Texas is always ranked lower for some reason than its “reputation”. The 6% auto admit seems to hurt us in the rankings.
For certain majors, there are very few schools that can beat Texas.
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Overflow rooms for classes??? No ability to engage in discussion??? Lack of intimacy in my book…
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Just like some commenters would not pay OOS tuition for public universities, we know many families that would not pay tuition for private schools and would be happy (well maybe not happy but content) to pay OOS tuition for a great number of public schools. Texas is very well regarded and we know many people whose kids attend (we live in CA). I have read criticism of the 6% auto admit, but overall I’m a fan.
I would hope that these bright young adults have the ability to engage in intellectual discussion without the need for the university to structure it for them.
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The ability to engage in intellectual discussion in the context of the class depends on how many people are in the class. You can’t really expect kids to leave the class and form small groups to have discussions outside the class in routine course, just because the class atmosphere is not conducive for this.
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Class discussions are small at Cal and UCLA.
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The schools that I’m familiar with all have mandatory small group recitations for large lecture classes where there is ample discussion and “intellectual intimacy”.
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My wife and I cant decide which school has the better national reputation. I went to Texas and she went to Rice. The schools are very different but Rice is ranked much higher. But Rice has a very “regionalized” feel while Texas seems to have a broader reach.
It’s all fun and games.
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That’s the best description of USNWR rankings that I’ve seen…minus the fun 
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At UCLA I never had a problem asking questions of the professors in large lecture halls, let alone the affiliated small group seminars they did for the large classes. And finding the profs at office hours. I averaged 12 classes a year (quarter system) and when I graduated there may have been a handful of profs I took classes from who didn’t know me. I had zero sense of lacking intellectual intimacy.
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Rice falls into a category of schools that is very well known for what it is to the generally informed audience. Texas will have a strong academic rep in the region even amongst the uninformed, because it’s the crown jewel. Both will lack the automatic “wow! you must be really smart” factor nationally among the uninformed, and will have it among the informed.
It’s always a mixed bag and really depends. Right or wrong, if a person has to have the “everybody knows” factor in their lives, you need to attend an Ivy League school, Stanford, MIT and maybe Cal Tech. Maybe Duke and Vandy fall into that category too. Everybody, no matter how clueless, seems to get it about those schools. I may have missed one, but I don’t think Rice has that kind of pop culture familiarity across the board.
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“You can’t really expect kids to leave the class and form small groups to have discussions outside the class in routine course, just because the class atmosphere is not conducive for this.”
Precisely what I expected/hoped my kid to do, and she did. What’s wrong with that? Small or large class, college students (not exactly “kids”), don’t ask questions in the class for various reasons, and not always due to class size. Regardless, it’s a good skill to have, I would recommend all college students to take initiative, form small group to study together and exchange ideas, whether they go to private elite school or “not worthy” public school.
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I’ll let you know a few years from now how the intellectual intimacy is at our instate public vs a T5 private, since I have a kid that started there now.
I was told UCB was cut throat, and not super friendly in EECS vs being super collaborative at the private T5.
And was, long before the rankings.
I’d put Rice, Vanderbilt and WashU all in the same category.
Duke is better known, but not for the level of academics their rank would suggest. The basketball program put them on the map. I’d put Notre Dame, Georgetown and USC into this category, good schools, made nationally famous by athletics.
All of these schools have been good, long before USNWR pivoted their business model.
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Michigan dropped a few spots so you know it’s all rigged 
Just a few crumbs for the plebeians.
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My wife went to Rice because it was ranked #9 way back when. She feels completely ripped off and duped that the school hasnt made their best efforts to stay in the top 10.
Top 15 is barely T20.
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And I can assure you now that my D is at UCB and her intellectual intimacy (whatever that even means) is not lacking. She will be graduating this year with 2 degrees in 3.5 years. She turned down 2 lucrative intern and coop (remote, her own hours) opportunities from a Pharm company, in order to do undergraduate research at Berkeley. She works with her peers, grad students and professors there and she is loving every minute of it.
Look, your kid is at Princeton, it’s a great school. Congratulations. Most would choose Princeton over UCB, I would. For CS I can understand why Berkeley could be a very competitive choice. Maybe that’s why you feel the need to justify your decision and bashing UCB?. No need, though. I am sure your kid will do extremely well at Princeton, as is mine as Berkeley. One size doesn’t fit all.
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Median pay for UCB economics graduates who responded to the career survey is $75,000. It is $87,328 for federal financial aid recipients in College Scorecard.
There is a strong anti-TA preference among some posters here, usually related to a preference for liberal arts colleges.
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