@tk21769 : I think my problem with primarily looking at the scores, is we are often talking about schools in already elite ranges and often comparing ones that traditionally had scores far above the national average for maybe 2 decades or more (2 decades would include some relatively new elite). People look at current admissions growth over the past 5-10 years among many already selective schools with strong students and correlate with academic quality. To me that doesn’t make much sense. Did Chicago really change its academics between when it ranked in the teens and now…or did their communications, marketing, and admissions team just come up with a better formula to get students with higher SATs. Many schools outside of the top 10 today have Harvard like numbers…how are they academically in comparison, “productivity” wise. Do most offer courses dealing with the top end of those students (beyond numbers). Across several tiers of top/selective schools, one is like splitting hairs by even using something like scores as a comparison point. To then extrapolate that to academic quality is a reach, because most had different levels of selectivity or scores versus each other at some points in time. And if all are growing, but some have bigger growth spurts at certain periods, it becomes kind of worthless to do that. Some schools flat out admit that they changed things like marketing. Some schools dropped or greatly simplified supplements. Some schools spam to get more apps from qualified and unqualified students. What does any of this have to with their academics and whether or not they are over-rated in said realm?
They are like free speech, and anyone is fine to use them BUT, depending on which school one is talking about or what groups of schools are being compared, some will just naturally fall short at figuring out what may be some true differences. My point was to simply say that when people run to certain numbers, it is easy to surprise them by showing them: “Well this doesn’t seem to match the numbers that you claim affects X, at least not when discussing Y”…and people don’t like it. I personally just look at the course materials if available and let them tell a story.
We all have free speech on hear and the freedom to just be wrong with our assumptions leading to such speech and the speech itself.
If someone says: “X elite school must now be better academically than Y, because its scores are now higher”, unless X is a non-HY-super elite school and Y is an HY-some super elite, I will just laugh and perhaps say: “please show me something else that makes you think that”. Even when that criteria is met, I just wanna see about what they know. I am not saying people shouldn’t use them so much as asking for less naivete, especially among parents. Prospective students are different because they may be more inclined not to “get it”.
I would connect certain things to desireability and marketability of a school more so than their academics for sure. I do not think the latter needs to be always tied to the former, especially today.
Well, to some extent it did. Some alumni might argue the changes have been for the worse.
To my understanding, the changes in both marketing and academics were driven largely by financial concerns.
The administration decided that to thrive, the school had to shift emphasis to undergrads. That meant (in part) increasing undergraduate enrollments, which in turn meant making the college a little more appealing to a bigger market. Relaxing the Common Core (a little) and increasing direct mail marketing (massively) was all part of the plan.
Yes, they did all that … although I’d probably strike the word “just” in your statement.
Coming up with that formula, and executing it, was a big deal. Some UChicago people would argue it has been a massive success. Me? As an alumnus, I’m ambivalent, but that probably would be a discussion for a different thread.
I do agree though that SAT scores (and such) aren’t like a blood test for academic health.
I get uncomfortable with these institutional level conversations about academic quality because they obscure the “not always subtle” differences in departmental or disciplinary quality.
Engineering at Missouri S&T? Classics at Lawrence? Religious Studies at Bard? Writing at Kenyon?
Scores tell one story. Endowment tells another story. Strength across LOTS of departments tells a story which usually took decades to unfold (or centuries in the case of our older universities) and strength across a few key departments might only take a few years with a president or board prepared to invest in upgrading faculty/facilities. Some of the “small but mighty” stories don’t always get told (except to other folks in the field) because if those small colleges don’t have the basketball/football success stories which tend to correlate with broad name recognition, nobody wants to start championing “Hey here’s a college you’ve never heard of which is the best place in the US to study Renaissance History or Comparative Political Theory”.
Your definition of overrated might be my definition of “good overall academic quality across the board”. That doesn’t mean that every institution in the “good quality across the board” category is the right place for YOUR kid- but these institutions are generally a safe bet for a kid who is undecided.
I’d add UConn to the list of at risk institutions. The university is supposed to be digesting $130 million in budget cuts over two years that has to impact their core academic mission. The state’s finances are in shambles. Their once proud athletic teams are playing before empty stadiums. The university president recently announced that she is stepping down at the end of the 18/19 academic year.
I sometimes worry about what we settle for as “good overall academic quality”. I worry that the bar may be set kind of low. If I go to a relatively prestigious or decently well ranked school, it may be easier to convince myself that “quality” of my programs of interest are good simply because I am satisfied with them and not because they reflect the so called best practices in teaching and learning in a field, nor because they have a good type of rigor. If I learn and live in my bubble of cheer leaders and increasing selectivity, I won’t have to know that I actually chose to go to a school that may actually be weaker/less up on things academically than a lower ranked/slightly less prestigious school both inside of my areas of interest and perhaps several outside. But again, whether one actually values academic quality (versus its perception due to somewhat subtle differences in popularity and selectivity, or rank) beyond other aspects or whether a person even really knows what it is supposed to look like in their major is questionable. I find that it doesn’t take much to satisfy a lot of undergraduates. Simply sound good lecturing/entertains, don’t give a lot of work (at least not more than other courses), make “fair” assessments, and a comfortable grading scheme is the threshold even at many of the elites. With many having almost a purely achievement orientation towards learning, this should be no surprise.
Meanwhile a less popular place may have lots programs known for a substantial impact or are nationally recognized may indeed get ignored or overlook.
@tk21769 : Ehh…I have heard rumors and concerns of softer grading or maybe a larger abundance of Chicago undergraduates choosing to be less academically engaged, but I have to wonder if they are real. If that is the case, if you value Chicago keeping its similar reputation for a certain type of intellectual vigor, then maybe you should worry. However, I applaud Chicago. Think about it, it does have more academic elements resembling those in the top 10 and its very top ilk (HYSM and more I guess) than most newer elites below that threshold. Many such schools have actually applied the same admissions and marketing strategy either before or after Chicago, and have reaped statistical benefits. However, from my investigation, there haven’t really been inklings of interesting academic innovations on the horizon or done during the period of mass marketing of these schools. As I always highlight, they look statistically identical to the Chicagos and Harvards, and maybe slightly better on paper in terms of incoming stats, yet generally the organization of the programs do not reflect that same caliber, and nor would course materials (of course most of the students won’t know this, and certainly wouldn’t acknowledge this if they did). Some places seem ahead of their times and more aggressive academically and it looks like some just sort of settle for what they can a) afford or b) what the students they attract seem to like (which again…isn’t always particularly great). Although Chicago admittedly is stretching dollars to be as strong as it is. If one looks, you can tell which schools (especially among the known) are riding off of increasing prestige and popularity and which ones are seriously thinking about the education they provide regardless of how high they get in the rankings or how popular they become. Some seem to view admissions and marketing effort success as validation of “we’re it and do everything right” and others are going: “That’s nice, but we still have work to do and need to stay current and at the leading edge”. Some places need to take the next step whether it gets them brownie points in the rankings and among their pool of prospective students or not.
Bernie- I don’t think “Good overall academic quality” is settling. Kid thinks she wants Classics or Ancient History or maybe Medieval or possibly a combination or History of Religion/philosophy but it could be Art History with a minor in Italian and Renaissance studies, are you really going to tell her she’s making a mistake by going to U Michigan? I don’t think a rational person would do that. Is every single course or every single professor or TA going to be outstanding? No. Is the overall intellectual environment in those departments going to challenge and push? Most definitely, unless the kid is a slacker in which case staying in those majors is going to be darn difficult. At age 18 if she knows she wants Art History, you could make a compelling case for going to Williams. But if she’s not sure- but knows the overall neighborhood of what she wants to major in-- Michigan is a very solid bet.
From your posts you seem very science/engineering focused in your POV. Which I respect. But there are dozens of institutions in the “good overall academic quality” where a kid who is maybe interested in political science or maybe econ or possibly urban planning but it might be international relations but possibly European history can get a fantastic education. So the kid’s econ department isn’t in the top 5 in the country? For an undecided kid at age 18, merely being at one of the “good overall academic quality” universities is likely a very, very challenging and often exceptional intellectual experience.
So much depends on the kid. You can major in Psych and basically skate through a bunch of classes which are counseling oriented (perfect for the future guidance counselor or social worker) or you can major in Psych and focus on the chemistry of the brain/cog sci/neuro with a deep dive into the latest work marrying big data and behavior. You can major in Econ and take a bunch of courses which are designed for kids who hate math (and are not good at it) or you can push yourself with a heavy dose of econometrics, modeling and programming to create large scale simulations which can predict recessions, market crashes, shortages of strategic materials, etc.
And this dichotomy is more apparent at the “good overall” schools, because at the tippy tops, it is harder (not impossible, but harder) to water down your major. The requirements for getting in and staying in are too tough, and the class load is too rigorous. But at a “good overall” you can still get the rigor (if you want it). Nobody is getting tenure in economics at a flagship U who is afraid of math, so the ability of the faculty to teach the more ambitious students is going to be consistently high.
@blossom: I think we are talking about different things. I am more so expressing concern about what many consider “good overall academic quality” and how they reach those conclusions (like “this school must have a great biology undergraduate program because the ranking of its graduate program is high” or “the school has a medical center”…I go like “what?” There is also the opposite trend I’ve been seeing where some posters on here get concerned with going to some elite without a super high ranking engineering program. I have seen a lot of these pop up, and it makes little sense to me, as I suspect they are getting the rank for a) the graduate engineering program or b) do not recognize that metrics may place a heavy weight on size of faculty and student enrollment which may or may not mean much for undergraduate quality), especially at the more elite and selective schools. Just pointing out that it seems to have a low or weird threshold to be considered “good” by many. Also, what I meant by “settling” is whether or not schools do consider big changes that reflect highered landscape changes, or as they become more selective, or do they just sort of leave it the same (I like to highlight how Duke changed a lot as it solidified its prestige across many areas, STEM and non. They are full of special tracks connected to a curricula. How well a school caters to its most ambitious students or students who maybe want to go on less traditional tracks counts big in my book, especially if you enroll “the best and brightest”).
And yes, my background is in STEM so I have a bias towards investigating that, but there are ways to look at the organization of humanities and social sciences programs too. For example, Harvard has several “honors tracks” in the social sciences and humanities and it extends beyond just doing a thesis (again curriculum connected). I believe the so called “social studies” track is such an honors track (I think economics has stuff like that as well). I notice that these are not uncommon at the most* elite schools, but still remain less common at many other elites that now have scores matching or surpassing those schools. These trends are not just localized to the sciences. You can tell some places have different institutional cultures that are then reflected in the academics. Princeton has the Hume sequence, Emory has its Voluntary Core, Vanderbilt has some honors tracks mainly for its Scholarship students that seem mostly rooted in social sciences and humanities. Oddly, top humanities programs such as English/creative writing are getting attention despite an overall decline in enrollment in the humanities.
As for non-STEM things, I think there may be ways to look at “impact” of a program, but that’s another story. There are ways to tell if they are actually good beyond this sort of vague sense of “the program is at a top ranked school, so must be pretty good” concept.
And honestly I think we agree on a lot of things. One thing I have begun to look at is how majors like psychology ( You are correct in that you’ll find that at some selective schools, psychology may as well be a neuroscience major or should perhaps be renamed “biopsychology” because so many of the electives focus upon it and are fully based in the research methods in the field and not just textbook learning) because the, economics, and political science are structured. In general, when changes occur, there seems to be a movement towards “flexibility” at a lot of schools, even elite, but then you have my alma mater Emory making some majors more stringent because they want students to achieve specific “competencies” (The political science requirements were recently changed in a way that basically stole from Stanford. It was refocused in a way that structures the coursework and requirements based upon a desire to expose students to statistical methods and research in the discipline, and not just sort of “a la carte”). I think another great way to look at the strength of individual depts, especially non-STEM is just straight up money. And what I mean by that is that you can usually go on the undergraduate portion of their websites and see the amount of special oppurtunities and scholarships/fellowships directly hosted by that department, and you can actually see the dollar amounts (support in some cases, for say archival research abroad or in the U.S) offered per prize. It is sort of an indirect way of seeing how much resources a department is willing to allocate to undergraduates. Indeed, more selective and wealthier schools are more likely to thrive here. But places like say…American University are quite insane as well and offer programs in things like political science so good that many elites have programs that connect their own students to them (usually called a Washington Semester).
If a student/parent has even an inkling of what they want to do or at least try, there are ways to find out if the program is good beyond “association” so to speak. However, I mainly just say this for the type of prospective student who may indeed be more aware or feel as if they definitely want a certain level of academics/academic opportunities in whatever. Again, there are some that just want to be at a school with a good reputation and a more “typical” level of excellence which is fine I guess. I don’t think figuring this stuff out is easy, but there may still be a segment that may find it is worth additional effort. Although with the increasing selectivity (artificial or not) and costs, choices, especially among elites are likely limited. Many will rightfully attend a place reputed as good and affordable.
Worrying about which college is THE top for any particular major only affects a very small percentage of students. The vast majority don’t need “the” top school to succeed in life.
Those heading to med school may very well be more interested in having a hospital super nearby to more easily shadow or get involved in research vs having the “best” of whatever major considering they don’t need their major one iota for their future career.
Those heading into engineering (esp Civil - one I know far more about) will usually find engineering firms like to hire from local or regional colleges rather than from across the US. Around here Penn St is a big bonus on a “first hire” resume. In VA, Va Tech was. In FL, FSU (all places we’ve lived and hubby has worked + done or seen hiring). Once one has been on the job for a bit, work done will count far more than any name, but getting that first job is different.
I’ve been at school for 19 years now and seen thousands of students (average graduating class around 300+/-). Those who have gone to college have gone to several schools. Getting a good fit is very important. Being at THE top school (if there even is such a thing) only matters to some who are very academically minded - more of a trait affecting fit than anything else.
My #1 advice to students looking to head to a specific field and wondering how “good” X school is in that field is to check with employers to get an assessment. Same goes for those wondering which schools to check out. If you know an area you want to live in, check with employers in that area due to regional biases.
When my youngest was sure he wanted to major in Marine Sciences we checked and found Eckerd either at the top or near the top on everyone’s list (in the field). I’d have never known about the school otherwise. Nice little gem for the field and very well known with those who work in it, but totally unknown by almost everyone in my area of PA. My guy didn’t stay in Marine Science (many who start in it don’t), but the school worked out just fine for his International Studies major and his goal in life. It wasn’t a good fit for my other two, but it was for him - and their schools wouldn’t have worked well for him either.
It’s a fallacy to think there is “a” single good school out there. (Even in Marine Science there are other schools on the list people gave me to check out - like U Miami, U Hawaii, etc.)
If in doubt and using a place for a future job, check with employers. They know what they like - or if there’s even a difference.
Ditto that for grad schools (see where recent students have gone).
I’m from Texas. We only have underrated colleges. Its changing though, Rice has established itself among top 20 elites. Baylor, UT, SMU and A&M are attracting more applicants as well. Texas’s increasing diversity, affordability and prosperous economy have become magnets for students, employers, transplants and immigrants.
Rice and UT have never been underrated.
@blossom OSS applicants don’t flock to Texas schools like they do to NE schools, most don’t even know about high rankings of Texas schools. There are too many stereotypes about Texas which aren’t true anymore but they make people hesitate when considering Texas. If Rice was located in a sexier town, it could rank much higher. UT being flagship and huge has more recognition but not UVA or UC system’s appeal.
I live in the NE and have been in some form of corporate recruiting for over 30 years and can assure you that large, multinational corporations know all of the large Texas universities. And Rice and UT particularly- I have been hiring folks from those institutions for decades.
I’m not sure what you consider “underrated”. If you mean the guy at the local dry cleaner’s in Michigan isn’t impressed by Rice, or that a random guidance counselor in Sacramento doesn’t know about UT then sure- underrated. But do you really care what the random person thinks?
I am from TN and went to SMU back in the day. Texas universities are not underrated. I applied, at the time, to eight universities, the only one that denied me admission was Rice (accepted at Yale, wait-listed at Harvard, SMU threw a lot of money at me, which worked to my favor). I would seriously consider Texas or A&M for my kids, but for the issues the universities have with cost and admissions. They are SO popular these days admissions are tight. I am not concerned about my kids being admitted from out of state (which is a feat when considering those universities), but the cost is a concern (and I have been saving since they were born). They can get a better deal elsewhere. Pity really, UT and A&M are good schools, but are victims of their success and legislative admissions requirements.
@CupCakeMuffins : Rice has not been particularly under-rated recently (like over the past decade or two) though like most top privates, they are working the admissions racket much better today (rankings likely have a feed-forward effect for most schools). Also, Texas is so big and full of talented students that even if many applications were coming from outside of it, they could likely select mostly in-state (I think Rice does have a high proportion of in-state students versus other selective privates who pride themselves so much on having ever decreasing enrollment and admits from in-state). And I always thought places like Austin were doing extremely well. What exactly is going on in Texas? Because a post-doc in my lab actually mentioned how Texas A&M graduate programs (we are in STEM of course) were apparently struggling.
Under-rated in my opinions are places like Georgia Tech, where no matter how well respected they are among employers and even in rankings, prospective students (especially those OOS) seem as if they will never pay it similar respect of some other highly ranked schools, especially privates. After they have gone to CommonApp, they have gotten more apps and are able to pump up their elite stats even more, but many students seem to be more so applying EA, treating it at as second rate versus other engineering schools or even schools with engineering programs that they are applying to that may technically be less reputable or even less “good” because the engineering unit is affiliated with a school that is ranked higher overall.
Its possible, i only had brief interest in that school as my son was considering it but then he moved on. However, I felt that posters from other states don’t know much about it even though its on top 20 lists. UT and A&M are too big to be ingnored, even though they never made it into top tier.
"Under-rated in my opinions are places like Georgia Tech, where no matter how well respected they are among employers and even in rankings, prospective students (especially those OOS) seem as if they will never pay it similar respect of some other highly ranked schools, especially privates. "
Students from my son’s HS in Florida - approx an 8 hour drive away - seem to highly value GaTech. Approx 25% of the class applies there every year, which is more than any other OOS public or private. With the Florida scholarships and very low resident tuition for schools like UF and FSU, though, it can be hard for them to talk their parents into being OOS full pay for GaTech.
Rice is also known and respected in our area. Of all the colleges we toured, both DS and I agreed Rice’s admissions presentation and tour were by far the most impressive - even more so than UChicago which son loves and is going. Rice wasn’t quite a fit for my oldest son (he was actually a little suspicious that people there were too nice and were having too much fun), but I could not have been more impressed and have been singing its praises to anybody who will listen. When it’s time for my younger son to apply for colleges in 4 years, I would be beyond thrilled if he were to be accepted to and want to go to Rice.
IMO, neither GaTech nor Rice are Overrated.
In Texas GaTech is one of the consolation prize school for good STEM applicants who couldn’t make it into trophy schools like Ivies, MIT, Rice, CalTech, UC Berkeley, CMU or JHU and don’t want to go to state schools in Texas.
Last year, the OOS acceptance rate at GT was 18%, which isn’t much higher than UC Berkeley, Rice or JHU. On the other hand, it is early action (and not ED)…
@milee30 25% apply to GT? That’s crazy high for a Florida HS, especially when you consider GT’s OOS appeal is mostly based on engineering. It must be a STEM focused HS.
From Fall 2012 to Fall 2016, 7,160 Florida students have applied, 3,053 have been accepted, but only 731 have enrolled (less than a 24% yield rate).
Fall 2016 Enrollment, GT had 654 students from Florida, of which 99 were Freshman.
Even fewer students are from Texas (44 Freshman, 335 enrolled from 2012 to 2016).
https://www.irp.gatech.edu/admission-snapshots-0
If you’re a very competitive Florida (engineering) HS student that’s applying to schools like MIT, you will almost always apply to GT, since it’s “next door” and is well respected in the southeast.