<p>Does anybody else here agree with me that U of I deserves more credit than its current status?</p>
<p>Fiske Guide to Colleges 2004 gives UIUC rating of 5 pens.
UIUC engineering school always has been in top 5.
UIUC undergrad business is usually considered one of the nations top 10 undergrad business schools.
UIUC law school ranks top 25 in the nation.
UIUC has an excellent communications, fine arts, and music college, ranked also top 10 in the nation according to the US News.
UIUC is also known for its science department; programs such as psychology, physics, or chemistry are highly ranked according to sources such as science week.</p>
<p>As a UIUC alum, its kinda depressing as I believe that UIUC isn't recieving the attention that it rightfully deserves. (some of the people don't even know what UIUC is...)</p>
<p>Is UIUC really not worthy to be in the top 30's?
Just a food for thought...</p>
<p>Redmoon, I believe that most top state schools are underrated, especially Cal (should be top 10), Michigan (should be top 10 or 15), Wisconsin (should be top 25), Texas (should be top 30) and Illinois (should be top 30).</p>
<p>Flopsy, Cornell, Darmouth, MIT and Williams probably have as large a drinking/frat scene as any university in the nation. I do not see what frats and drinkikng have to do with academic excellence.</p>
<p>I kind of look at it as who cares. Some facts to consider:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The US News rankings use factors that actually prevent public universities from cracking the top 20. Its rankings were created to assure that Harvard, Yale and Princeton would always be ranked at the top. Thus, in setting up its ranking system, USNews purposefully chose the factors at which those three scored highest, including such things as class sizes, acceptance rates, alumni giving, professor pay, and others that public universities cannot score very high in because, among other reasons, their stated mission is to educate as many in-state students as they can, e.g., they cannot possibly play by the same restrictions as the top privates such as taking only a small percentage of applicants with the highest GPA's and test scores. It is noteworthy that USNews rejected the use of one factor that is probably one of the most important, affordability, and if that factor were used and given any significant weight, publics would easily take control of the rankings. On a side note, one year USNews changed its weighing of factors somewhat which resulted in Caltech becoming number one. The powers that be at USNews were so aghast that they ordered the return to the previous weighing system to assure Harvard, Yale, or Princeton would be number 1. </p></li>
<li><p>To its credit, the Illinois board actually voted that it would not take steps just for the purpose of raising itself in the rankings. This occurred a number of years ago. One thing a number of universities have done in the past just to help raise their USNews rankings is to take steps to encourage far more applications, even from those who are highly likely to be rejected, so that they can reject more and have a lower acceptance rate. This topic became a couple of proposals for the board. It rejected incurring the cost of additional promotional measures just to raise applications and generally rejected taking steps simply for the purpose of raising its ranking. Moreover, it voted to go in the opposite direction and take measures to actually discourage applications from those likely to be rejected, which would raise its acceptance rate but keep in check its cost of review of applicants. It is the result of that determination that UIUC makes a point both on its site and in its applications to tell applicants its 25% to 75% acceptance ranges for GPA and test scores and that if they are below the range they really need to have something extra and have a significant risk of rejection.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>If you look at the peer assessment score in US News, some public schools do very well, including UIUC: Berkeley #6, Michigan #9, UCLA #18, UVa #18, UNC #21, Wisconsin #21, Texas #24, Georgia Tech #27, UIUC #27.</p>
<p>Williams hasn't had frats for over 30 years, and while there certainly are students who drink on campus, the drinking scene isn't comparable to Dartmouth, let alone basically any state school in the country. </p>
<p>I do, however, agree that frats and drinking aren't necessarily opposed with academic excellence--there are many great schools with big party scenes and many mediocre schools with no party scenes.</p>
<p>haon, there were like 20 drinking parties on the days-on-campus thing at Williams, and I'm sure other people who visited on the days-on-campus thing will vouch for me. Pretty much everyone there had the feeling that Williams had tons of drinking, everyday and night. Thats not a bad thing, but I'm just saying that just because their aren't frats doesn't mean theres less alcohol.</p>
<p>Haon, I am aware that Williams does not have a Frat network. In the case of Williams, I was talking about drinking. I hqave only met few Williams students and gone to Williams just once. From what I have seen, drinking is as widespread at Williams as it is at your typical State U.</p>
<p>I'm a rising Junior at Williams and I have numerous friends at various state and private colleges. There is absolutely no comparison.</p>
<p>thethoughtprocess--I'm sorry that was the impression that you've gotten but the only time of the year I can think of that there are more than 3-4 parties is homecoming. Even on homecoming I doubt there were 20 parties, drinking or not, on campus. </p>
<p>Sure, there's drinking at Williams. There's drinking at virtually every non-religious college in the country. The drinking scene at Williams tends to be more public than at many other colleges because rather than suppressing underage drinking, the college encourages safe drinking. This leads to a far safer drinking environment than at a school like Harvard where people regularly do shots of hard alcohol behind locked doors. Don't confuse an open drinking scene with a widespread drinking scene.</p>