<p>Wesleyan, Georgetown.</p>
<p>^ Why those two? </p>
<p>For Georgetown to rise much in the rankings it probably needs to address the perception (and to some extent the reality) that it is a niche school. The competition (NU, WUSTL, ND, Emory, Rice) are all more versitile research universities, so they can respond more nimbly to changes in market preferences (such as new interest in green technology). Rice for example has a top-notch architecture school, music school, and engineering, in addition to a first-rate college of arts and sciences. It also has a huge endowment for a school its size ($3.6B for ~5K students v. Georgetown’s $957M for 15K students). If many of Georgetown’s most successful undergraduates keep going into the State Department and other federal agencies, then it likely will continue having trouble building a more competitive endowment because those are not among the most lucrative careers. The new (much needed) science facilities may help, if they can attract top faculty to go with the buildings.</p>
<p>Wesleyan is another top school whose endowment lags most of its peers (even though most of them are even smaller schools):</p>
<p>Carleton $517M
Wesleyan $523M
Bowdoin $688.5M
Middlebury $792M
Grinnell $1.1B
Pomona $1.1B
Swarthmore $1.1B
Amherst $1.31B
Williams $1.4B</p>
<p>Bush is a ■■■■■■ from Texas. The laughing stock of American history.</p>
<p>However ■■■■■■■■ and a laughing stock he may be, Bush was nevertheless elected to the Presidency twice. What does that say about the people who voted him into office?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Success has little to do with acadamic excellence. Aside from Bush, Gore, Kerry, Jobs and Gate a lot of successful people did not acheive acadamic excellence. Let me give two examples which I am related to:</p>
<p>My wife is going to her 30th HS reunion, she found that of those being admitted to the top schools, few, if any are very successful, yet, the girl who went to Parsons to learn graphic designs changed her course and became a realestate mogul.</p>
<p>One of my relatives graduated valedictorian class of 1950’s from Cambridge. Mr. Lee, on the other hand, ranked the last in his class, bearly pass the final exam to graduate in the same year. My relative went to work for a bank and attained middle management position and became mentally unstable all his remaining years, while Mr. Lee went on became the Finance Minister of Taiwan and lead the country to be the “Miracle of the Orient” in the 1980’s.</p>
<p>Obviously, one have to define what is success and it is difficult. However, we can easily define “average” or a “■■■■■■”. Bush being a president for 8 years may not be a “good” student acadamically nor he can be labeled a “good” president, but he is far from a ■■■■■■.</p>
<p>Bush was admittedly a subpar president and a poor public speaker. That said, he is still more intelligent than the vast majority of American citizens (read: that’s you, xylem888).</p>
<p>USC seems to be having a meteoric rise in prestige.</p>
<p>“Bush was admittedly a subpar president and poor public speaker.”</p>
<p>did you mean to see he was admittedly a poor public speaker and a subpar president? i doubt he would ever say he was a poor president.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Seems to me, in order to be consistent, you would want to apply the same logic to Wesleyan vis a vis its peers that you did with Georgetown: Wesleyan is the only LAC among the ones you listed whose hiighest terminal degree is the Ph.D – and, not just in the arts and humanities – but, hard, expensive science programs like Physics, Biology, Chemistry, and MBBC. If other LACs like Amherst, Williams and Swarthmore were to decide to compete with Wesleyan at the doctoral level they’d have to choose between sitting on a pile of money for USNews purposes, or spending it down as seed money the way Wesleyan did.</p>
<p>Wesleyan is also the only one of the bunch that had the foresight to call itself a “university” before anyone knew what a modern version would eventually look like. There are many, many internationals who won’t even consider applying to a baccalaureate institution that still calls itself a “college”.</p>
<p>The arguments back and forth on this thread may become moot if the predictions of the following article are accurate:</p>
<p>[Glenn</a> Harlan Reynolds: Further thoughts on the higher education bubble | Washington Examiner](<a href=“http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Sunday_Reflections/Glenn-Harlan-Reynolds-Further-thoughts-on-the-college-tuition-bubble-100216064.html]Glenn”>http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columns/Sunday_Reflections/Glenn-Harlan-Reynolds-Further-thoughts-on-the-college-tuition-bubble-100216064.html)</p>
<p>Not to toot my own school’s horn (I haven’t even started there yet), but I could see UCLA overtaking Berkeley in terms of prestige/reputation for undergraduates. This is mainly because it’s selectivity is increasing so much, and I get the impression that it’s desirability is also increasing (all the kids I know who got into Berkeley and UCLA chose UCLA).</p>
<p>^^^Oh oh, look out for UCBChemEGrad. I know he’s lurking somewhere here…:-)</p>
<p>Oh I’ve definitely seen that mythical beast. I’m fully aware of his Berkeley pride and hatred of UCLA pride!</p>
<p>what do u giz think about USC?? i mean within a couple years the school rank has substantially risen and is inevitably going to be in the top 25 in the 2011 US news rankings. Also it is ranked 8th in the ‘up & coming schools’.</p>
<p>
Heh</p>
<p>
Mythical beast? Heh! But, no, I don’t have a WoW character for the lollipop guild. :)</p>
<p>
USNWR weighting doesn’t take into consideration selectivity too much.<br>
Berkeley SAT and GPAs are still higher than JCLA’s. Also, UCLA is a couple thousand students bigger. Peer assessment for Cal is still light years ahead of the southern branch campus - which accounts for 25% weighting.</p>
<p>USNWR’s gap between Berkeley and UCLA is enhanced because they claim UCLA has better financial resources. They don’t. UCLA has medical school spending included in the financial resources…Berkeley doesn’t. If they cut out medical school spending, the gap between Berkeley and UCLA would be even bigger.</p>
<p>
Not surprising…probably sheltered kids from Orange County afraid to get out of the Socal bubble.</p>
<p>I see USC coming up. Its becoming a great research university. </p>
<p>I still feel Tufts is severely underrated for the same reasons that Georgetown is- high quality undergrads, but very few top programs at the grad level. Most of the Tufts people I have met are similar to those at the lower ivies. These schools are also too poor to create world class research facilities</p>
<p>Wes is a great school. It will always be regardless of silly rankings</p>
<p>UCBChemEGrad: As far as the USNWR weighting whatever…I wasn’t talking about USNWR! I’m saying I expect UCLA to increase in perceived prestige/reputation because of the increasing selectivity. Since reputation correlates pretty well with exclusivity and selectivity, this makes sense. This is disregarding the US News and World Report. I don’t expect UCLA to overtake it in that ranking any time soon because of things like peer assessment. </p>
<p>And no…I don’t live in orange county. I’m from the awful Riverside county. And I disagree anyways: I just found UCLA a more desirable place to be when I made the decision between the two. Seemed more fun. This isn’t to say I couldn’t have loved Berkeley too, but I think UCLA has a lot more of the things that draw undergraduates to the campus. I haven’t looked up the official yield rates though, so what I’m saying is pretty much just heresy.</p>
<p>Anyways, I’m just talking about undergraduates. Clearly Berkeley is the more “prestigious” school for most graduate studies.</p>
<p>^ arcade, I agree that UCLA is probably more attractive for young people. You have the gentrified large city environment, LA glamour, the warmer weather and the percieved “less cutthroat” environment.</p>
<p>For me, Berkeley was a refreshing change from LA…further from home, good access to public transportation and, in IMHO, a much more dynamic and intellectual environment. </p>
<p>As far as yield, Berkeley has higher yield than UCLA. I saw the figures, but can’t find them now…Berkeley was about 41% and UCLA was 38%…thereabouts.</p>
<p>
And undergrad engineering, computer science, business, hard sciences, economics, etc. :)</p>
<p>Well…I still picked UCLA over Berkeley even for computer science. MWAHAHAHA. I haven’t started yet though. We’ll see if I regret that.</p>
<p>Anyways, I’m in no way saying Berkeley isn’t a great place. I’m pretty confident I would have enjoyed my experience there as well. </p>
<p>Moral of the story is I expect UCLA’s prestige/reputation to improve just because of the decreasing acceptance rate. My experience in high school leads me to believe this is pretty important to a great many people. I’m not saying the academic quality is going to increase, but I do think that UCLA will keep gaining stronger students, which contributes to it’s reputation.</p>
<p>Wow Wake Forest breaking top 25 before Tufts? What?</p>