<p>there we go, as with all low lifes that bring out the race/religion card when they are getting utterly destroyed in a debate here comes shanka:</p>
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<p>Trouble for Notre Dame</p>
<p>read this and tell me what you can conclude as to how ND “fudges” their SAT figures reported.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that Notre Dame reported that only 48% of the students submitted SAT scores and 52% of the students submitted ACT’s (from the latest college board figures), implying that not one student submitted both the SAT and the ACT.</p>
<p>This is tragic!</p>
<p>======</p>
<p>[Evaluation</a> Criteria // Admissions // University of Notre Dame](<a href=“http://admissions.nd.edu/admission-and-application/prospective-first-year-students/evaluation-criteria/]Evaluation”>Evaluation Criteria | Apply | Undergraduate Admissions | University of Notre Dame)</p>
<p>*Standardized Tests
Either the SAT or the ACT is required for application to the University of Notre Dame.</p>
<p>Due to the arrival of the “new” SAT I in March 2005, we have decided that we will accept scores from both the “old” and "new " versions of the SAT I. If you take the SAT, our office will combine your highest Math score from any sitting and your highest Critical Reading/Verbal score from any sitting. We will evaluate your score on the writing portion, but it will be looked at separately from the Math and Critical Reading score out of 1600.</p>
<p>If you take the ACT our office will assess the highest composite score from any sitting. If you take both the SAT and ACT we will compare the scores and assess the higher of the two. Thus, it is to your advantage to take both tests and to take them more than once.*</p>
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<p>I agree. For all their chasing of prestige, they simply don’t get that being so anxious to tear down other fine schools makes them come off like trash. No one thinks the kind of person who is very anxious to draw lines into who can come into his club or not is “elite” in the least. They’re actually the very opposite of elite.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, as a Northwestern alumna, what are your thoughts about these comments made by shanka, an alumnus of Notre Dame, one of your neighbors - because by reading your prior posts, you yourself have been actively iinvolvied in Ivy bashing:</p>
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I apologize if this is somewhere earlier in the thread (I haven’t read the whole thing), but what exactly can be used to measure the quality of an education?</p>
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<p>A meterstick.</p>
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<p>Instructional factors: average class size, faculty distinction (indicated by salaries, prizes, national academy memberships, and research productivity), annual research expenditures, endowment per student, library size, curriculum breadth and rigor (language and mathematics competence, thesis, or comprehensive exam requirements) …</p>
<p>Inputs: academic caliber of matriculating students (median test scores, rank in class, admit rate); geographic, economic, and ethnic/racial diversity of the student body …</p>
<p>Outcomes: graduate starting & mid-career salaries, admission rates to graduate and professional schools, alumni PhD completions per capita, 4 year or 6 year graduation rates, post-graduate indebtedness …</p>
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<p>This grouping is ridiculous. Berkeley is certainly way more elite than that relatively unknown, low-paying grads, relatively lower-quality faculty school in Atlanta.</p>
<p>@tk: It strikes me as fairly tenuous to assume that most of those things are really relevant to educational quality. The only parts that seem clearly useful are the outcomes measurements, and I’m not aware of any foolproof way of measuring most of those.</p>
<p>“This grouping is ridiculous. Berkeley is certainly way more elite than that relatively unknown, low-paying grads, relatively lower-quality faculty school in Atlanta.”</p>
<p>low-paying grads? such arrogance…
relatively lower-quality faculty? Professors at the school in Atlanta vs Graduate TAs at Berkeley…I am lost.</p>
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you’re just making that up OBVIOUSLY.</p>
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<p>What does the fact that ND happens to be located near NU have anything to do with anything? I have no dog in any ND fight. </p>
<p>As for shanka - he doesn’t come across any better. It’s equally obnoxious to try to tear Ivies down to build oneself up.</p>
<p>RML, you forget that I, unlike you, am not a prestige whore. I don’t care that you think the “school in Atlanta” is relatively unknown. Are you so above the school that you cannot be bothered to mention its name? On a side note, why again do you insist on picking out one school when I know for a fact that you have MORE than one such problem with my list?</p>
<p>Low paying grads? Will you ever stop referring to that awful Forbes list which puts Colgate and Bucknell in the top 10? I will also note that you put Berkeley on a pedestal by focusing on a very small number of factors. You leave out factors such as SAT numbers, class sizes, student:faculty ratio, endowment per student, and undergraduate resources because the “school in Atlanta” would trump your Berkeley.</p>
<p>alam1, school prestige isn’t exactly different from school elite, is it? </p>
<p>Frankly, it is not for you or me to make the list of elite schools. It is the academic people and the top employers. You are not a member of neither organizations (you are not a professor and you are not an employer), so your personal opinion does not and should not dictate the list of elite schools. </p>
<p>For the academic people, Berkeley is more elite than Emory (4.7 for Berkeley as opposed to 3. something for Emory, so there’s a considerable gap that separates the two.) For the top employers, it is the same thing, obviously. (Check out the Forbes data.) Furtheremore, Berkeley grads get into top BBs either in Cali or NY. Berkeley grads/alumni earn more than Emory grads do. There are many more Berkeley grads who eventually become billionaires. And, as globalization is enhancing and is now bomming the “in thing” nowadays, you’d be more marketable and able to connect with people from the upper echelon to deal business and ties with outside of America coming out of Berkeley than of Emory. Emory is a great school. But reality check, it is more of a regional school than is Berkeley. In short, it does not have the prestige that Berkeley has. You’d see many more Berkeley grads occupying top seats in large and progressive organizations and corporations outside of California than you’d see Emory grads accomplishing the same thing inside or outside of Georgia. So please don’t kid yourself and stop degrading Berkeley as if you’re an employer or a respected member of the academic world. </p>
<p>I’d say both schools are elite. But obviously, Berkeley is more elite than Emory. In the eyes of those respected academicians and top employers, the gap between the two is NOT even close.</p>
<p>@ alam1 / Pizzagirl / any other voices of sanity:</p>
<p>This thread is about elite schools. I agree that the very notion of classifying schools as “elite” is a bit silly and probably does not do much good for the vast majority of people, but that does not necessarily matter in this context. Only elitists care about attending an elite institution, so maybe you should just defer to the elitists in this case.</p>
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Are you a respected academician or a top employer RML? Most of UCB’s “top faculty” don’t even teach its undergrads and most Berkeley grads end up in Cali where the cost of living is MUCH higher than in the South. So when adjusted for geographical differences, Emory grads do just as well as Berkeley grads.</p>
<p>Emory has stronger students based on SAT scores, better student to faculty ratios, a higher endowment per student and smaller class sizes than Berkeley.</p>
<p>Emory is also a lot more selective than UCB which makes it just as elite or more elite in my eyes. Elitism has a lot to do with exclusivity and there’s nothing prestigious about a Michigan or Berkeley degree when everyone and their mother has them.</p>
<p>RML, don’t you ever wonder why it’s so gosh-darn important to you that everyone bow down to the god of Berkeley? What skin is it off your nose if both Berkeley and Emory (or Berkeley and whatever-school-you’re-picking-on-today) are both considered elite?</p>
<p>Large state schools can be excellent, but they’ll never be truly elite – especially when they favor their own state residents so heavily. What % of Berkeley students are from outside California again?</p>
<p>And give it a rest. Your experience with the US is heavily weighted to California, through your parents and now your wife. You simply don’t understand that Berkeley’s “star power” fades as you head east.</p>
<p>For me, it’s HYPSMC. That’s where I’d think the investment might be worth it over public school, and where it would make my preconception of an otherwise unknown alum positive.</p>
<p>Not to say I don’t think there aren’t many other fine schools, I just don’t think of them as “elite”.</p>
<p>^^^ +1 </p>
<p>I totally agree with you.</p>
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<p>I agree that there is no foolproof, uncontroversial set of measurements. There are problems associated with the choice of criteria, the approach to measuring them, and the weighting of each one. But I disagree that the factors I listed are irrelevant (provided we share certain assumptions about the aims of education). </p>
<p>Take for example the first one on my list, average class size. Is it a coincidence that many schools listed by posters in this thread have some of the lowest average class sizes? I don’t think so. You cannot be considered a liberally educated person if you are captive to your own unexamined viewpoints. You can hardly be said to have thoroughly examined your views on difficult issues unless you have discussed them with other thoughtful people. Therefore, discussion is an important element of a liberal education. High quality discussion is easier to manage when classes are small, the material is challenging, and the participants are highly-motivated, well-prepared students. This is why the caliber of your peers also is important to a good liberal education. </p>
<p>This is assuming, of course, that you understand and agree with the objectives of liberal education. This is a time-tested (but not universally accepted) theory of education. What I listed above are measurable (albeit imperfect) indicators of the quality of that kind of education. If you have a different model of the learning process and goals (one emphasizing for example hands-on career training leading to financial success) then these criteria might not be so relevant.</p>