USNWR 2012 Best Colleges Rankings (Prediction)

College Search & Selection
101

<p>In my opinion, Tufts, Boston College, Colgate, and Brandeis are better or in the same ballpark as USC and Notre Dame.</p>

102

<p>

Interesting thought. For what reasons?</p>

<p>And, depending on what “in the same ballpark” means, some are.</p>

<ol>
<li>Notre Dame.</li>
<li>USC</li>
<li>Tufts</li>
<li>BC</li>
<li>Brandeis</li>
</ol>

<p>USC is just as close to Tufts as it is to Notre Dame, and all five schools are fairly close (“ballpark”). Couldn’t find Colgate.</p>

<p>Edit- Couldn’t find Colgate because it’s 21 on LACs.</p>

103

<p>Doloroused, Notre Dame’s PA is 3.9/5.0, while schools such as Emory, Georgetown, Rice, Vanderbilt and WUSTL all have PAs of 4.0 or 4.1. There is hardly a significant difference.</p>

104

<p>Odd, I thought it was more. Is there some external list, or are you looking through your subscription?</p>

105

<p>Notre Dame and USC have big time football and basketball programs which give them an advantage in terms of marketing, but I still don’t think they’re superior in academics to Brandeis, Tufts, and BC. In fact, I think Tufts is superior to USC and Notre Dame.</p>

106

<p>

But you haven’t said why, and I’m curious as to your thinking. You just said Notre Dame and USC are big on sports; but so is Duke, so do you think that’s ranked too high?</p>

<p>And BC is fairly big on sports, too.</p>

107

<p>Yes, I am looking at my subscription:</p>

<p>Emory University: 4.0/5.0
Georgetown University: 4.1/5.0
Rice University: 4.1/5.0
University of Notre Dame: 3.9/5.0
Vanderbilt University: 4.1/5.0
Washington University: 4.1/5.0</p>

108

<p>Tufts admission rate is lower, and they’re known for their medical school and the sciences. When you think Tufts, you think academics, when you think Notre Dame you think football, and USC the same thing. Duke is known for academics and basketball. It’s a little bit different. Duke’s medical school is also first class. I tend to put BC in the same category as Notre Dame and USC.</p>

109

<p>

Thanks. So yeah, it is consistently lower, but only by .2; not so bad.</p>

<p>

Admission rate says little. Until this year, Chicago had a rather high admit rate, compared to its peers, yet was academically excellent. Maybe when you think Notre Dame, you think football, but most everyone I know (North and South) realizes it’s great academically. Most I know haven’t heard of Tufts, but that’s probably because I live outside its region.</p>

<p>But that’s just prestige, not academics. I decided to look at their incoming freshman classes from last year (all this year’s info isn’t out for all of them yet).</p>

<p>Notre Dame</p>

<p>SAT R: 650-750
SAT M: 680-760
SAT W: 640-730</p>

<p>ACT: 31-34</p>

<p>89% in top tenth of high school graduating class
97% in top quarter of high school graduating class
100% in top half of high school graduating class</p>

<p>USC</p>

<p>SAT R: 620-720
SAT M: 650-750
SAT W: 640-740</p>

<p>ACT: 29-33</p>

<p>88% in top tenth of high school graduating class
97% in top quarter of high school graduating class
100% in top half of high school graduating class</p>

<p>Boston College</p>

<p>SAT R 610-700
SAT M 640-730
SAT W 630-720</p>

<p>ACT 29-32</p>

<p>79% in top tenth of high school graduating class
95% in top quarter of high school graduating class
100% in top half of high school graduating class </p>

<p>Tufts</p>

<p>SAT R: 670-740
SAT M: 680-760
SAT W: 680-760</p>

<p>ACT: 30-33</p>

<p>85% in top tenth of high school graduating class
99% in top quarter of high school graduating class
100% in top half of high school graduating class </p>

<p>Brandeis</p>

<p>SAT R: 620-730
SAT M: 640-730
SAT W: 620-720</p>

<p>ACT: 27-31</p>

<p>84% in top tenth of high school graduating class
97% in top quarter of high school graduating class
100% in top half of high school graduating class</p>

<p>By SAT: Tufts, Notre Dame, USC, Brandeis, BC</p>

<p>By ACT: Notre Dame, Tufts, USC, BC, Brandeis</p>

<p>By Class Rank: Notre Dame, USC, Tufts, Brandeis, BC</p>

<p>Overall: Notre Dame, Tufts, USC, Brandeis/BC</p>

<p>This is, of course, only judging based on quality of incoming class, and therefore students. I don’t know how to actually measure how well each school educates those students. Most rankings I can think of would favor Notre Dame, but they’re not necessarily right. ND grads make more money, but that’s only a measure of networking, really.</p>

<p>So maybe it’s all just subjective.</p>

110

<p>I guess. A decade ago, my friends would compare USC to UC Davis. I guess the people in charge of USC did a good job the past decade.</p>

111

<p>

Yeah, just looked up the 2001 rankings. Tufts 29, UCSD 31, USC 35, UCD 41, UCI 41. They have moved up quite a bit, while Tufts (29-28) and Notre Dame (19-19) have stayed fairly stationary.</p>

112

<p>

Says who?</p>

<p>MEDICAL SCHOOL
Tufts - #51
USC - #36</p>

<p>SCIENCES
Tufts - Math(#83); Biology(#56); Chemistry(#83); Physics(#77)
USC - Math(#51); Biology(#53); Chemistry(#53); Physics(#52)</p>

<p>Not exactly an academic powerhouse. In fact, USC is better in all of the above areas.</p>

<p>

MEDICAL SCHOOL
Duke - #5</p>

<p>Tufts is not exactly in the same league, right?</p>

113

<p>

Well, academics will look at what is important and visible to them…distinguished academy memberships, Nobel Prizes, Wolf Prizes, etc.</p>

<p>Another poster, active on the Princeton board, PtonGrad2000, posts many threads with results of these faculty distinctions. If you look at the examples posted below, most of the historical academic powers dominate. Up and comers are still largely absent.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1141296-national-academy-sciences-announces-new-members-news-item.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1141296-national-academy-sciences-announces-new-members-news-item.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1149431-american-philosophical-society-elects-new-members-news-item.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1149431-american-philosophical-society-elects-new-members-news-item.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1130813-american-academy-arts-sciences-announces-new-2011-members-news-item.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1130813-american-academy-arts-sciences-announces-new-2011-members-news-item.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1126886-guggenheim-fellows-announced-news-item.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1126886-guggenheim-fellows-announced-news-item.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1103177-princeton-faculty-members-lead-american-physics-society-2011-prizes-news-item.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1103177-princeton-faculty-members-lead-american-physics-society-2011-prizes-news-item.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1090913-2011-sloan-fellows-announced-news-item.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1090913-2011-sloan-fellows-announced-news-item.html&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1084863-national-academy-engineering-announces-68-new-members-2011-news-item.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1084863-national-academy-engineering-announces-68-new-members-2011-news-item.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

114

<p>While rankings are nice to have, but are the schools delivering a well-rounded education? How’s their academic quality? Since the parents are paying for their children’s education, where is their money going? Here’s a site everyone should take a look at: [Compare</a> Schools - What Will They Learn?](<a href=“http://whatwilltheylearn.com/schools/compare]Compare”>What Will They Learn? - Search and Compare Schools)</p>

115

<p>

Except that just depends upon requirements, not academic quality. Brown gets an F, but any school that requires its philosophy majors to take algebra and geometry and non-science-major geology will be just fine.</p>

116

<p>The reason USC may seem superior to Tufts is because Tufts does not offer merit scholarships. Based on its reputation, Tufts does not need to offer merit scholarships. USC offers about 600 merit scholarships which I suspect is funded by the football program so it’s trying really hard to attract the brightest from other UC’s especially UCLA. If USC didn’t offer merit scholarships, the student body would be not as good as Tufts.</p>

117

<p>That’s fine, UCB, but that also raises the question of who sits on the selecting committees of those prestigious entities – other top-ranked college alumni? Suppose they might have an interest in keeping the status quo?..</p>

118

<p>

I think it has to do, in part, with the fact that many professionals share the same idea of prestige; so an excellent professor can be at any university, but when she distinguishes herself and gets a job offer from Stanford, how likely is she to say no?</p>

119

<p>Yes, it must obviously be cronyism :rolleyes:</p>

120

<p>You said it “must be”, I said it “raises the question”. And, human nature being what it is, the likelihood of “cronyism” is fairly strong. Academics are peccable after all.</p>