<p>There is another thread here where a parent appears greatly disappointed that the kid only got into Rutgers, while getting rejected from various super-selective schools. The general viewpoint from that parent, and several others replying to the thread, is that Rutgers is a poor choice for a good student, and that a gap year is preferable, or attempting to transfer elsewhere should be the plan if he goes to Rutgers.</p>
<p>I do not agree that Rutgers is so bad, but, apparently, my opinion is in the minority. So I ask the question to others on this forum:</p>
<p>What state universities would be considered good choices for top students? Particularly those which top students can consider as safety or at least low match for admissions (obviously, costs do matter as well). Assume that fit factors are ok (big versus small, RU versus LAC, etc.).</p>
<p>I would say that most state flagship universities are good. Many have honors college programs as well. UNC-CH, UVA, UMich, Pitt, all of the Big Ten flagships, a goodly chunk of the UC’s, many of the SUNY campuses, UA, UGA, GA tech, VT, William and Mary, UConn, Rutgers, UT Austin…and that is just off the top of my head.</p>
<p>With a West/Midwest bias: UC Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UIUC, Wisconsin, Michigan, UNC Chapel Hill, Colorado. The only Rutgers grad I know personally went to Caltech for grad school and is currently a professor at one of the single-initial, drool-inducing colleges on CC, so I have to assume Rutgers is perfectly fine. Ohio State, Purdue, Indiana, Iowa State (in STEM), Minnesota, Penn State. Kansas and Kansas State both cultivate their top students, who subsequently do well. Oklahoma has a dynamic, forward-looking president and pays attention to top students, from what I hear. UT Austin, Texas A&M. I don’t have enough familiarity with the East Coast schools to comment on them, but a number of them are in the same league as schools listed here. Omission of any state university in the regions that I mentioned should not be taken as dismissive of them–I am just not familiar with many of them. </p>
<p>@ucbalumnus - I’ve read the thread to which you are referring and found the majority of responses rather shocking as well. You can count me in the minority too. </p>
<p>What seems like a million years ago, I chose an out of state flagship (UIUC) for my last two years of undergrad over my in-state school (SUNY Albany), as UIUC had a much better program in my specific major.</p>
<p>We are looking mostly at state flagships for DS2, who will probably choose to go OOS for Computer Science, as there are state schools with better facilities, programs and/or job opportunities than offered by SUNY Binghamton, Buffalo or Stony Brook. While the NY schools provide an excellent value for in-state students, it is had to compare their facilities favorably to NC State’s beautiful engineering campus, with its new library and dorms, and an incubator for start ups. He is also looking at UIUC, U Maryland CP, and U Washington, as well as a free ride to U Alabama. The funny thing is that he considers the LACs he’s looked at as feeling too much like a continuation of high school.</p>
<p>Stony Brook is actually pretty well respected for CS, although the common criticism is that it is a “commuter school” (probably not, as 85% of frosh live on-campus, but its proximity to NYC could mean that it has a significant “suitcase” population).</p>
<p>It depends on what field the student intends to study. @QuantMech mentioned UOklahoma as an institution that not only lavishes attention on its top students, but also has a forward looking president, something I, a current student, agree with. However, it is not a great option for a student who wants a rigorous treatment of English, history (other than history of science), or a number of other humanities disciplines. The courses, even at the upper division level, are just not that difficult. On the other hand, the geology program seems to be at the level of UC Berkeley (I’ve done an informal comparison with a very close friend who studies geophysics at the school), while other STEM programs challenge even the brightest students. </p>
<p>There are some choices that would be excellent for particular majors within public schools that others might dismiss. University of Iowa is a good safety for a high performing student planning on going into writing for example. Pretty decent merit and financial aid for OOS students. Pops up in the top 10 for writing programs along with the Ivy’s. While researching, we found the University of Nevada schools had some really nice majors… nice honors programs with nice perks. California has a lot of well known quality publics but there are some “regular” schools that have a lot to offer the kid with the right interests.</p>
<p>We considered these schools for DS1, an English major working toward his PhD:
UC Berkeley
UNC - CH
SUNY Geneseo
U Mass Amherst
U of Indiana - Bloomington
CUNY Hunter
Penn State</p>
<p>He attended Iowa’s Writer’s Institute one summer, but Iowa’s focus is creative writing/MFA and his is PhD-oriented. Nonetheless, he loved Iowa. </p>
<p>I agree with you ucbalumnus about Stony Brook - very good CS school, but DS2 wanted to be on a campus that did not seem to empty out on weekends. We also wanted him to think about attending school where he would want to work after college, as that might give him more bang for his internship efforts. NC and GA are ahead there, especially after our snowy NY winter.</p>
<p>Public schools certainly provide a range of admission difficulty and cost. My kids really wanted the experience of attending school in another state. But we don’t find anything wrong with our home state schools - and certainly nothing that would have us encourage them to choose a gap year instead. </p>
<p>As I have already posted on one of the many other threads lamenting being from NJ and “stuck” with Rutgers, the English department (esp. for grad school) at RU is truly world class, as are math and philosophy. Many top students from NJ high schools do attend the Rutgers honors program and receive large merit awards to do so. They then go on to great grad programs all over the world. I understand that those who prefer smaller U’s or LAC’s might want to go elsewhere, but I don’t get why so many NJ kids in the market for a state U assume that it’s better to pay more for a degree from any other state school. In other parts of the country, Rutgers is much more highly regarded.</p>
<p>I’m a Rutgers history grad, and Chapel Hill for graduate school, and I have had a perfectly fine life. Thirty year career in the Federal government and ten years as a senior administrator at a B1G school. </p>
<p>It has always been said that the further away you get from NJ the better school Rutgers becomes.</p>
<p>Thanks, for this thread and the contributions posted thus far; however, some of the schools listed do not rise to the definition of a safety/likely. For example, UNC-Chapel Hill has an OOS acceptance rate of 16% or less, and never should be considered a safety, even for in-state students.</p>
<p>Can we keep this thread focused and determine safeties/likelies not only by stats, but taking acceptance rates into consideration as well? What acceptance rate threshold makes a state school a safety/likely is it 30%, 40%, 50%?</p>
<p>Here is the data for my State Flagship:</p>
<p>U of MN-Twin Cities
USNWR rank: 69 (For those who want or need this information)
2013 Acceptance rate: 44% (43048 applications received, 19121 accepted)
OOS COA: $31,374
Your estimated costs
<p>The OP asked about good flagships, and “particularly those that top students can consider as safeties or low matches”. There is a huge range of competitiveness in these flagship universities, and also some variation in terms of instate vs OOS. </p>
<p>I don’t see any problem with listing any of these excellent schools. </p>
<p>The OP does not exclusively ask for safety schools. </p>
<p>The OP didn’t even limit the question to flagships. He asked about “state universities” in general. UVa is the flagship in Virginia. However, we have 2 other schools (W & M and VT) that are ranked higher than the actual flagship of many other states. I would imagine the same is true in Georgia with GT and in a few other states (California,etc.)</p>
<p>huh? Read the same thread and MOST of the posters said go to Rutgers. Nowhere did I see (and I may have missed) anyone say that Rutgers was not good enough for the student (except, perhaps, the parent who posted). It is a big school and the parent said she/he thought the kid would do better at a smaller school. </p>
<p>However, Rutgers is not a big draw for OOS students (although there are more than you may think). Kids from outside of the NJ are not flocking here as they are to UMich UVA, UNC, or Penn State - all of which are ranked higher. UC Berkeley and UCLA are also top choices.</p>
<p>But Rutgers, especially the honors college, is a great choice and a great financial safety, for many Jersey kids. </p>
<p>I think it may be easier to list the few state schools/flagships that wouldn’t work for anyone, not even the students who intent do stay in that area. Do employers in Idaho hold a degree from UVA in higher esteem than U Idaho? Probably not.</p>
<p>Univ of Maryland is a perfectly fine school, especially engineering. It’s getting more competitive every year. Va has lots of choices, UDel is a fine school. </p>
<p>I think there are plenty of good state schools. South Carolina has USC and Clemson. NC I find dicier because of their low acceptance rate of OOS. </p>
<p>Most if not all of the state schools have honors programs. </p>
<p>One thing about acceptance rates at state schools. The students who apply are going to be all over the board on stats, ECs, etc. in my opinion the 25-75 acceptance statistics are more of an indicator of the likelihood for acceptance at state schools than at an elite private. If you have top 25% stats then you can definitely consider most (UVA and California state schools might be an exception) flagships strong matches and even safeties for some. At some of the elite privates those statistics don’t really tell you to much about the likelihood of acceptance because so many of their applicants have high stats that just because you are the top xx% of those accepted far more with the same stats get rejected.</p>
<p>Another point. Most flagships are much larger than the elite privates. If you look at the top 1000-2000 of their accepted students you would find a much closer correlation to those who matriculated to elite schools than the class at large. A bright student might need to do more of their own leg work to meet other students and take advantage of all programs available to the better students than those going to a smaller private but in many fields (engineering foe example) the larger school may have the superior program.</p>
<p>Here’s a crazy thought . . . based on random name recognition alone it is not that unusual for people out west here to think that Rutgers IS a private university. Our flagships don’t have names, they are U of X and X State followed up by Western X State, Central X University, etc.</p>