When people say all top50 schools are the same i get mad

College Search & Selection
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<p>I have one more relevant to this thread.</p>

<p>Penn.</p>

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<p>NoImagination, thanks for the compliment. The link below will take you to my magnum opus on the topic, which was swept under the rug by somebody (switched from College Search and Selection to CollegeConfidential Cafe).</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-confidential-cafe/714681-better.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-confidential-cafe/714681-better.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>NoImagination, note how many posters here are content to make sarcastic quips on the topic…when in fact this is quite serious. Many of the top high school grads seem to be making huge, life-altering choices based on rankings, without the slightest conception of the limitations of such rankings.</p>

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<p>Hey OP, you know why you “get mad”?</p>

<p>It’s because you don’t want to think that you shelling out $50k a year for UPenn and being a cooped-up nerd in High School was all for nothing, so you would like to convince yourself that UPenn is EONS ahead of all of the other schools listed below it on USNWR.</p>

<p>well…um…sorry :slight_smile: You paid for prestige. Not necessarily academia :)</p>

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<p>To the OP, I’d just like to say: HYSPM are all better. And more prestigious.</p>

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No. They’re not.</p>

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<p>We should have a sports prestige ranking and see how the ivies fair in that :P</p>

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<p>We should have a close-minded unenlightened tool contest and see how the Ivies fair in that.</p>

<p>My prediction: Not well.</p>

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<p>“It’s the eagerness to make the leap from quantitative data to qualitative conclusions that shows just how immature the minds of so many people on college confidential really are.”</p>

<p>Very well said Schmaltz. I believe statistics are always interesting to look at. However, I don’t see how the overall statistics will determine the quality of a university when:</p>

<p>1) Statistics are very difficult to capture and interpret and many universities only share limited data to enhance their image</p>

<p>2) Statistics do not reflect what each individual can and does make of their undergraduate experience in college. </p>

<p>Gerhard Casper (Stanford University President) said it most famously back in 1996, when he wrote a letter to the Editor of the USNWR expressing his concern regarding his publication’s annual rankings:</p>

<p>“I am extremely skeptical that the quality of a university - any more than the quality of a magazine - can be measured statistically. However, even if it can, the producers of the U.S. News rankings remain far from discovering the method.”</p>

<p>[Criticism</a> of College Rankings - September 23, 1996](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-provost/president/speeches/961206gcfallow.html]Criticism”>Criticism of College Rankings - September 23, 1996)</p>

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<p>I was wondering why the OP singled out Penn and Michigan…</p>

<p>then I see “Penn '13”</p>

<p>I also respectfully disagree when you say Michigan is worse than Penn.</p>

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<p>An interesting read.</p>

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<p>Coming from the guy who’s going to penn next year…</p>

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<p>I agree with the OP that not all the top 50 are equal and it does bother me that ppl could just lump together schools like GW and Gtown (just a random example) simply because they are both hard to get into when in reality Gtown is damn near considered an ivy in status/academics/prestige and GW well just is no where near as good in comparison.</p>

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<p>^that’s mostly just prestige. academically, there really is not a big variation, especially since Georgetown doesn’t have very many top 10,20, or 30 programs.</p>

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<p>Not true. Michigan and Penn are about equal in caliber. </p>

<p>I wonder whether OP has even visited Michigan, let alone know anything about its academic excellence.</p>

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<p>^ most people just assume that anything state-school related is BAD.
The SAME reason why Cornell gets picked on.</p>

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<p>Most people<code>s declaration here are based on chancy assumptions. Why are you saying that this X college</code>s program is better than Y<code>s one without giving any actual proof? don</code>t get fooled by the name!! I am not saying that is true, but I would not automatically reject the words of someone who is considering Michigan over UPenn or CM over MIT. Instead, we should look at it this way; if everybody thinks that UPENN is better than UMich, then the reason why someone would say the contrary must come from a wise reflection based on FACTS!!! and not NAMES!! so if he is providing correct and acceptable reasons, then why should we stay at out irreversible position? </p>

<p>What the OP is a nonsense. I truly believe that all the top 50 schools are somehow comparable since the variables are equitably split. I am not going to accept that X college has the best programs on every single area of study because it is ranked first on the very “reliable” USNWR.come on!!</p>

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<p>At the undergraduate level (srry to break it to you)… there is not significant difference. I’ve taken courses at Harvard, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Bunker Hill Community college…</p>

<p>We all learn from the same textbook. It’s the peers and the classmates that are different. The method of lecture, regurgitation from the textbook, and examination is pretty much the same everywhere. The difference at the undergraduate level among the top 50 schools are significant but it’s due to the quality of your classmates… not the quality of instruction. Unless you go to a school where they have dedicate lecturers who are paid to teach like at schools like LACs.</p>

<p>At some universities like Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth… etc… They may be superior because they have more focus on their undergraduate students. There is more of a tendency to invest resources in full time lecturers who are not paid to do research.</p>

<p>Calculus at Harvard and Calculus at Johns Hopkins are exactly the same. Computer programming Java at Harvard and Java programming at MIT are essentially the same. I’ve been there and I can say confidently… Most universities do not really care about their undergraduate students. :stuck_out_tongue: Faculty at most major research institutions care about their own advancement, their own research, and probably their graduate students within their own departments.</p>

<p>While I believe there may be variations in instruction of materials between individual undergraduate colleges… they mainly stem from the quality of your peers (the amount of challenge they are able to handle and endure; thus what level of material they be assigned and tested on) rather than anything else.</p>

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<p>MGMT_Fan, maybe you shouldn’t worry about this as it’s “Time to Pretend”…</p>

<p>You’re feeling rough, You’re feeling raw, You’re in the prime of your life.
Go make some music, make some money, find some models for wives.
Move to Paris, shoot some heroin, and **** with the stars.
I’ll man the island and the cocaine and the elegant cars. :-)</p>

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<p>Hawkette,
Perhaps a better list would be one where average SAT scores are normalized for freshman population. This list somewhat favors smaller universities. As population gets larger, SAT averages should approach the national mean. However, if the data were normalized for population, you can see what schools are overachieving or underperforming with regard to attracting higher SAT scorers.</p>

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<p>And this is why I love Brown :D. Actually, our Java class is pretty unique as well, even if calc is the same…</p>