<p>^imo, i believe that schools like Emory, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame should not be ranked higher than UCB, Gtown, or UVa. I think those are still very good schools, but UCB or Gtown have more distinguished academic programs with equivalent student body. also, both UCB and Gtown are internationally well known schools known for their academic programs, getting significant applause from the global communitiy. So, I think that all these schools either need to be tied all within top 20, or I would place UCB, Gtown, and Uva slightly above those schools.</p>
<p>Georgetown is pretty one-dimensional, no? At least in terms of the quality of their academics. The professors and caliber of research outside of American politics and foreign relations/area studies aren't anything to write home about, and certainly just as good as Notre Dame.</p>
<p>Where do you put WashU?</p>
<p>I wouldn't consider ND's academics as middling, either. It is a tough school academically and plenty of kids are rejected--plenty turn down Ivy's for ND as well. You absolutely can't beat the alum base and international reputation. So, I would keep ND in the mix. But, of course, that is my personal bias! (PS--perhaps the fact that they don't have a med school keeps the perception of academics low?)</p>
<p><a href="PS--perhaps%20the%20fact%20that%20they%20don't%20have%20a%20med%20school%20keeps%20the%20perception%20of%20academics%20low?">quote</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Neither Berkeley nor Princeton has a med school, so I don't think that could be it.</p>
<p>It's the (relative) lack of top grad programs that hinders ND's prestige and thus the perception of its academics, I think.</p>
<p>Please let me clarify myself... I didn't mean to suggest that the academic work load at Notre Dame was any less difficult at other schools. In fact, the academic rigor of Notre Dame compares pretty favorable to most other schools in its peer group.</p>
<p>Rather, I was suggesting that in terms of research prowess and faculty reputation, Notre Dame doesn't stand up to a lot of other research universities -- certainly not in the sciences or the social sciences. So if you are going to devise a ranking that pulls more favor towards the strengths of the top publics, it would necessarily disfavor schools without a top tier research reputation.</p>
<p>That's not to see that you can't have an absolutely fantastic experience at Notre Dame, as I mentioned in my earlier comment.</p>
<p>
[quote]
We'll look at some small LACs because she likes that environment, but if we're sending her to a major research university, I want her to go to the one with the top faculty in the fields that are her core interest
[/quote]
Doesn't the fact that you wouldn't be getting as much personal attention detract from the value of being with "top faculty?" Other schools might have faculty that are better teachers for all you know.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Doesn't the fact that you wouldn't be getting as much personal attention detract from the value of being with "top faculty?" Other schools might have faculty that are better teachers for all you know.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>A lot of people don't appreciate how much interaction students can obtain in particular majors at major public research universities. If you are at Michigan or UVa or Berkeley you can have just as much interaction with your professors as students at schools with lower </p>
<p>A couple of things work in your favor:</p>
<p>1) Not all students desire faculty interaction. So it's a self-selected bunch.</p>
<p>2) At all universities, third and fourth year classes will be very small. Sure, maybe a philosophy course at Yale will have eight students and one at Michigan will have fifteen, but there's not going to be any difference in the amount of interaction you can get.</p>
<p>3) Don't underestimate the importance of faculty quality and connections. At my school, I had one mentor who was the past president of her professional organization and another who was considered to be in the top five in his field. Their knowledge and connection go far, and they will continue to do so for all students who interact with them, past and present.</p>
<p>If I was applying for PhD programs in philosophy, where would I rather be: the best student at Michigan in a graduating year or the best student at Middlebury?</p>
<p>Michigan any day of the week.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the best student at Michigan in a graduating year or the best student at Middlebury?
[/quote]
Well, that's a pretty loaded question since at Michigan you would theoretically be "beating" more students. However, I think at Middlebury you would have at least as much opportunity to show PhD programs how good of a student you are. One might even more feel more comfortable at Middlebury.</p>
<p>
[quote]
One might even more feel more comfortable at Middlebury.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I never suggested otherwise. Students have many different reasons to choose colleges. Some may want to be in New England, others may want to have a Big 10 sports scene. </p>
<p>All I am suggesting is that students who chose the later option are not disadvantaged in their college experiences.</p>
<p>CayugaRed--I think that ND is working very hard on the research aspect. Wait and see!</p>
<p>EAD,
It's an interesting question that you have posed, but the publics generally benefit mightily from the current USNWR methodology and its heavy 25% weighting on Peer Assessment scoring. </p>
<p>I think it is clear why the public university partisans so assiduously defend this subjective element of the USNWR ranking because without it, in many cases, they’d be sunk. The big publics (not W&M) do great on the faculty prestige scoring with other academics, but they compare pretty poorly compared to most top privates on nearly all of the other metrics. </p>
<p>We've discussed ad nauseam the problems with PA and no need to rehash that here, but I have come to the conclusion that there really need to be separate rankings for publics and privates, each with their own metrics and weightings (note: not so subtle plug for others to read the thread on separate rankings for publics and privates). </p>
<p>Anyway, there was an analysis done last year that showed the change in ranking that would occur if the PA aspect of the USNWR scoring was dropped and only objective, quantifiable metrics are used. The changes in ranking are shown below. </p>
<pre><code>Winners/Losers
</code></pre>
<p>+8 Lehigh
+7 Tufts
+7 Wake Forest
+5 Wash U StL
+5 Case Western
+5 Tulane
+5 UC S Barbara
+4 Notre Dame
+3 U Penn
+3 Duke
+3 Brandeis
+2 Northwestern
+2 Brown
+2 Georgetown
+2 Rensselaer
+2 U Rochester
+1 Harvard
0 Yale
0 Columbia
0 Rice
0 Emory
0 USC
0 U Florida
-1 Princeton
-1 Dartmouth
-1 Vanderbilt
-1 UC Irvine
-2 Stanford
-2 U Virginia
-2 U North Carolina
-2 UC Davis
-3 Cornell
-3 Carnegie Mellon
-3 Boston College
-3 Georgia Tech
-3 Penn State
-4 MIT
-4 NYU
-4 W & M
-4 U Texas
-5 U Chicago
-5 UCLA
-5 UC SD
-5 U Illinois UC
-6 J Hopkins
-6 U Washington
-7 Cal Tech
-9 UC Berkeley
-10 U Wisconsin
-12 U Michigan</p>
<p>Somewhere along the line, I read a magazine article that was highly critical of the USN&WR ranking system.</p>
<p>The author noted that one reason for Notre Dame's high ranking was the fanatical support of its alumni; the university was ranked third in its alumni giving.</p>
<p>The author said that some schools, Washington University in St. Louis was cited, encouraged high school students to apply, students that the university had no intention of accepting. The university, the author said, was trying to tweak its ratio of of applicants to acceptances. </p>
<p>Whether either is true, I do not know.</p>
<p>The article went on to say that USN&WR re-formatted its formula for its ranking system. However, when the traditional Ivy League universities fell in the ranking, the magazine went back to its original formula. It seems that many editiors at USN&WR as well as executives at its advertisers were graduates of Ivy schools,</p>
<p>khipper,
ND has strong alumni support (4th in latest survey), but the school also scores very strongly in Graduation/Retention (3rd) and Selectivity (16th). What holds it back is the PA score. As noted above, they'd jump 4 ranking spots if this were not included. </p>
<p>Many people get very excited/upset about the inclusion of Alumni Giving and Acceptance Rates as factors in the USNWR survey, but their mathematical impact is actually quite small with Alumni Giving at 5% and Acceptance Rates at 1.5% of a school's total score.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Based on my own personal experience as an undergrad at Michigan, I would say your question rests on an utterly false premise. Look, I've been at both top Ivies and at some top publics, both as a student and as a faculty member. I began my own undergrad career in the Honors program at Michigan where the average class size was in the 15-20 range, all taught by tenured or tenure-track faculty. By the time I was a junior I was taking mostly small, highly specialized classes in my major, philosophy, again with tenured and tenure-track professors who were among the leading academics in their field. By the time I was a senior I was taking mostly graduate-level courses alongside some of the top grad students in the country. There is no LAC where I could have replicated that educational experience, and only about 3 or 4 research universities. (The Michigan philosophy dept was ranked #4 in the country at the time). There was plenty of faculty contact, and I got to know the leading lights in the field quite well--well enough that they were happy to write detailed, personalized recommendations that got me admitted to the top graduate program in the country. Were they good teachers? Yes, most were, a few less so, but I have absolutely no reason to believe it was different elsewhere (and I can vouch from personal experience that the teaching in the philosophy department was no better, and on average probably a little worse, at Princeton).</p>
<p>I don't say it's like that in every field at a Michigan or Berkeley. My classmates who were poli sci or psych majors, for example, had many more large classes and found it harder to get to know more than a handful of faculty. Pre-meds were so numerous that they were routinely closed out of classes they needed and took lots of large lecture classes. But the point is, the experience at a public university varies widely depending on the major and on the particular school's strength in that field, and also on whethefr the school has an honors college or some other residential ollege system. If D wants to do classics, as she presently thinks she does, she can hardly do better than Berkeley (currently ranked #2) or Michigan (currently ranked #3), and from what I hear she will have the same experience at either school that I did as a philosophy---no shortage of small classes with the top people in the field, and no shortage of faculty contact outside of class. She will, however, have to navigate a bigger school and a bigger intellectual community than if she ends up at an LAC. But that's a matter of personal preference, not educational quality.</p>
<p>Hawkette, it's interesting that Caltech would drop that much. Caltech's average SAT scores are the highest among the national universities. I'm kind of surprised it's such a big "loser" without the PA score.</p>
<p>bclintonk, I had a similar experience to yours as an Econ major at Michigan, and I wasn't even part of the Honors college (by choice). </p>
<p>Biology, Political Science and Psychology classes, particularly at the intro levels, tend to be large at every university, whether we are talking about smaller private universities like Harvard, Northwestern or Stanford, or at large public elites like Cal, Michigan, UCLA and UVa. That's because those classes attract the most majors.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Winners/Losers</p>
<p>+8 Lehigh
+7 Tufts
+7 Wake Forest
+5 Wash U StL
+5 Case Western
+5 Tulane
+5 UC S Barbara
+4 Notre Dame
+3 U Penn
+3 Duke
+3 Brandeis
+2 Northwestern
+2 Brown
+2 Georgetown
+2 Rensselaer
+2 U Rochester
+1 Harvard
0 Yale
0 Columbia
0 Rice
0 Emory
0 USC
0 U Florida
-1 Princeton
-1 Dartmouth
-1 Vanderbilt
-1 UC Irvine
-2 Stanford
-2 U Virginia
-2 U North Carolina
-2 UC Davis
-3 Cornell
-3 Carnegie Mellon
-3 Boston College
-3 Georgia Tech
-3 Penn State
-4 MIT
-4 NYU
-4 W & M
-4 U Texas
-5 U Chicago
-5 UCLA
-5 UC SD
-5 U Illinois UC
-6 J Hopkins
-6 U Washington
-7 Cal Tech
-9 UC Berkeley
-10 U Wisconsin
-12 U Michigan
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Clearly, Berkeley and Michigan are not top 30 schools; Caltech isn't a top 10 school; JHU isn't a top 20 school; and Stanford isn't a top 5 school. This is obvious.</p>
<p>That's right Kyle, because statistics are perfectly reliable, consistant and pertinent. And let us not forget, student intelligence can be measured through tests and the strength of student a body with thousands of students (and the way those students interact weith each other) can also be captured statistically, as can faculty passion for and talent at teaching. Yay for statistics! LOL!</p>
<p>
[quote]
If D wants to do classics, as she presently thinks she does, she can hardly do better than Berkeley (currently ranked #2) or Michigan (currently ranked #3), and from what I hear she will have the same experience at either school that I did as a philosophy---no shortage of small classes with the top people in the field, and no shortage of faculty contact outside of class.
[/quote]
Link me the rankings when you get a chance.</p>
<p>There are no undergraduate rankings. However, the graduate rankings, which are admittedly old, have Cal at #2 and Michigan at #3. Those two have ridiculously strong Calssics programs. </p>
<p>NRC</a> Rankings in Each of 41 Areas</p>
<p>Here's an interesting fact:
Classics faculty at Michigan: 40+</p>
<p>Classical</a> Studies @ Michigan</p>
<p>Students majoring in Classics at Michigan: 20/graduating class</p>
<p>And Michigan's library content on the subject is aming the top 10 in the World. </p>
<p>Same goes for Cal.</p>