<p>Outside of the engineering domain, GT is not more well regarded than Wisconsin.</p>
<p>That said, we are not talking about prestige, we are talking about academic quality. Wisconsin is arguably one of the top 5 overall public university in the nation and definitely among the top 10. </p>
<p>Either way, I cannot understand why you would say that Wisconsin isn’t even close to being a top 5 public.</p>
<p>@lesdiablesbleus</p>
<p>What leads you to have such faith in that knowledge?</p>
<p>“Wisconsin isn’t even close to being a top 5 public in the nation. Berkeley, UVA, Michigan, UCLA, UNC, William & Mary and Georgia Tech are the top 7 public universities and there is a great separation in prestige between these schools and other schools like Washington, Illinois and Wisconsin that exists in the social consciousness of America.”</p>
<p>In that case, the “social consciousness of America” is even further out to lunch than I had thought. Internationally, schools like Wisconsin, Washington and Illinois are extremely well respected, and for good reason. Among public universities, only Berkeley and Michigan (and possibly UCLA) would be considered superior to Wisconsin overall. </p>
<p>Good grief. This is one of the stupidest, most ill-informed discussions i’ve seen on this board in a long time (and that is saying a lot). Cornell and Wisconsin are two of the great universities of the world.</p>
<p>March 22, 2010 at 5:59 pm</p>
<p>Michael white says:</p>
<p>"FYI, Wisconsin has been ranked in the top 10 by every major college ranking since 1925 (I can send you a copy of these) and UCLA , UCSD have been ranked in top 20 for the past 30 years .you have been taking the US News report seriously.</p>
<p>Also, the average ranking for US Universities from 1925-1995 is:</p>
<p>1)Berkeley
2) Harvard
3) Chicago
4) Wisconsin
5) Michigan
6) Yale
7) Columbia
Princeton
9) MIT
10)Cornell</p>
<p>The problem with the US News report is that the academic reputation is flawed in its methodology. It can be easily proven statistically that 84% of public schools are underrated and 58% of private schools are overrated. Even its own Graduate ratings are uncorrelated with the same reputational scores from the undergraduate ratings with a correlation score of 51% (r=0.51)"</p>
<p>Source: [ARWU</a> Names the Best Colleges in the World (2009)](<a href=“http://collegesavings.about.com/b/2009/11/07/arwu-names-the-best-colleges-in-the-world-2009.htm]ARWU”>Choosing the Right College Savings Account for a Child)</p>
<p>
To be perfectly honest, outside of prestige, Wisconsin may be knocked out of even the top ten. </p>
<p>Many iterations of university systems are actually of roughly the same quality as the flagship. The UC system is an example of this. Berkeley gets most of the limelight but I sincerely question whether its legitimately better than any of the other UCs. (I secretly suspect UCLA would rank among one of the worst UCs in terms of quality.) Non-Californians, however, are too lazy to even give mid-tier UCs the credit of their USNWR rank.</p>
<p>There are also obscure universities such as NewMexicoTech that are among the actual best publics. Wisconsin is in a good place between perception and reality.</p>
<p>Ranked Lists for Institutions </p>
<p>Missing values are indicated by a period (.).
Rank Institution name Volumes In Library
1 HARVARD 15826570.000
2 YALE 12368757.000
3 TORONTO 10536868.000
4 ILLINOIS, URBANA 10524935.000
5 CALIF., BERKELEY 10094417.000
6 COLUMBIA 9455312.0000
7 TEXAS 9022363.0000
8 MICHIGAN 8273050.0000
9 CALIF., LOS ANGELES 8157182.0000
10 WISCONSIN 8015081.0000
11 CORNELL 7785263.0000
12 CHICAGO 7765583.0000
13 INDIANA 7374784.0000
14 WASHINGTON 7111065.0000
15 MINNESOTA 6713629.0000
16 PRINCETON 6618464.0000
17 ALBERTA 6416254.0000
18 OHIO STATE 6180744.0000
19 PENNSYLVANIA 5880460.0000
20 BRITISH COLUMBIA 5820527.0000
21 NORTH CAROLINA 5816677.0000
22 DUKE 5665241.0000
23 ARIZONA 5533482.0000
24 NEW YORK 5144879.0000
25 VIRGINIA 5102954.0000 </p>
<p>UW–Madison alumni and faculty have been awarded 17 Nobel Prizes and 26 Pulitzer Prizes. The School is “only” 112 years older and established than UCSD, UCD, UCSB, UCI. Furthermore, so far as endowment goes, UW-Madision’s endowment is roughly equal to UCSD + UCD + UCSB + UCI based “only” on University of Wisconsin Foundation alone.</p>
<p>Forget about all this academic and sports baloney.
You know that scene in The Godfather with the horse’s head?
That’s what would happen to the president of any school that left the Ivy League.</p>
<p>sentiment, Wisconsin is definitely among the top 10 public universities. UCs are grossly overrated. Cal is obviously awesome and UCLA is excellent, but the remaining UCs are broke. They have no endowment, raise no money from alums and raise too little money from tuition as a result of their tiny OOS populations. </p>
<p>Wisconsin on the other hand has top 20 departments in virtually every field of study (top 10 in many), has a significant endowment, state-of-the-art facilities, is part of a fiscally healthy state, has powerful and loyal alums that donate mucho dineros, a large OOS population that pay handsomely to attend, excellent athletics tradition etc…</p>
<p>If Wisconsin had a top 10 Law School and a top 10 MBA program, it would be considered on par with Michigan and UVa.</p>
<p>^ and they’re gonna kick the crap out of TCU.</p>
<p><em>How did a hypothetical thread about schools leaving the Ivy League devolve into a discussion about whether Wisconsin is a top 5 public?..heh, classic CC</em></p>
<p>“Forget about all this academic and sports baloney.
You know that scene in The Godfather with the horse’s head?
That’s what would happen to the president of any school that left the Ivy League.”</p>
<p>LOL! </p>
<p>Seriously, I think the Ivies have reached a stage where their reputation matches the membership to the league. As such, leaving the league presently would not present too much of a risk to their reputation. In the 1950-1980 period, they all (with the exception of Harvard and perhaps Yale) benefited a great deal from the association, but that is no longer the case.</p>
<p>Still, I cannot imagine why any of the Ivy League would want out.</p>
<p>“If Wisconsin had a top 10 Law School and a top 10 MBA program, it would be considered on par with Michigan and UVa.”</p>
<p>Alexandre,
As usual, a good and cogent post, but I don’t quite see why you consider Wisconsin as lacking relative to UVa. Wisconsin is stronger than UVa in both the social sciences and the hard sciences (especially the latter). Seriously, in terms of overall academic strength, I think Wisconsin is comfortably ahead of UVa (recognizing that UVa is more selective in terms of undergraduate admissions).</p>
<p>HST, I was referring general perception, not academic prowess.</p>
<p>And again … general perception is ALL REGIONAL. Most people out here in the midwest certainly think highly of Wisconsin (and Michigan, but we’re talking about Wisconsin at this point). Just because it’s not on the radar screen of highly provincial northeasternerners who aren’t very well traveled or knowledgeable and whose social circles are highly self-referential (and in the case of bz, limited to “my fellow high schoolers”) doesn’t mean anything. “General perception” varies by where you stand. </p>
<p>Just because many northeasterners couldn’t find the state of Wisconsin on a map without guidance doesn’t make Wisconsin not a good school. Just like because many midwesterners wouldn’t know Middlebury or Swarthmore if they tripped over them doesn’t make them not good schools either. bz makes the classic mistake of “well, my little social circle hasn’t heard of it, therefore it can’t be any good.” No. It doesn’t work that way.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I grew up on the east. From a state school perspective, UVA was where the action was, hands down. W&M as well, and then UNC-Chapel Hill. Out here in the midwest, it’s very different. It’s Michigan, Wisconsin, and to a lesser extent Illinois. UVA isn’t on the radar screen, as fine of a school as it is. You can’t talk about prestige unless you talk about the region of the country that you’re defining it. The correct answer is that certain schools are prestigious in one region and other schools are prestigious in other regions; you cannot say “one is more prestigious than the other” as an absolute unless you want to make a value judgment that prestige in one region of the country is more important on an absolute basis than prestige in another region of the country. </p>
<p>SMU’s prestigious in Dallas. Who am I to say that Princeton is more prestigious than SMU? <em>In Dallas</em> it might not be and to the student who wishes to stay in Dallas, that may be all that counts.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>as a californian, i have to disagree. berkeley gets 2300+, 35+act, 800 sat 2 students from my school. if someone does not get into stanford (like my friends) they naturally view berkeley or la as their alternatives (they want to stay in cali). ucla also gets many very strong students. i have no idea about “quality,” but the students are definitely of a higher caliber, than say, UC riverside or UC merced. what are mid-tier UCs? san diego, davis, santa barbara, and irvine? i think the above are all decent schools, with ucsd being the most decent. here in california, you can actually get guaranteed to any UC (so i’ve heard) that’s not named ucb, ucla, or ucsd by placing in the top 4% of your class, so that makes them a little less reputable to me. i was actually guaranteed to davis =)</p>
<p>“Mid-tier UC’s” is a perfect example – so very important to Californians, so unimportant and irrelevant to the rest of the nation, who wouldn’t know and don’t care about the differences between UC-San Diego, Davis, Santa Barbara, Irvine, and Any Other Random Town. “General perception” of the UC’s beyond UCLA/Berkeley outside California is pretty non-existent. But so what? That doesn’t make them not good schools or not good choices.</p>
<p>pizzagirl, i agree. =) everyone that i know at my school is well aware of ucb and ucla, but also san diego, davis, santa barbara, and irvine, not to mention santa cruz, riverside, and merced (these last 3 are pretty bad though. i don’t think anyone that i know actually wants to go to these). in fact, many like being guaranteed to one of them because they work as good safeties xD</p>
<p>i agree that like no one out of california knows any other uc but berkeley, ucla, and ucsd,when there are in fact 6 UCs ranked in the top 41 by usnews.</p>
<p>Alexandre’s actually right. No one outside cares too much about this. It’s only CC where we’d be the first to find out whether a college would leave the Ivy, post the info on some thread, and have 1000 people commenting and get into an argument.</p>
<p>In reality people think Stanford’s an Ivy. Or Duke. Or even Rutger’s an Ivy. I guess it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>
This is utterly ridiculous. Which major college ranking bodies? USNWR is the most major ranking body and it doesn’t think Wisconsin is top 10. ARWU does not agree Wisconsin is top 10 (#15 in US). Also, there are few ranking bodies that stretch all the way back to 1925. I’d demand White’s sources yet he isn’t around.</p>
<p>
Not only is this list based on some shady, possibly imaginary university rankings (that some of us are all too eager to accept as truth despite knowing next to nothing about their methodologies), this average data stretches all the way back from 1925. </p>
<p>While I must admit that USNWR ranking fluctuations may not be altogether realistic, pretending that the quality of institutions remain static for 70 years is even more unrealistic. Look around you! Technology/society has completely changed. Segregation is dead. We have a black president. Women can go to college. This list is complete garbage.</p>
<p>
Disagreeing with USNWR does not give one the right to pull out undisclosed ranking sources that one claims to support Wisconsin is a top 10 institution while every major ranking body in fact says otherwise.</p>
<p>
You have it the other way around. The state of UC finances have been grossly overrated. As a current UC student, I can readily tell you there is no observable change in any of the universities aside from a steep rise in tuition.</p>
<p>
Yet everyone ignores the rankings of the midtier UCs. This is exactly what I mean.</p>
<p>Did you know that ARWU ranks UC San Diego ahead of Wisconsin and only one rank below UCLA? Did you know UC Santa Barbara is ranked above Penn State U? Have you even looked at the departmental rankings of any UCs other than Berkeley and UCLA? I can rest assure you that they are not bad at all.</p>
<p>If you compared UCSD with Wisconsin on ARWU, you’ll find the two have comparable departmental rankings with UCSD really excelling in some areas while Wisconsin remains lackluster.
[ARWU</a> 2010](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2010.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2010.jsp)</p>
<p>If you actually bothered ever looking at the national/international/departmental rankings of the midtier UCs, you would see perception of Wisconsin actually comes off rather well and USNWR’s lower rankings of the institution are not unsubstantiated at all.</p>
<p>Again, I am not touting the UCs. I’m asking individuals give them the credit they deserve (and this is based on many different ranking bodies).</p>