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<p>You’re not only off topic, you’re flame baiting as well. </p>
<p>Read post #486</p>
<p>Heretohelp’s observation that prestige changes as the community changes could not be more true. For example, for lovers of UCB, clearly the school has high prestige in much of Asia and on the West Coast. But take a pick of any major city east of Denver and you’ll find a very different story. </p>
<p>East of Denver, people may know the generic name Berkeley (although not always be aware of the connection to other monikers such as Cal or the University of California). When only 7% of the student population comes from outside the state and the vast majority of grads remain in the West, isn’t it obvious that most Americans don’t know many (any?) people who went to Cal? The reality is that most Americans in regions outside of the West aren’t familiar with the school other knowing it as the place that had a lot of anti-war rallies in the Vietnam era and still today nurtures a lot of fruits and nuts. Is that an informed view? Of course not, but it is the reality on the ground as you travel around the USA. </p>
<p>Frankly, I don’t think you’ll find a single major employer that is headquartered east of Denver who would consider UC Berkeley as one of its top sources for placement in their city. For their locations in California, sure. For their headquarters in St. Louis or Cincinnati or Atlanta or Boston or San Antonio or Minneapolis or Washington or……I don’t think so. If anyone has evidence, anecdotal or otherwise, to contradict this, please educate me. </p>
<p>Btw, I think that similar observations can be made about every public university in the USA, including W&M. The only colleges that transcend this would be HYSPM. </p>
<p>Johnadams,
If your CC name reflects an interest in history, then I would’ve expected a kinder comment from you on W&M’s prestige. Among the technical fields, I would concur that W&M is a non-factor, but for the humanities, W&M is definitely a leader among public universities. Furthermore, it is the nation’s 2nd oldest college (in some circles, great age equals high prestige) and boasts Thomas Jefferson himself as one of its graduates. </p>
<p>Tenis,<br>
If an increase of 100 profs (2-3% increase in faculty) over 5 years constitutes a “hiring boom,” then congrats. That should do wonders for U Michigan’s Student/Faculty ratios and class sizes. :rolleyes: </p>
<p>Btw, U Michigan’s endowment may be large but so also is its student population. Ranking by per capita endowment, U Michigan would not even be in the Top 50 of US colleges. </p>
<p>RML,
Re your statement about what creates prestige within academia, </p>
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<p>Sorry but much of this is just flat out false. For example, academia could hardly care less about plenty of colleges that are very well known by employers as being deliverers of excellent, well-prepared students. To varying degrees, the following schools are very well regarded by employers despite the relatively low regard placed on them by the corrupt PA scoring.</p>
<p>BYU (2.9)
SMU (2.9)
Clemson (3.1)
Lehigh (3.2)
Virginia Tech (3.3)
Tulane (3.3)
Boston University (3.4)
U Rochester (3.4)
Texas A&M (3.5)
Boston College (3.5)
Brandeis (3.5)
Wake Forest (3.5)
Indiana U (3.6)
Tufts (3.6)
Purdue (3.7)
W&M (3.8)</p>
<p>I could go on as there are plenty of other examples, but I would hope that you get the point. Prestige in academia and prestige in the real world are definitely not the same. </p>
<p>Finally, in regard to your # 486 statement:</p>
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<p>this is the crux of our differences. 95 times out of 100 I think that a college choice based on prestige is the wrong choice. </p>
<p>IMO a college selection should be made based on factors that will actually affect a student’s undergraduate experience, such as
- quality of student peers
- size of classrooms
- quality of teaching and access to faculty
- institutional resources such as advising/counseling and financial aid committed to undergrads</p>
<p>To this I would a large amount of consideration should be given to the overall campus life as an undergraduate student will spend 150+ hours every week outside of the classroom. Wise choosers of colleges understand that there is A LOT more to consider than the unmeasurable element of “prestige.”</p>
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<p>Not exactly how I’d put it, but you definitely touch on an important point. As there are differing varieties of prestige, there are also different varieties of people sensing them. This goes right to the heart of Harvard’s spectacular admissions stats. Everyone and his brother in Missoula, Montana is well aware of Harvard, and the best students often apply there even if their preparation is, by national measures, substandard. Williams and Amherst, otoh, they have never even heard of. Even Princeton and Yale suffer by comparison. </p>
<p>Put simply, the catchment in the direction of Harvard is radically different than that toward Swarthmore, or even Princeton and Yale. Self-selection, we like to call it around here. The same operates with respect to internationally-known megaversities on the one hand, and relatively small liberal-arts colleges on the other. Your postman and the person next to you is going to be far more impressed with Harvard, or even Berkeley, than with Amherst, or even William & Mary. So what, by the way? </p>
<p>Please note! I did not specifically mean to bash Missoula, Montana in this post. It’s a random example! Please send complaints on that issue to your mothers.</p>
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Oh no! Did I say it was? But look! Even a cursory glance at my post reveals that I actually said “universities from states currently suffering extreme financial distress” which would seem to indicate states, would it not? And I do believe that (like it or not) the august states of Michigan and California are in actually suffering some sort of serious fiscal distress. Even if that does not dovetail so neatly with your agenda here. What on earth is to be done? I’m at my wit’s end, honest :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>Right you are! Because, oddly enough, graduate and professional students also consume a certain amount of professors’ time, especially that of the luminaries we were discussing. Relevant, somehow. </p>
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Now see, there’s an example of an actual fact which actually educated me. Came from someone else though. </p>
<p>If anyone else wants to educate me, please tell me what on earth Bryn Athyn College is. It’s apparently way up there on the endowment-per-student list. </p>
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<p>Oh dear, you’ve caught on to my nefarious plot to discredit (insert your favorite college name here)! Curses, foiled again! Don’t you hate it when that happens? What a relief that neither your straw men or your reading comprehension is at stake. Close one huh! </p>
<p>Seriously though, as I have never even encountered you before, I have no idea where that hostility is coming from. Nonetheless, I am *delighted *to declare you Int3rn3t Winnar!!! which certification you may henceforth bear in this and any other conference, and we will now both be free to move on to greener pastures. Alas, since clearly you and not I are Winnar!!! it will be a tougher road for me, but I will do my best to bear up under the strain. Let’s all try and put as many positive vibes into the CC ether as we can though, because clearly you and I both need them, albeit, I’m sure we can all agree, for slightly different reasons ;)</p>
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<p>I’m still waiting for someone, anyone, to explain this one to me. I’ve *been *there, honest.</p>
<p>Is the methodology for the ‘undergraduate teaching’ ranking given on their site? I’d look but I’m exhausted right now, from all that light saber thing.</p>
<p>“Btw, U Michigan’s endowment may be large but so also is its student population. Ranking by per capita endowment, U Michigan would not even be in the Top 50 of US colleges.”</p>
<p>Hawkette, all things are relative of course. Among public universities, Michigan’s endowment is the largest for a single campus. Even on a per capita basis, Michigan’s endowment is #2 among publics. Schools like UNC, W&M and Cal have endowments per capita that hover around $65,000/student whereas Michigan’s per capita endwment is $145,000. Below is a ranking of public universities according to endowment per capita:</p>
<h1>1 University of Virginia $180,000</h1>
<h1>2 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor $145,000</h1>
<h1>3 University of Texas-Austin $112,000</h1>
<h1>4 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill $68,000</h1>
<h1>5 University of California-Berkeley $64,000</h1>
<h1>6 College of William and Mary $63,000</h1>
<h1>6 Georgia Institute of Technology $63,000</h1>
<p>It is important to distinguish public universities from private universities, not only because this thread is entirely about public universities, but also because public universities receive hundreds of millions of dollars in state support annually, something that private universities can only dream of. Michigan receives $300 million in state funding annually. A private university needs an endowment of $6 billion to generate that sort of annual output. </p>
<p>Furthermore, when you say that Michigan’s endowment per capita would not even be among the top 50, I assume you are including LACs because among peer institutions (research universities), Michigan’s endowment per capita is in or around the top 25. It would seem your claim paired apples with oranges here. Personally, I prefer to keep them separate.</p>
<p>Finally, it is always important to take economies of scale into consideration. Michigan and the University of Rochester have similar endowments per capita, but there is little doubt that Michigan can do more with each dollar with Rochester.</p>
<p>Bottom line, Michigan is among the most stable universities financially speaking.</p>
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<p>I actually grew up quite close to it. It’s a very small, Christian-based suburban LAC just north of Philadelphia. It’s associated specifically with Swedenborgian teachings. The town of Bryn Athyn also features a beautiful cathedral. The residents of the town are almost all members of that specific church and many are Pitcairns (of Pittsburgh Plate Glass / PPG Industries). </p>
<p>Not to be confused with Bryn Mawr - which is about 40 mins away and is west of Philadelphia. Bryn Mawr means big hill; Bryn Athyn means hill of cohesion / stickiness IIRC. There are many Welsh place names in the greater Phila area. OK, back to your debate!</p>
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<p>hawkette is right on the money here. And, of course, it works in reverse for W&M.</p>
<p>I’m from a small school in Wisconsin where an average of one kid per year leaves the midwest for school.</p>
<p>There are a decent amount of kids who could tell you Berkeley was in California and is a prestigious school. I can almost guarantee you wouldn’t find a single person who knows what state W&M is in.</p>
<p>I guess I don’t see why this is even an argument. I can understand people may prefer W&M, but I don’t think the prestige is even close.</p>
<p>^ Exactly my same point, MSauce. I cannot understand why hawkette and PizzaGirl are insisting that W&M is more prestigious than UC Berkeley. All major surveys and ranking games would tell us that Berkeley is a highly prestigious school, and that there is a wide gap that separates it from W&M.</p>
<p>not just a wide gap…a** big time **wide gap</p>
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<p>hawkette, if you’ve understood my message, I was simply saying that school prestige = popularity + respect (by a combination of acdemic people, employers and the general populace).</p>
<p>By your reasoning and criteria, there would be plenty of small schools that would outrank Berkeley. Heck, maybe even Hiram College (in Ohio) would outperform Berkeley by your criteria. But really, how many of these small schools that we can honestly say are more prestigious than Berkeley?</p>
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<p>Okay, I’m sure you can see how this perfectly demonstrates the point I was trying to make in #503. In different crowds, different notions (and examples) of prestige will obtain. How else could it be otherwise?</p>
<p>Marsden, I can guarantee you that there are many, many more top employers, scholars and people either in the US or outside of the US who have heard of Berkeley and have heard of it as a great academic powerhouse than of W&M. That’s the point we are trying to make but which hawkette and PizzyGirl are trying to disagree with quite strongly.</p>
<p>By my definition, UMich, UVa and UCLA are more prestigious than W&M. No disrespect to W&M. I think it’s a great school. But prestige is something it has less compared to Berkeley, Michigan, UVa and UCLA.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t argue with that, generally speaking. Berkeley is vastly more famous. The point is that the most ‘prestigious’ institutions form a different list, ordered differently, among more rarefied company. And the obvious, ‘big’ names (inevitably larger schools, btw) rise more reliably to the top in less rarefied company. This is not saying they are more or less prestigious. It’s saying there is more than one kind of prestige, just as there is more than one kind of person. Caltech is a great example. Highly-educated people revere it appropriately. The guy next to you on the subway may never have heard of it. Same with Swarthmore, Williams, and so on. You get the idea, I think.</p>
<p>Marsden, thank you for explaining your point very well and I’d like to tell you that I agree with what you’ve said on the most part. The thing is, we can’t say W&M can substitute Caltech. That is what I am saying all along.</p>
<p>Berkeley is not just an obvious “big” named public school. It is the best and most prestigious “big” named public school both nationally and internationally. The PA at USNWR says it all. Academics seem to rever it more than W&M. It’s only here on CC that anyone would question the obvious.</p>
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<p>That’s actually what hawkette (and company) were disapproving of. They think those scholars and academic people have got it all wrong, because if they were right about the academic prestige thing, Berkeley would have higher SAT students than W&M and etc. </p>
<p>Well, I guess they do have a point. </p>
<p>However, they failed to understand that Berkeley does not weigh SATs as they do HS GPAs, and so, Berkeley does not superscore SATS, and instead, looks at the grades’ trend of the applicants as well as of their essays and past circumstances and achievements. If Berkeley is a SAT conscious school, they would just rank the applicants based on SAT scores and that would make its average SATs one of the highest in the nation.</p>
<p>There is the selection bias in the polling of “scholars and academics” if you are using them to measure overall prestige. The sampling would tell you what their thoughts are or where their preferences for places to work would be (depending on how the question was asked and how people approach the subject), nothing more. Getting to “prestige” under such a broad definition from the USNWR or other rankings would require quite the jump.</p>
<p>We can’t just assume that Berkeley is the one school that practices holistic admissions though, either. I’m sure everyone does to some degree, and extrapolating the relevant information out of the data that we have while trying to take into account the cognitive and group processes behind admissions committee decisions is a near impossible task, I believe. That leaves us with hearsay and opinion. However informed it may be, it will lead us nowhere on these forums. Does Berkeley look at other factors more heavily than W&M? It appear so. How much does that matter? I don’t think it is possible to know. </p>
<p>Sorry to be questioning and tearing down things right now - usually I try to come up with creative solutions - but for communal and individual preferences such as prestige, I really don’t think a solution is possible in any objective and quantifiable manner. I think people posting the lists of how schools are viewed in their community, family, or self is the closest we are going to get to an answer. Then, if a student wishes to try and understand how a school is viewed where they want to live (and if they are concerned with things such as prestige), such a list may be of use.</p>
<p>Why pick math? Why not SAT English or dome other tool?</p>