Why Do Party Schools Rank So High?

<p>Wutang, you need to hook me up with whatever you're smoking.</p>

<p>My school is ranked #60, and people who graduate from the business or engineering school make so much more than the average American/Englishman/Canadian that's its not even funny.</p>

<p>The only way it could be argued that we don't benefit, is if the definition of "benefit" is decided by fools like yourself who myopically derive pleasure only from pretense.</p>

<p>You guys are in for a shock in college. Even students at Harvard enjoy partying. Big time law firms? Investment banks? They take you out for drinks. Get over it.</p>

<p>I'm not going to say anything... I don't want to burst the bubble of those who are feeling good about being among the 12% admitted and then are paying ~40k/year to go there.</p>

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Basically, if you have half a brain I know for a fact you can get into UNH or Arizona. Your GPA and test scores don't have to be stellar or anything and no one expects them to get any better when you get there.

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SilverClover, I take issue with your statement about UNH (I don't know about Arizona). What a rude comment to make, anyone with half a brain can get in! I know many kids who go to UNH with whole brains and my daughter is going to join their ranks this fall. She has outstanding stats and selected UNH over several "higher-ranked" schools.

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<p>chill dude... silver only said anyone with half a brain can get into UNH or arizona... he didn't specifically said everyone in UNH/Arizona has half a brain</p>

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come on guys,
with a country that has like what 400 colleges?
top 100 is pretty good

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<p>it's actually 4000, but most of them are crappy by international standard IMO. So if you're an international student and you're willing to go as far as America just to get your degree and even willing to pay $30K/year just to attend some random low tier univ then either you have too much money or you're stupid. But if you get into the top 20 univ or something, you get something worthwhile.</p>

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<p>This doesn't mean that if you don't go to a top school you won't be successful - but just because successful people have come from crappy schools doesn't make those schools less crappy.

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<p>exactly. I don't feel it's necessary to defend your school if you're really confident about your ability and skill. Let's see, I'm UW alum, and I can say UW in general sucks compared to say.. Ivy League schools. if people say my almamater sucks, I don't really care because I know for a fact that even if the school is bad, not all of the students are bad or to the very least.. I don't feel that I'm bad. IMO many people feel insecure about their intelligence if their school is mocked or something, it's funny.</p>

<p>This topic have 2 be one the funniest on CC because of the irony in it..LOL.</p>

<p>Yeah, LOL. Personally, I think people should weigh it when they pick certain schools. These top schools offer the same degrees. If you get your CPA license after going to your state school vs. getting it from Harvard, one will probably have 10K in debt, and one will have 50k in debt. People worry about how much money you will make after college. You've got to subtract that loan plus interest before you can enjoy the money you make.</p>

<p>^wow, people go to Harvard so that they can do more interesting things than being an accountant. Harvard doesn't even offer an undergrad. business major, as it's not a vocational school. If I went to Harvard, I'd seek out work in a private equity firm, something that isn't available to a state school graduate.</p>

<p>I think you missed the point...</p>

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chill dude... silver only said anyone with half a brain can get into UNH or arizona... he didn't specifically said everyone in UNH/Arizona has half a brain

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<p>lol because that's so much better!</p>

<p>wow, people go to Harvard so that they can do more interesting things than being an accountant. Harvard doesn't even offer an undergrad. business major, as it's not a vocational school. If I went to Harvard, I'd seek out work in a private equity firm, something that isn't available to a state school graduate.</p>

<p>That's not something they should be bragging about. A college degree is about specialization. If I'm hiring for a firm, I'd rather have a guy who studied impact mass customization production processes at a state school than Art History at harvard.</p>

<p>And you're woefully uninformed. At my school, Texas A&M, all the major firms recruit, including Goldman Sachs.</p>

<p>As to the UNH "half a brain" argument, the average SAT is 1110/1600. You make the decision of how that compares and such.<br>
(For the record, I'm neutral on this, and I just have too much time on my hands right now).</p>

<p>(<a href="http://admissions.unh.edu/admissions/homeschool.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://admissions.unh.edu/admissions/homeschool.html&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;/p>

<p>Is that under the New SAT rules or the old one?</p>

<p>"The variability of U.S. schools is just stupid. Anything below the top 60-70 is junk by international standards. Anything below the top 100, and you were scammed. I've talked with several profs. about this. The university system in the U.S. is like the health care system in the U.S.:great for those who benefit, atrocious for the rest."</p>

<p>As a former student of one such university I strongly disagree. You can find stimulating classes almost anywhere. There are a lot of students who are not so dedicated at Podunk University, but most professors are decent to excellent. I say most because there are exceptions. But this is true at any university, renowned or not. It's the student's choice whether to challenge himself or to blend into the crowd of low achievers.</p>

<p>The school I went to was also very inexpensive compared to the highly ranked one I will be going to this year. So even if I received a lesser education, in terms of cost to benefit I feel I got a decent deal.</p>

<p>BTW, in no way am I saying that school X is as good of an option as school Y. I simply think low-ranking schools aren't nearly as bad as you make them out to be. Does this change your mind? Where specifically did you get your information, or was this just your assumption?</p>

<p>I've taken classes at a tier 3 school, and it was pathetic. I really didn't learn anything, and the school's career and grad. school placement record was abysmal. In the rest of the western world, if you can't get into a real school, you do something else. We need more skilled tradesman, we DON'T need more communications, sociology or music business majors. </p>

<p>In terms of economic competitiveness, the U.S. will lose it's edge unless there are more affordable, quality, certified insitutions awarding degrees in relevant fields. Massachusetts, a state with several of the best schools in the world, has only one decent state school, and even it's quality is questionable at best, and far from affordable for a working class kid. There's still a huge disparity in educational quality along socioeconomic lines.</p>

<p>Are you going to continue to spout unsourced b.s. while the numbers are clearly not in your favor?</p>

<p>^For the record, I don't consider Texas A&M to be a waste. In fact, the school has quite a good reputation, and being 60 out of 4000 means it's far above the average college. My 60-70 ranking criteria wasn't meant to be definitive, just a rough guide. I do maintain, that once you get much below the top 100, your wasting your money unless your getting a technical certification. Believe me, nobody from UMass Boston works in the Financial District IN Boston.</p>

<p>This is a subject that really interests me, as I'm an econ major. I recently was having coffee with a former Columbia Business school professor who commented on the huge disparity in quality in U.S. schools. He is obviously very concious of the return on investment of various schools. Also, the Economist reported the same finding in their 2006 Review addition. I'll have to dig it up.</p>

<p>BTW, if you ever went to an i-banking recruit session, you'd know a French Lit major at Harvard has about 10X the shot at an I-bank as an economics major at podunk state.</p>

<p>Economics is as theoretical as french lit is why. I'd think picking an applied discipline like finance would make for a better comparison.</p>

<p>Regardless, I had a speaker in my management class last year who did business undergrad at A&M, got a 3.9, and went on to get his MBA at Harvard. He attributed what he learned in undergrad business as what gave him an edge in admission.</p>

<p>Take what wutang says with a grain of salt, if you question my advice, take a look at his post history.</p>

<p>Soo...anybody else wanna take a shot at why party schools rank so high?</p>

<p>I was thinking maybe since a lot of them are flagship schools, or the largest schools in a particular state's universit system.</p>