<p>Faculty quality should count for little since anyone with a PhD in a subject can teach an introductory Economics or Biology course. You don’t need Berkeley’s billion Nobel Laureates to teach you basic concepts to get a good undergraduate education.</p>
<p>What does matter is the strength of your classmates and the type of academic environment they foster around you through their commitment to education. Wisconsin may have a stronger faculty than Brown but the latter school will have more academically accomplished students with a thirst for learning so you will be inspired to do greater things. That’s why Brown grads do much better in law school, medical school, and PhD admissions than grads of Wisconsin and virtually every other state school.</p>
<p>Not going to vote one way or another, but want to throw in a comment or two…</p>
<p>NYU probably get’s it’s Dream School status from Tisch, not Stern. Every theater kid in the world wants to come to NYC, go to Tisch, and make it on Broadway by their junior year.</p>
<p>Mormons might overrate BYU, but it’s also one of the cheapest colleges to attend, and it’s a decent school. Considering tuition is under $5k per year for LDS members, less than almost if not every state flagship, it’s bang for the buck ratio is pretty high. If you don’t mind the campus atmosphere, and admittedly, it’s a huge limiting factor, that’s pretty hard to beat.</p>
<p>“Wisconsin may have a stronger faculty than Brown but the latter school will have more academically accomplished students with a thirst for learning so you will be inspired to do greater things.”</p>
<p>3 assertions here:
Wisconsin faculty stronger than Brown is generally true.
Average student at Brown more academically accomplished than that at Wisconsin is also true.
“Inspired to do greater things” is an assumption and dependent on the individual. Some kids are more inspired by the competition. Some kids lose confidence because of the competition at age 18-20 and would thrive more and be inspired more as top dog at a state school rather than if they’ve average among a group of other brilliant minds.</p>
<p>“That’s why Brown grads do much better in law school, medical school, and PhD admissions than grads of Wisconsin and virtually every other state school.”</p>
<p>Big logical fallacy here. Brown certainly will be more successful on a percentage basis at sending kids in to law/med/grad school than Wisconsin. But that is in large part because they start out with, on average, significantly academically better kids. That does not mean that Brown would do a better job of sending <em>you</em> to law/med/grad school than Wisconsin. That is undetermined (and actually depends in large part on the individual).</p>
<p>Now, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any advantages at any private elite for any post-grad admissions. Rice does very well at getting kids in to med school in part because they have a strong relationship with Baylor Medical, for instance.</p>
<p>BYU used to give a lot of merit aid based on GPA. I agree it’s very good for accounting or maybe business school in general. The Mormons are good in business.</p>
<p>Caltech does have native majors in a few humanities and social studies subjects: economics, English, history, history and philosophy of science, philosophy, and political science: <a href=“http://admissions.caltech.edu/learning/options”>http://admissions.caltech.edu/learning/options</a> . Harvey Mudd students intending to major in a humanities or social studies subject need to do it as an off-campus major through one of the other Claremont colleges. But few students at either school major in a humanities or social studies subject.</p>
<p>However, Caltech’s humanities and social studies general education requirements of 108 out of 540 total units (20% of the total) are somewhat less than that of Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>The corollary to this claim is that starting at a community college for introductory course work and then transferring to a four year school as a junior is just as good an option academically for students who are not already advanced (i.e. the common B students in high school, not the A students with lots of advanced placement from AP scores and college courses taken while in high school). But community colleges seem to be extremely underrated and viewed with heavy disdain on these forums, even though many respectable four year schools accept many transfers from community colleges (e.g. many state universities and USC; even Stanford, though it takes few transfers, typically gets around half of them from community colleges).</p>
<p>Where there is more differentiation between schools tends to be in junior/senior level courses (in number and frequency of course offerings, the depth and speed of coverage of the material, and the general emphasis of the department), although introductory level courses sometimes do vary in depth and speed of similar material. However, a school’s general prestige is not always a reliable indicator here.</p>
<p>They are typically not well known, resulting in not being considered by many students for whom they are suitable. However, there are also posters who promote LACs as the answer to every college query, even for students for whom LACs may not be as suitable. The latter is mostly for private LACs; public LACs seem to be largely ignored by LAC advocates.</p>
<p>I think Barnard College + many liberal arts colleges are generally underrated by most people. I know that in my school, nobody will have heard of Pomona, Amherst or Swarthmore. :/</p>
<p>NYU /is/ actually a good school, beyond Tisch and Stern, and as with any school in NYC, its location is a huge strength.</p>
<p>ucb, it’s not an issue, lots of Isreali students go to BYU. It’s not conservative life style as you would think, someone I know marries to a Mormon and he said at BYU he saw more girls were pregnant than at USC. He went to USC.</p>
<p>BYU’s core curriculum would be extremely problematic for a non Mormon, or even one questioning his/her faith. From my perspective, that of someone who lives and works with current BYU P and I students, they seem to be somewhat ideologically homogenous on a number of issues, and a tad </p>
<p>On a more positive note, BYU has an excellent undergraduate geology program fwiw. </p>
<p>Also UCB, just because a school claims to be a public LAC doesn’t mean it actually is. For instance Truman State has 7,000 plus students, a good deal of preprofessional programs, and a small grad school. By almost every reasonable measure, it’s an isolated, regional university. Not a bad school by most measures, but it fails all three of the LAC tests. </p>
<p>@UCbalumnus make a good point about LAC’s. You can make a good point that LAC’s are underrated because they are not well known and can provide a good education, but you can also make the case that they are overrated because they aren’t well known. At best, and outside of certain regions, no one will know of the school you went to, thus rendering your degree overrated in the job market.</p>
<p>I don’t think the decision that a student will make is usually going from CS to theater but more likely from biology to chemistry or history to philosophy. There can be big differences in the strength of the department for those majors so I think the overall prestige of the college is a better tool than a specific major for most students.</p>
<p>What is the size threshold to be considered a LAC?
How does the presence of pre-professional majors disqualify a school from being a LAC (e.g. Harvey Mudd, with 41% of bachelor’s degrees in engineering is usually seen as a LAC)?</p>
<p>Public LACs are not mentioned often mostly because they do not offer as good financial aid to students. The only one that gets mentioned is the New College of Florida because of its low COA and tendency to offer merit aid. Not going to say anything about the naval/military academies.</p>
<p>However, their list prices can be much lower than the private LACs usually mentioned. E.g. University of Minnesota - Morris is about $23,000 at list price. A typical private LAC mentioned here (e.g. Holy Cross with a list price of about $58,000) would need to give a lot of financial aid or scholarships to be price competitive.</p>
<p>“I don’t think the decision that a student will make is usually going from CS to theater but more likely from biology to chemistry or history to philosophy. There can be big differences in the strength of the department for those majors so I think the overall prestige of the college is a better tool than a specific major for most students.”</p>
<p>Can be, but there’s a decent amount of correlation between strengths in particular sciences and other sciences and strength in particular humanities and other humanities. Plus which, if you know you’ll go in to science (or a humanities subject, then why not look at a school’s reputation and placement (in to jobs or PhD programs; whatever interests you) in sciences or with liberal arts degrees instead of the general rankings?</p>
<p>For instance, BU is ranked higher than WPI in the USN general rankings, but in engineering, WPI evidently has better job/grad school placement than BU and overall has a better reputation in engineering than BU, so are you still going to say that picking BU over WPI makes sense for a kid who is looking in to some engineering field just because the overall ranking of BU is higher?</p>