What are US top 7 universities good at?

College Search & Selection
61

<p>Very few research universities have fewer than 4,000 undergrads and very few elite research universities have more than 25,000 undergrads. Rice, Caltech, UT-Austin and Wisconsin-Madison are some of the notable exceptions. And if you are looking at the overall size of the universities, most elite research universities, save a couple, have 15,000+ students, including Stanford, Harvard, Columbia, Cornell, Penn, Chicago, Johns Hopkins etc....</p>

<p>Furthermore cre8tive, 100+ classes exist at Stanford and they aren't unusual. Intermediate Microeconomics has, on average, 120 students in one classroom. Most intro level Psych, Econ and History classes have over 100 students. I know because I sat in on several classes back in 1994 and 1995.</p>

<p>You seem to respect the opinion of professors a great deal. How is it that professors gave Cal a 4.8 rating for undergraduate education, compared to a 4.9 rating for Stanford? And wasn't it Stanford's president, Gerhard Casper who said that Cal is one of the top 6 undergraduate universities in the nation?</p>

<p>You do not have to like Cal's unapologetic approach ot education. It may not suit your style whatsoever. But to dismiss it out of hand is excessive. Cal is a pillar of education, whether you like it or not, and for those who like independence and an intellectual atmosphere, Cal is unmatched. And that's coming from a person who does not particularly care much for Cal.</p>

62

<p>Also, didn't I already say you can find large classes, I stated 150, that was my sister's introductory course.</p>

<p>Also, I am noting that many are considerably small in comparison. About 1/3 of the Top 50 research universities have under 10,000 students, that's not a couple:</p>

<p>Emory - 9,982
Carnegie Mellon - 9,663
Tufts - 8,003
Brown - 7,426
William & Mary - 6,920
Lehigh - 6,617
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - 5,967
Johns Hopkins - 5,826
University of Rochester - 5,533
Dartmouth College - 5,318
Wake Forest University - 5,483
Brandeis - 5,030
Rice - 4,881
Yeshiva - 2,816
CalTech - 2,171</p>

63

<p>Johns Hopkins has over 15,000 total students and most of the schools you list below are not quite elite (top 50, yes, but not top 25). Brown, Caltech, Dartmouth, CMU and Rice are the only ones that I would say are unquestionably elite. But at any rate, my point was that you do not have many research universities with fewer than 1,000 students and not many with over 40,000 students. Most elite research universities have anywhere between 10,000-40,000 students. </p>

<p>And none of this changes my stance. Cal provides the best in undergraduate education.</p>

64

<p>How are Emory and Dartmouth not elite?</p>

<p>Also, something needs clarifying when every site I check, Johns Hopkins is listed with <5,000 undergrads and <2,000 graduate students.</p>

65

<p>Cre8tive, thanks for the family history, though I'm not sure if I'd brag about any connection with Condoleezza Rice, but hey, thats just me. So anyway, first, I didn't say that all research schools will offer the same experience. That would be insane. What I said is that all research schools will be impersonal while you're doing your lower division work. As DMC (I think) demonstrated, there will be exeptions to the rule where you'll be in a class of 20-30 students, but those are few and far between during your first year. I'd also like to say that there isn't too big of a difference between a lecture with 200 people and one with 400 people. Both classes will be taught in a large lecture hall without much interaction with the teacher, and both will be broken down into more managable discussion sections, so maybe it'd make you feel better to think that with 200 people the teacher will know everyone by their first names and make small talk or whatever, but thats just not happening. And by the way, my rant against Cal had nothing to do with class sizes, which I thought was what we were talking about. I have my fair share of beefs with Cal, and I'm not afraid to talk about them, but I also defend the school when people make false acusations when they don't know what they're talking about (sitting in on grampa's class hardly makes you an expert).</p>

66

<p>Even the top 10 LACs are better than Berkeley for undergrad education.</p>

67

<p>Don't worry I'm not bragging about Condi, LOL, that's just the easiest way for me to tell the time period that I was at the school.</p>

<p>And, LOL, sitting in on grandpa's class? like I actually sat in his class, boring, but I did peep in enough classes to know how big they are, a five year old could be an expert on class size, you just have to sit in on them and say tiny, small, okay, big, huge, ginormous. I would bet lunch money I've seen more of the department than you have, 9 years is quite a long bit of time.</p>

<p>So, off the record, what is your issue with Cal then?</p>

68

<p>Speaking of betting lunch money, I can't bet because I don't have any, because Cal won't give me my financial aid until "next week, maybe." So thats ONE of the problems I have with this fine instituiton. Most of my issues are connected in some way to the endless running around on paper work types of things. I knew before I stepped foot into my first class that Cal was going to be a tough place, and I'm fine with that, but when I can't buy books or supplies until after class has been in session for a week, thats when I get a little testy. It should be noted that none of my qualms are with the actual education that I'm recieving, because I couldn't be happier with that. The environment is also very amazing, with endless guest lectures, concerts, book signings etc. I really don't have that many problems with the school, and if I did I wouldn't be going here.</p>

69

<p>Cre8tive, I did mention Dartmouth among the schools that were elite. Emory on the other hand is not. It is a very good university, but it is not elite. </p>

<p>As for Johns Hopkins, I usually go to the source. </p>

<p><a href="http://www.johnshopkins.edu/glance/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.johnshopkins.edu/glance/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>At any rate, none of this matters. I do agree with you that small LAC-like universities offer more attention to Freshmen and maybe even Sophomores, but schools like Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Penn, Stanford etc... are not such universities. They are major research universities and most of their resources and notable faculties are committed to graduate studies and research. Cal is indeed poorly positioned these days, and some of its classes are larger than they should be. But you oversteemate two things here:</p>

<p>1) The attention given to and resources availlable to undergraduate students at top private research universities.</p>

<p>2) The lack of attention given to and resources availlable to undergraduate students at top state universities.</p>

70

<p>
[quote]
to compare it to Vanderbuilt or Emory is also wrong

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I wasn't comparing it to those schools either. I can perfectly agree that Berkeley is probably better than them. </p>

<p>My point is that, once again, I think I can name at least 10 research universities that I would hold to be better than Berkeley at the undergraduate level, and I can easily name 10 schools (research university or LAC) that I believe are better at undergrad. </p>

<p>
[quote]
LOWER DIVISION CLASSES AT ANY RESEARCH UNIVERSITY ARE GOING TO BE IMPERSONAL.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, judging from my brother's experience, I would argue that his experience at Caltech was many things, but impersonal was certainly not one of them. I think we can all agree that Caltech is a major research university, yet the fact is, Caltech has fewer undergrads and lower student/prof ratios than many LAC's do. </p>

<p>However, on a more general note, I will agree that the experiences are most research universities are going to be mostly impersonal. The difference is in degree (no pun intended). I agree that Stanford is impersonal too, especially in the sciences and engineering, but I would argue that it is less impersonal than is Berkeley in the sciences and engineering. So it's not an either/or proposition, but rather about 'how much'. </p>

<p>Look, the fact is, only the LAC's, or very LAC-ish research universities like Caltech can provide you with a truly super-personal education. All the other research universities are impersonal to some extent, the question is by how much.</p>

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<p>Sakky, I believe a university is as personal or impersonal as a student makes it. If a student makes the effort, she/he can get all the personal attention sought. Obviously, at a school like Cal, one must try a little harder than at a school like Stanford, but the resources are availlable, it is merely a question of seeking them out. But they aren't worlds apart in that regard.</p>

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<p>But you have to agree that, all things being equal, it is better to be less impersonal than more. Obviously being impersonal to any extent is not a good thing, but it's still better to have the impersonality level reduced.</p>

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<p>Yes, the more personal, the better. But that's only the case with LACs. How do you measure it at major research universities? In some cases, like Princeton, Caltech and a couple of others, it is clear how personal the university is. But how do you measure it at MIT, Chicago, Penn, Stanford or harvard, where 65% of the students are at graduate level and 50%+ of the faculty is purely into research and graduate instruction? Bottom line, I do not think there is such a tangible and measurable difference in how impersonal top research universities are.</p>

74

<p>Many people on this board are a little confused by the USN&WR polls. Just because a particular undergraduate program is ranked 5th by USN&WR, it doesn't mean that the university itself is the 5th best university in the nation. Actually the most reliable & respected source for university ranking is the National Research Council (NRC) Report, which was last published in '95. Unlike commercial polls like USN&WR and the Gourman Report, the NRC Report was sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and is published every 10 years. </p>

<p>The NRC Report is the most respected source of its kind in academia. The validity of these commercial polls are suspect, as they are published on an annual basis for profit. If you want to know which universities have the greatest number of highly ranked grad programs and departments, you should use the NRC Report as your primary source. However, the NRC Report didn't evaluate professional programs such as medicine, nursing, business, etc. This 2 year study evaluated the major universities across 41 fields of study. The following polls were compiled from the '95 NRC Report data:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.stat.tamu.edu/%7Ejnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html#TOP60%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~jnewton/nrc_rankings/nrc1.html#TOP60&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.eupp.umn.edu/uplan/2002/excellence.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.eupp.umn.edu/uplan/2002/excellence.pdf&lt;/a> Scroll down to p. 28.</p>

<p>Top 30 Universities with the greatest numbers of higly ranked departments according to the NRC Report:</p>

<ol>
<li>Cal-Berkeley</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>UCLA</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Yale</li>
<li>Wisconsin</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Texas</li>
<li>Cal-San Diego</li>
<li>Washington-Seattle</li>
<li>Cal Tech</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins</li>
<li>Illinois</li>
<li>Minnesota</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>North Carolina</li>
<li>NYU</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Penn State</li>
<li>Purdue</li>
<li>Suny-Stony Brook</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon</li>
<li>Cal-Santa Barbara</li>
</ol>

<p>NRC Report--Universities with the greatest numbers of top 10 programs</p>

<ol>
<li>Cal-Berkeley</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Cornell & Yale</li>
<li>Chicago</li>
<li>Penn</li>
<li>Michigan, Cal-San Diego, Columbia, & Wisconsin</li>
</ol>

<p>NRC Report--Universities with the highest number of distinguished programs</p>

<ol>
<li>Cal-Berkeley</li>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Harvard</li>
<li>Princeton</li>
<li>MIT</li>
<li>Cornell & Yale</li>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Michigan</li>
<li>Cal Tech, Cal-San Diego, Penn, & UCLA</li>
</ol>

<p>Philosophical Gourmet Top Research Universities</p>

<p><a href="http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/topresearch.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.philosophicalgourmet.com/topresearch.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Miriam, likewise, even if a ranking considers a particular school the 5th best university doesn't mean it is the 5th best undergraduate instutition in the US. For example, Dartmouth College would have to be considered a better undergraduate than a lot of the schools on the NRC's list. </p>

<p>University wide rankings don't make much sense to me for most students (they do make sense for professors choosing which schools to teach at). At the undergrad level, US News seems to do the trick, and at the grad level, you can find plenty of specific rankings for departments.</p>

76

<p>The quality of a university can only be defined by the quality of its faculty and the quality of its departments. The quality of undergraduate education is completely dependend on the initiative and drive of the individual students.</p>

77

<p>So you are saying that ranking undergraduate institutions is impossible? I can't believe that.</p>

<p>The quality of undergraduate education has to include quality teaching, quality of the student body, resources available to the student, academic rigor, etc. I think US News does the best job of approximating this with a few anomolies (WUSTL and Penn ranked a few spots too high, for example). IMO, Dartmouth is deservedly ranked higher than Chicago, regardless of Chicago's graduate education clout. US News, based on the criteria that effect the vast majority of top college students, ranks undergraduate institutions pretty well. </p>

<p>Given the majority students* at elite colleges:
1. Major in some humanities or social science
2. Take 2/3 of their classes outside of their major
3. Don't plan on going to academic graduate school
4. Spend a significant amount (maybe most of) their time in extracurriculars, many of which are school funded
5. Cite the intelligence / drive of their fellow classmates as a huge determinant of school quality</p>

<p>I don't see why people object to US News style, undergraduate focused rankings and exhault research based, science heavy, graduate focused rankings when they have little applicability to what we are discussing.</p>

<p>*And these aren't just average students I am talking about, this concerns Ivy caliber students, students that attend and graduate from the instutitons people on this board want to attend</p>

78

<p>The USNWR is fine, but it is no better than Gourman or Fiske. Each has its strengths and its weaknesses. I personally favor Fiske over the other two. </p>

<p>The USNWR is very flawed. Many of the variables in its equation are meaningless. </p>

<p>Gourman is also severly flawed, but no more so than the USNWR. </p>

<p>Your criteria are certainly interesting and very legitimate. But I do not see how one can measure most of your points. Even if one could measure them, do your criteria foremost on students' minds, or are you projecting your opinion and those of the people close to you on the rest of us? </p>

<p>I find it very suspicious that so many world class academics like Gerhard Casper (Yale educated law scholar who sent time as the dean of Chicago's Law school and president of Stanford)and Harold Shapiro (Princeton educated intellectual, president of Michigan and later on Princeton) should think so highly of Cal and Michigan when the USNWR virtually dimisses them as second tier universities. It would appear that the academic and corporare worlds have a very different opinion of what constitutes a good university.</p>

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<p>USNWR "dismisses" Cal and Michigan as "second tier" undergraduate institutions, not universities. There is a difference, as has been argued. If you take USNWR as a proxy of the strength of the overall university, you are simply using it incorrectly. </p>

<p>Berkley is of course a top tier university- probably better than a school like Dartmouth, or even Duke. However, as an undergraduate institution, it falls short of schools such as Dartmouth, which US News correctly (IMO) shows.</p>

<p>And I am not "projecting my opinion" on others. The data show that the way I look at things (and the way US News tries to) seems to be the way to look at the issues that affect the most students. What do most students (at elite universities) major in? What are most students' career and educational paths? Etc? Most top students are majoring in humanities and social sciences, and most of them are going into the job market or to professional school (law, med, business, government, whatever). Students are required to take a significant amount of courses outside their major, so it makes sense to judge overall strength of undergraduate "teaching" however you can measure it. What do student polls state a lot of students do at college (and this is reinforced by admissions standards at elite college)? Spend lots of time in extracurriculars. Therefore, it follows that schools that spend lots of money on these student life enriching opportunities should be ranked higher. Given what most students seem to actually do, I think US News at least tries to look at the right criteria.</p>

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<p>That's were we defer. To you, undergraduate education has little to do with the university around it, in my opinion, there is virtually no difference between "undergraduate institution" and "universities". The two live in a perfectly intertwined world. They are one and the same. </p>

<p>But look at your own argument. You say that undergraduate students will take classes accross the disciplines. So wouldn't it make more sense that schools that have top programs accross the board would offer a better undergraduate education? And I am not so sure that the majority of top students chose to major in the Humanities and Social Sciences.</p>