<p>i thought ucla and unc would be in that top ranking with virginia mich and cal</p>
<p>If you look at the objective data in posts #11 and #12, it's pretty clear that both UCLA and U North Carolina would belong in any group with the other three of UC Berkeley, U Virginia and U Michigan. So too would W&M although its significantly smaller size makes it a less applicable comparable in terms of the nature of its undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>I'll get flamed for this, but this board needs some spicing up...</p>
<p>According to USNWR Academic Peer Assessment score, these are the publics and their respective private university counterpart(s) - Let's sort 'em shall we (using Alexandre's levels):</p>
<p>ELITE:
Berkeley (4.8) [Yale (4.8)]</p>
<p>EXCELLENT:
U Michigan (4.5) [U Penn (4.5)]
U Virginia (4.3) [Northwestern, Dartmouth (4.3)]</p>
<p>VERY GOOD:
UCLA, U North Carolina (4.2) [Carnegie Mellon (4.2)]
U Wisconsin, U Texas (4.1) [Washington University (4.1)]</p>
<p>"I'll get flamed for this, but this board needs some spicing up..."</p>
<p>Hehe! </p>
<p>I would also add financial resources to the mix. Cal, Michigan and UVa all have endowments exceeding $3.5 billion and endowments per student exceeding $100,000. The others have endowments below $3 billion and endowments per student in the $75,000 range. </p>
<p>Although the exact figures aren't published, generally speaking, Cal, Michigan and UVa place their students into top companies and top graduate programs at a higher rate than the others.</p>
<p>This said, I have no qualms in adding to the number of state schools that are "elite" or "excellent". The more the merrier!</p>
<p>^ I agree. Especially for undergrad, you can't go wrong with any of the universities you listed in post #16. We publics stick together...</p>
<p>Alexandre, UCLA should be in the Elite group. It is definetely on par with Michigan.</p>
<p>Pacman, you wont get a disagreement from me. I personally feel that Michigan is more well rounded, but UCLA is an awesome university, certainly capable and worthy of making a legitimate claim to be counted among the elite.</p>
<p>The student body at each of the highest ranked publics has a subset of students that would be competitive in the applicant pool at the privates mentioned in # 23. But for the college comparisons made above, it would be a real stretch to assign equivalency to the overall strength of the respective undergraduate student bodies.</p>
<p>Frankly, the only measurement where the top publics can compete with the elite privates is the Peer Assessment scoring. In objective measurements of student strength, classroom experience, financial resources, graduation rates (including 4-year rates), the elite privates all pretty substantially beat the publics. </p>
<p>Despite this acknowledgement that the top privates deserve their higher rankings vis-</p>
<p>Hawkette, I attended a top private (for my graduate studies) and a top public university (for my undergraduate studies). </p>
<p>They were identical in every way (student calibre, resources, class size, faculty dedication to instruction, financial resources, classroom experience). </p>
<p>And just so that you know I am comparing apples to apples, I took several undergraduate classes (Econ, Math and Physics) at the private university just for the fun of it. It actually took me an extra semester to graduate. Furthermore, I was a TA at the graduate program I attended. From my significant exposure to those two universities, I can accurately say that there was virtually no difference of note in the undergraduate experience those two elite universities provide.</p>
<p>Therefore, your comment that private universities beat out public universities substantially is not at all accurate. It is in fact complete false. The top publics are just as good as the top privates on a pound for pound basis.</p>
<p>I agree with you. Both schools are great. Michigan is stronger in some areas and weaker in another areas. The same is valid for UCLA. Both schools can lead you to success but graduates from Michigan do not get any siginficant advantage over graduates from UCLA and vice versa (I mean nationwide). I just wanted to point out that UCLA deserves to be in the elite group of the top Publics.</p>
<p>As I said before Hawkette, but you never seem to address, Peer Assessment is measuring other intangibles - like faculty quality, and depth & breadth of top programs.</p>
<p>Frankly, in the categories of faculty quality and depth & breadth of quality programs offered, Berkeley is Yale/MIT/Stanford peer.</p>
<p>if you ranked the schools by the hardest to stay in or the hardest to make a 4.0 it would place GT on the top. Everyone i know that goes there says it is the hardest place and all they do is study. Some courses are so hard that a 67 is the top grade!</p>
<p>Even if it is in the category of specialized, it is in the excellent group.</p>
<p>ucbchemegrad,
Not sure what I am not addressing on Peer Assessment. I think I have been pretty clear in my many other posts about PA. I think it is an impossible to interpret number, means different things to different people (including the voters), is admitted to be falsified by some voters, is admitted by the provider of the survey to be a fudge factor number, has no quantifiable basis that voters use in casting their votes, etc. </p>
<p>Also, in terms of faculty quality as it relates to classroom teaching, it should be noted that many of the traditional PA powers did not register in the Top 25. UC Berkeley and U Michigan were two of those.</p>
<p>You seem to want to equate Peer Assessment with student quality. Why would they have objective measures for student quality and then ask the same questions in a survey? Peer Assessment is measuring other factors.</p>
<p>Yes, and the same "classroom teaching quality" survey was carried out in the exact same manner for which you criticize the PA score. The only reason you like the "classroom teaching quality" survey is because its results match your views. Since the PA scores don't, you express disdain for it.</p>
<p>I believe the PA score has a component that asks about "classroom teaching".</p>
<p>USNWR Peer Assessment:
[quote]
Each individual is asked to rate peer schools' academic programs on a scale from 1 (marginal) to 5 (distinguished).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Berkeley has a very large number of distinguished academic programs...therefore, it's peer assessment value is deserved. </p>
<p>The reason why other top privates don't have as high of a peer assessment score is because they don't have the breadth of distinguished programs.</p>
<p>Where's the love for Florida.....with an average SAT of 1300, the student calliber us on par with the "elite" schools and completely SMOKES the students around it's Cluster.</p>
<p>alexandre,
I'm glad that you had a good experience at your alma maters, but please keep in mind that that is your anecdotal experience. I don't mean to disenfranchise your individual view, but I think you know that one has to go by empirical data rather than individual experience in making comparisons across universities. One could make a similar statement about attending ABC university and then doing graduate work at XYZ college and could claim that he/she saw no difference and that it was all great. I think you will agree that we all need a little more substance and more data points than that.</p>
<p>ucbchemegrad,
I have said many times that the classroom teaching survey has as much validity as the PA survey. But frankly, I think one should probably ignore both and/or rank both separately. The experience that a student will have differs sharply from school to school, but more importantly perhaps, may sometimes differ sharply from department to department.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Where's the love for Florida
[/quote]
"I say it's great to be a Florida Gator". ;)</p>
<p>Student strength is definitely on par, but UF doesn't yet have the academic program reputation some of the other publics have.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't mean to disenfranchise your individual view, but I think you know that one has to go by empirical data rather than individual experience in making comparisons across universities.
[/quote]
That's ridiculous.</p>
<p>Empirical data to you is higher SAT scores! If a college has the highest average SAT score and highest endowment per student, you automatically assume that college is better.</p>
<p>In the real world there are other factors we can't measure that have an impact.</p>
<p>Seriously, Hawkette, do you make all of your purchase decisions via empirical data? I'm a trained engineer and I certainly don't.</p>
<p>It's like going to buy a car and just looking at fuel economy.</p>
<p>"The student body at each of the highest ranked publics has a subset of students that would be competitive in the applicant pool at the privates mentioned in # 23."</p>
<p>Does this subset of students at the highest ranked publics get a lesser education than students at the privates?</p>