What's so good about some top universities? Why are they ranked so high

<p>Several universties that I am talking about are such as Brown, Duke,UCLA, Gerogetown, JHU,Rice,Vanerbilt, and Notredame.... these school are ranked in like top 20 of the country but what are these schools actually good at? If you look through those schools in popular majors such as business or engineering, none of them are in the top 10 ... only a few in the top 20... (However brown.. despite being an ivy league university.. is ranked 34th for engineering and not even in the top 50 for Business).. what are these schools actually good at? Why are these schools as a whole ranked in the top 20 and even some in the top 10 of the country... while only a small amount of their deparments are rank in top 10..?? How come some other public schools such as U of Illinois, U of Michigan, U of Wisconsin, U of Virginia, UT Austin,or even Purdue(18th for business... 8th for engineering... yess those faculties are ranked higher Brown).. are ranked alot lower in the overall ranking eventhough these universities have more of their departments ranked in the top 10 in the specific ranking... why do students prefer those 1st listed universities rather than the 2nd?</p>

<p>
[quote]
However brown.. despite being an ivy league university.. is ranked 34th for engineering and not even in the top 50 for Business)..

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Uh, Brown doesn't have a business school. It's hard to be ranked in a discipline that you don't even have. Princeton, similarly, doesn't have a business school and hence has no business ranking. </p>

<p>
[quote]
why do students prefer those 1st listed universities rather than the 2nd?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Because the truth is, most people are not going to end up working in whatever field they majored in. Think about it. How many history majors actually become professional historians? How many poli-sci majors actually become professional political scientists? How many psychology majors actually become professional psychologists? The percentage is pretty darn small. Hence, if you're not actually going to take a job within your major, honestly, who really cares how good that particular department is? The truth is, most undergrads choose a major out of general intellectual interest and as a means to get a degree, but have no intention of actually pursuing that major as a career.</p>

<p>Examining department rankings make sense if you are a PhD student, because PhD students are actually making a serious commitment to working within that fied. But if you're just an undergrad, department rankings are a relatively minor consideration. </p>

<p>Even in those preprofessional fields in which many students actually intend to work in that field, the rankings seem to matter little. Take engineering. The majority of engineering students will work as engineers. But the truth is, the salary you get coming out of a top engineering school is not significantly higher than that coming out of a mediocre school. You can search through my old posts where I explicate this in detail, but to give you one example, the engineers coming out of the University of Michigan only make a few thousand dollars more in starting salary than the engineers coming out of Wayne State or Michigan State. While I don't have the Brown salary stats on me, I would imagine that the Brown engineers don't make significantly less than the engineers coming out of higher ranked engineering schools. Hence, if they are all going to make approximately the same amount of money anyway, then you might as well choose a school based on personal fit. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Several universties that I am talking about are such as Brown, Duke,UCLA, Gerogetown, JHU,Rice,Vanerbilt, and Notredame.... these school are ranked in like top 20 of the country but what are these schools actually good at?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Let me put it to you this way. What are Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore good at? They don't have any top department rankings. That's because the department rankings are based on GRADUATE programs.. LAC's like AWS have few graduate programs. What they are good at is UNDERgrad education.</p>

<p>And the truth is, schools like Brown and Rice (but not UCLA) are basically LAC's. They are LAC's that also happen to have a bunch of graduate programs, but at the end of the day, they are basically still LAC's. </p>

<p>You have to look at programs in terms of your particular station in life. If you're an undergrad, you should worry about undergrad education quality. Then, if and when you decide to go to graduate school, that's when you should worry about graduate quality. For example, if you're an undergrad, then who cares whether Amherst, Williams, or Swarthmore don't have strong graduate programs? You're getting a good undergrad education and that's what you should care about. When you finish, then you can poke around for a good graduate program. </p>

<p>For example, just today, John Mather won the Nobel Prize in Physics. He got his B.A. at Swarthmore and his PhD at Berkeley. This is an excellent combination - he got a top undergrad education and then followed it up with a top graduate education. When you consider the fact that Swarthmore only graduates about 350 students a year (all undergrads), many of which don't pursue a field that has anything to do with a Nobel category, and yet has still managed to produce 5 total Nobel winners, this is an amazing feat. As a point of comparison, Caltech has produced 7 Nobel alumni from its undergrad program (we're not counting Caltech grad students), and while Caltech has fewer undergrads than does Swarthmore, Caltech also clearly has a greater proportion of its students studying fields that are Nobel-worthy. For example, Caltech has very few students majoring in things like history, poli-sci, sociology, foreign languages/literature, and the like for which Nobel categories don't exist. Swarthmore, has plenty of students majoring in those fields.</p>

<p>ucla and georgetown are not in the top 20</p>

<p>this is a really good question! nice post</p>

<p>I assume you mean the USNWR rankings. Other ranking systems yield different results. USNWR does not factor Departmental rankings, so there can be a discconect between USNWR ranking and Departmental ranking from another source.</p>

<p>Here is the USNWR criteria</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Peer assessment: a survey of the institution's reputation among presidents, provosts, and deans of admission of other institutions </p></li>
<li><p>Retention: six-year graduation rate and first-year student retention rate </p></li>
<li><p>Student selectivity: standardized test scores of admitted students, proportion of admitted students in upper percentiles of their high-school class, and proportion of applicants accepted </p></li>
<li><p>Faculty resources: average class size, faculty salary, faculty degree level, student-faculty ratio, and proportion of full-time faculty </p></li>
<li><p>Financial resources: per-student spending
Graduation rate performance: difference between expected and actual graduation rate </p></li>
</ol>

<p>6.Alumni giving rate</p>

<p>Swarthmore producing 5 Nobel winners doesn't prove that it is better than many other schools. The fact is that all the so-called 'top' schools attract, because of their ranking, brilliant and highly motivated students year after year, and hence, continue to turn out high quality graduates. This in turn keeps their reputation up, it is a vicious cycle in the academic world! The top-ranked schools don't necessarily have the faculty who know much more than than the faculty in tier-2 colleges.</p>

<p>which is why ranking individual schools numerically doesnt make any sense. and going by the usnews ranking is the absolute worst way to pick a college.</p>

<p><a href="However%20brown..%20despite%20being%20an%20ivy%20league%20university..%20is%20ranked%2034th%20for%20engineering%20and%20not%20even%20in%20the%20top%2050%20for%20Business">quote</a>.. what are these schools actually good at?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>as Sakky stated, Brown does not have a business program.</p>

<p>Brown's strengths are generally geared toward the humanities rather than the harder sciences/engineering (thought they aren't that bad in these subjects - just not as strong as they are in subjects such as History, English, etc.)</p>

<p>a quick look at Brown's placement into 2 out of the top 3 law schools (Harvard and Yale) demonstrates that Brown grads match up well indeed vs. any other undergrad program in the country: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=2997104#post2997104%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=2997104#post2997104&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>also, Brown's student body (year in and year out) is as selective and accomplished as any other school in the country (e.g. rankings for National Merit Scholars per capita, GPA, SATs etc.) - which helps to explain why Brown's selectivity ranking is always well within the Top 10 hardest schools to get into. it also ranked no. 7 in the Revealed Preferences ranking behind: HYPSM and Caltech - and its cross admits choose Brown over most colleges (with the exception of HYPSM): <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17/weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/09/17/weekinreview/20060917_LEONHARDT_CHART.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Brown also has an undergraduate focus that some of its other Ivy peers lack (i.e. Cornell, Columbia, UPenn, Harvard and Yale) due to a number of factors including the fact that Brown does not have the "Big Three" professional graduate schools (Brown does not have a Business School or Law School) and also its undergraduates outnumber graduate students by nearly a 4-1 ratio (similar to Princeton and Dartmouth - which is why you hear people claiming that Princeton, Dartmouth and Brown are quasi-LAC like - i.e. the main focus of the university, its resources, its $$$, its faculty are catered to the undergraduates). Similarly, Dartmouth does not have a Law School either and Princeton doesn't have any of the Big Three (Business, Law or Medicine) - but noone would argue that Princeton is arguably the best undergraduate program in the country.</p>

<p>Brown also has a unique culture (due in part to its "open" curriculum or lack of a "core"). Brown tends to be much more flexible in this way and its attitude is that the school should help its students learn the subjects they have a passion for rather than get in the way of their learning. This kind of environment is not for everyone - to be sure - however its students seem to be very happy - as demonstrated by its no. 1 ranking by Princeton Review for "Happiest Student Body". Brown students are smart, motivated and very happy - that's a pretty solid combination and helps to explain its popularity year in and year out. I have long argued that its ranking is underranked by USNWR and that it is a bonafide Top 10 school.</p>

<p>the_prestige,
I "argue that Princeton is arguably the best undergraduate program in the country." :)
Princeton is excellent!</p>

<p>Departmental rankings are based largely on the strength of graduate programs. For graduate work, large research universities like Michigan and Berkeley are widely know to be stronger. However, the schools you were questioning are generally stronger at the undergraduate level -- many of them give tremendous personal attention with top-faculty. Being private, often allows them to have stronger student bodies due to more selective admission standards. USNEWS and Revealed Preference rankings give a good general perception of quality and reputation, but schools will always have their strengths and weaknesses and you should investigate further to find a school that fits.</p>

<p>Juju - LOL... thanks for making me feel dumb!</p>

<p>Yeah, I tend to write things and post them too quickly... and spend half my time smacking my head, editing, retyping and racing to beat the 10-15 minute edit time...</p>

<p>so that means... if a person wants to do engineering or business and dont wan't to continue their studying at the Master degree level ... they should attend school such as U of Illinois or U of Michigan instead of those "prestigious" universities? So basically those people who attend LAC are people that are planning to do masters degree?</p>

<p>For business, I would go to the more prestigous university. Many top investment banks are somewhat elitist and like to hire from T-25 undergrads. However, if you want to go to law school all that really matters is your LSAT score and your GPA (regardless of your institution).</p>

<p>well for business it depends what field/area as well. i think for the more prestigious jobs like ibanking or consulting going to a top 25 or top 5 lac or top 10 bschool is probaly your best bet at getting to those jobs but if were talking big 4 accounting or fortune 500 then i think not going to a more "prestigious" university is not a deal breaker.</p>

<p>LOL, the_prestige!
Same here.
I'm just looking out for Princeton. :) (Like it needs it!)</p>

<p>if you plan to go to college just to test the field, and take some intellectual classes without hopes of obtaining a job, you are wasting my money. ~ you know who this is</p>

<p>i agree, i still dont understand why people major in stuff like psychology</p>

<p>Top universities have 3 things going for them (and none of them relate to overall academic experience or quality of education). </p>

<p>1.) Brand name reputation</p>

<p>2.) Respect from your peers.</p>

<p>3.) Connections to an elite, high paying job in i-banking or consulting that requires not skills but academic pedigree. </p>

<p>Otherwise, if you attend any other university, you need to actually study so that you can have SKILLS to get a decent job after graduation. Like accounting skills. Engineering skills. Computer skills. Elementary education skills.</p>

<p>
[quote]
i agree, i still dont understand why people major in stuff like psychology

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I can give you one reason. The truth is, we live in a world where just having a bachelor's degree in any field is a big boon. Lots of organizations won't even interview you if you don't have a bachelor's degree. It doesn't really matter what the degree is in, as long as you have one. The professional graduate schools (law, business, medicine) either require or strongly prefer that somebody have a bachelor's degree, again, regardless of what it is in.</p>

<p>Hence, a lot of people justifiably approach college mechanistically - they just want to get a degree in something just so that they can get a job or get into graduate school. To them, a bachelor's degree is simply an obstacle that they have to traverse in order to get what they really want. Hence, it makes sense for them to choose something that is easy. And the truth is, at many schools, psychology is an easy major in the sense that you can pass your classes while doing relatively little work.</p>

<p>i love psychology (my undergrad major) and i couldnt have my job/career path today without that BA.</p>