Oops! I meant LAC’s not lacks in post 520!
There’s Whitman in Walla Walla too. And Occidental.
Until fairly recently, I had the distinct impression that Pomona was better known back east than it was in its native California because so many more easterners are familiar with LACs. Geographically, of course, Cali covers a lot more territory than New England, New York and Pennsylvania, so it’s harder for natives to use it as a hook.
@OHMomof2 I specifially mentioned Pomona, CMC and Reed. I could have mentioned others too.
My point is not that there are ZERO respected, competitive and well-established LACs in the West, just that there are many, many more of them in the East. It’s not an East Coast bias to acknowledge that reality.
@circuitrider I think you are right. The entire LAC tradition does not really exist out here except at a handful of wealthy private high schools. The focus of California high schoolers has always been on the UC System and perhaps the Ivies and Ivy equivalents. LACs are rarely on the radar.
I am certain that the typical top of the class student at a public high school in Massachusetts or Connecticut or Maryland is more familiar with Amherst, Wesleyan and Swarthmore than the typical top of the class student in California is familiar with their local elite LAC, Pomona.
Yeah, Tier 1 is reserved for Berkeley/UCSF/Davis…aka the original University of California, its (still graduate only) medical campus and agricultural/farm campus (which developed into full university). The Southern Branch is always Tier 2.
UCBChem, I am not sure I agree with your tiering. Either all those universities belong to tier 1 (if you want to go for a flat tiering system), or you will have more than 2 tiers to fit all those universities adequately in a narrower tiering structure. It is hard to imagine Washington belonging to the same tier as Michigan.
Here are just three measures:
Peer Assessment Score:
Michigan: 4.4
Washington: 3.8
Endowment:
Michigan: $10 billion ($230k/student)
Washington: $3 billion ($67,000/student)
SAT/ACT range:
Michigan 1300-1500/29-33
Washington: 1120-1370/26-31
If you consider multiple criteria (faculty, quality of academic programs and departments, facilities, resources, endowment, student quality etc…), a reasonably broad tiering system for public universities would look something like this:
- Cal, Michigan
- Georgia Tech, UCLA, UVa
- Texas-Austin, UNC, Wisconsin-Madison
- UCSD, UIUC, Washington
UCLA is as good as Michigan academically, but it lacks the resources. Also, UCLA’s freshman class bottom quartile is, in my opinion, a little weak for a “tier 1” school. UVa has has the resources and a strong freshman class, but it is a bit thin on the academic side, particularly in the STEM disciplines.
If you were to go for a narrower tiering system:
- Cal
- Michigan
- UCLA, UVa
- Georgia Tech
- Texas-Austin, UNC, Wisconsin
- UIUC
- UCSD, Washington
There are many other excellent public schools that probably fit in tier 4 of the broader tiered system or that come close to tier 7 of the narrower-tiered system.
FYI, a sorting of colleges by “Endowment per Student”. Some real surprises on this list!
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19949448/#Comment_19949448
Looks good, Alexandre.
As a UNC grad who has lived in NC most of his life, I don’t see all the hoopla about ‘Top Five’ publics—Cal, UCLA, Mich, UVA, UNC. Like, if you live in Texas or Florida or Wisconsin or Washington (or Pennsylvania or Ohio or Georgia, and others), is it really worth all the extra money to go UNDERGRAD an OOS flagship? For a tad better, if that? Some play the same game here in NC. I talked with a mom last year whose daughter was accepted at UNC and Michigan. Is Michigan worth tens of thousands more?
OK, if you live in a less populous state with flagships and land-grants that let nearly everybody in, and you want more rigorous academics and to land a job in Raleigh or Silicon Valley, I can see that. Or live in certain northeastern states whose publics have nearly no national recognition–hey, where’s the Top 20 football and basketball teams? (Why is there not a University of New York, with 30,000 students and a powerhouse football team and an academic rep to match UCal?)
Well, there’s a number of softballs for everybody. Swing away!
@prezbucky had it about right in post #310 (although, personally, I would put UCLA in Tier I), but whether stated as two, four or seven tiers, they are generally consistent with the results of that combined US News/Times/QS/ARWU “multiple criteria” ranking I mentioned in post #436:
11 Berkeley
14 UCLA
15 Michigan
18 Wisconsin
19 UCSD
20 Washington
21 Illinois
22 North Carolina
26 Texas
27 UCD
28 UCSB
30 Minnesota
31 Georgia Tech
44 Virginia
and the one that adds Forbes to the salad (mentioned in post #432):
10 Berkeley
14 UCLA
16 Michigan
18 Washington
20 Wisconsin
21 Illinois
24 North Carolina
25 UCSD
26 Texas
29 UCSB
30 Georgia Tech
39 Virginia
One of the more interesting treatments on the subject is found at the “publicuniversityhonors” website, which looked at average US News departmental rankings for business and engineering (undergrad), biology, chemistry, computer science, earth sciences, economics, education, English, history, math, physics, political science, psychology and sociology (graduate level):
2 Berkeley
6 Michigan
10 UCLA
12 Wisconsin
13 Texas
16 Illinois
19 Washington
20 Minnesota
21 North Carolina
22 Ohio State
23 Maryland
24 UCSD
26 Penn State
29 UCD
29 Indiana
33 UCI
34 Virginia
These rankings are quite stable, as shown by reference to the results in the 1995 NRC report: http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html#TOP60
Average of all 41 scores:
2 Berkeley
3 Michigan
5 Wisconsin
6 UCLA
7 Texas
9 Washington
9 Illinois
13 Minnesota
17 Ohio State
20 Penn State
21 UCSD
22 North Carolina
25 Virginia
They also support @Alexandre’s notion that “there are many other excellent public schools that probably fit in tier 4 of the broader tiered system or that come close to tier 7 of the narrower-tiered system,” such as UCSB, UCD, UCI, Minnesota, Penn State, Maryland, Ohio State, Indiana and on and on and on. We are fortunate to have had so many superb public universities in all parts of the United States for so many years.
@Alexandre, “it is hard to imagine Washington belonging to the same tier as Michigan,” except maybe in number of Rhodes Scholars: Washington 37, Michigan 26. 
Funny you should say that. Williams College has 89 students from New York state and 69 from California,[the second most represented state](Williams College Diversity: Racial Demographics & Other Stats). CA is second at Amherst, third at Swarthmore, tied for third at Middlebury, and fourth at Bowdoin.
It seems CA students are quite interested in the LACs after all.
Berkeley and Michigan are absolutely the best public schools
California has about 400,000 HS graduates annually to place it in perspective.
Wonder what percentage of them attend highly ranked us news liberal arts colleges?
Since CA representation at the above colleges isn’t too far from that of NY State, which is quite a bit smaller in population but also much, much closer to the vast majority of well-known LACs, I think it’s safe to say that the claim that CA students don’t consider LACs is unfounded. Texas, on the other hand, seems significantly under-represented at the top east coast LACs.
Does it seem odd to anyone else that the US News National Universities Ranking does not seem to say that they are only ranking the undergraduate portion of those Universities? If made a comprehensive ranking that included graduate schools, medical schools, engineering schools, law schools, and business schools, I am guessing Princeton would drop significantly. They don’t seem to make that very clear.
I’ve never seen anyone confused by that. More importantly, what would such a “comprehensive” ranking accomplish? A very small percentage of a given university’s undergrads end up in its grad school, after all, and there are plenty of rankings for grad schools alone, by category, even. @Much2learn
@TomSrOfBoston regarding your post #520, Pomona’s endowment is over $2 billion, comparable to Williams and Amherst and larger than that of Swarthmore. Admittedly it’s the only west coast LAC with such a large endowment unless you count Cal Tech. And as @PrimeMeridian pointed out if you look at endowment per student it’s ahead of Amherst and Williams.
By what criteria?