduate classes. Are you exaggerating the facts to prove your point … or did you get your facts wrong again?</p>
<p>Your statement implies that Michigan/UCB students have problem registering for desirable classes in general. Do you have any facts to back it up … or are you just propagating more myths?</p>
<p>
All you have to do is to take the initiative. When I was a ChE student at Wisconsin, I knew most of the professors and I could walk into their offices any time.</p>
<p>Or you can participate in undergraduate research, as early as the first semester of your freshman year. Michigan’s UROP program offers almost 1,000 research projects especially for freshman/sophomore students. All you have to do is sign up.</p>
<p>UCB offers a broad range of special courses for first-year students:
“Hallmarks of a first-year L&S curriculum are the more than 100 small-group Freshman and Sophomore Seminars and the dozens of Discovery Courses taught by legendary Berkeley faculty. These teaching jewels offer undergraduates a great way to explore new and exciting fields of study…” [Special</a> Courses & Enrichment Opportunities | College of Letters & Science](<a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/?q=undergraduate/special-courses-enrichment-opportunities]Special”>http://ls.berkeley.edu/?q=undergraduate/special-courses-enrichment-opportunities)
"UC Berkeley’s Freshman and Sophomore Seminars provide an unparalleled opportunity for faculty members and small groups of lower-division students to explore a scholarly topic of mutual interest together, following an often spontaneous flow of dialogue and interchange in the spirit of learning for its own sake…
"Faculty members and students who are interested in becoming better acquainted in an informal setting are encouraged to consider our Food for Thought series.</p>
<p>"Food for Thought:
… First-year students may also be curious about topics that aren’t directly relevant to the focus of the seminar. They may, for example, have questions related to undergraduate education in general or a faculty member’s research interests in particular. Or they may want to draw on the faculty’s experience to guide them in tackling the challenges they are facing. The Food For Thought program was created with the goal of providing an informal context in which such extra-curricular discussions could take place.</p>
<p>Faculty members wishing to participate in this special series will
A) Teach their freshman seminar in the late afternoon, then proceed to a dining commons with their students for dinner,</p>
<p>RML has come out and said explicitly in another thread that to him, he really does care what the drycleaner thinks. He wants the man on the street to recognize his university. I guess that’s “prestige.” Whatever.</p>
<p>I guess there’s quiet prestige – the “I know what I have is fine quality, and if the masses don’t know of it, oh well, that reflects on them, not on me” and then there is showy prestige – “oh, look! Everyone and his brother is so very impressed by me!” Too bad some of the posters on here care about showy prestige. W&M and Berkeley are both fine schools, but W&M carries a certain quiet prestige among the people who know.</p>
<p>And UCB carries a major international prestige. W&M is a small and limited resource school good for a basic undergrad. UCB is a major intellectual center.</p>
<p>“Intellectual Center” would be a whole different debate. And prestige is a social phenomenon, so it changes as the community changes. Different localities with different basic outlooks on the world will view different colleges with different connotations and understandings. How you define prestige would also matter (and may be the deciding factor). A company in California may view an undergraduate from Cal as much better prepared than an undergrad from W&M. On the other end of the continent, a firm in DC may view and undergraduate from W&M as better for the job, all else equal. But is that really prestige? Who gets to define it? Who gets to decide upon the context in the absence of a reliable aggregated source? We’re debating semantics here.</p>
<p>In general, I think virtually everyone here could agree that, say, Berkley is the top overall public research university, whereas W&M is, say, the top overall public undergraduate college. But even that would have its caveats for individual fields and other preferences - things that are specific to the individual and suspect when aggregated.</p>
<p>It is important to ask the question in a way that can be answered.</p>
<p>“This is actually to the point as well: when you are one of 42,000 students (as at Michigan) or 37,000 (as at Berkeley)–to take two flagship universities from states currently suffering extreme financial distress–your chances of finding available space in your own desired classes”</p>
<p>Marsden, it’s obvious you haven’t done your research because you know nothing about Michigan. </p>
<p>Michigan is currently on a hiring boom, operates with a perfect bond rating, and has one of the largest endowments in the country. While the state of Michigan as a whole is going through tough economic times, the university is self-sufficient enough to weather the storm due to excellent insight nearly 30 years ago: they could no longer depend on the state government for money. As GoBlue said in an earlier post, the U-M undergraduate population is 26,000. The graduate and professional schools are autonomous units with their own advising, career services, and governance structures. From what I noticed, there are plenty of opportunities for undergraduates to engage in research opportunities – they must make the initiative to seek it, not wait for someone to guide them.</p>
<p>W&M and Berkeley are both fine schools, but W&M carries a certain quiet prestige among the people who know-and that prestige is a magnitude below Berkeley among the people who know.</p>