<p>If you think Wiliams and its top LAC peers don’t have international reps, you don’t know many intl students, who specifically seek US colleges with brand recognition back home. Again, a “qualitative” factor, in that no study can pinpoint what works for all.</p>
<p>I suspect this thread, like too many others, is trying to find some magical formula in college and post-college success. D1 is at a great LAC known (whatever that really means) as a feeder school into grad programs and hot jobs. If SHE doesn’t take advantage of faculty interaction, a depth to her primary studies, internships, the right summer jobs, etc, it doesn’t matter what stats we can quote. Fortunately, she’s on the right track.</p>
<p>If you major in ECE or CS at the undergraduate level, chances are you may try to get a job at Google or Microsoft right after graduation, or you may consider applying to a master’s or PhD program in ECE/CS properly. A few ECE/CS majors may be interested in medical school, business school or law school, but certainly not most of them. “Feeder rankings” like that are heavily biased then against tech/engineering schools. </p>
<p>Also, as discussed before, top LACs do well on “feeder rankings” first because they have a high percentage of academically-inclined top students and, second and most importantly, because LACs are essentially prep schools for professional or graduate programs. As a terminal degree, a B.S or B.A. from a LAC offers limited career choices.</p>
<p>That doesn’t explain why a B.A. from a “university” should be any different from a B.A. from an LAC. The real explanation probably has to do with the fact that the faculty at LACs do a better job of mentoring. Four years of closely observing mature adults who love their work, naturally makes one want what they have: a fulfilling life.</p>
<p>^^^No question about that johnwesley. I imagine that close mentoring would also be discouraging kids who are not going to get into a top medical or law school from applying.</p>
<p>Yeah, but so many arguments about USNWR. When D1 was looking, we actually checked the profs backgrounds in her major, their research activity and field work, what we could learn about their participation in conferences or consulting, the actual classes they teach and what’s accessible to UG’s. </p>
<p>I do agree that at many top schools, where grad profs simply have nothing to do with UG’s, the rep may not reflect the actual UG experience. Having a noted prof show up just for an occasional lecture and letting TA’s take over the teaching- or having some big name researcher squirreled away in some office or lab-- yes, that can impact the national rep and do zip for the UG’s.</p>
<p>But, I am opposed to the idea that wsj, NYT, USNWR or other ommon media sources can present an accurate picture. In general, they want to capture attention, make some money.</p>
<p>How can a poll of administrators at other colleges possibly accurately assess the quality of teaching at a college? It’s a prestige ranking, nothing more, just like every other USNWR ranking.</p>
<p>The only ways you could accurately measure the quality of teaching would be (1) to do an in-depth study, based on observation by trained and unbiased observers. Of course, before you could do that, you’d have to get agreement on criteria. Or (2) you’d have to do some sort of input->process->output study on students. Again, first you’d have to agree on criteria, including time period to be measured after graduation. So basically, there is no practical way to validly measure quality of college teaching or to rank schools by how good the teaching is.</p>
<p>Exactly. I have been reiterating this consistently, that it is impossible to jduge the teaching quality of a school except you studied at that college. Just because they are college administrators does not give them the gift of infallibility!</p>
Berkeley isn’t really famous worldwide. No universities besides Harvard and Oxford truly have international prestige. My family back home in India have never heard of any American school besides Harvard and they’ve heard of Oxford. That’s it. The well-educated in India and China have heard of Williams and hold it in higher esteem than Berkeley. My uncle is a corporate lawyer in Mumbai and he was a lot more excited when he heard that I got accepted to Dartmouth, Duke and Williams than he was about my UCB and UCLA admissions offers. </p>
<p>That’s how things work in India and China. There’s like no middle class in these countries. Either you’ve heard of a majority of American national universities and LACs or you’ve only heard of Harvard.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>What do you mean by “superior” networking? Williams grads are amongst the most close knit anywhere in the world. A co-worker of mine who went to Williams goes to school-sponsored happy hours and events every week here in DC. Their alumni network is amazing.</p></li>
<li><p>Do you like spouting false information? Berkeley and Williams grads make about the same amount of money according to Payscale, which is largely self-reported and useless by the way.
[Top</a> State Universities By Salary Potential](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-state-universities.asp]Top”>Best Public Colleges | Payscale)
[Top</a> Liberal Arts Colleges By Salary Potential](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-liberal-arts-colleges.asp]Top”>Best Liberal Arts Colleges | Payscale)</p></li>
<li><p>Nope, the WSJ survey shows otherwise. Williams dominates UCB in this category but it doesn’t have engineering so it wouldn’t even be on your list if you were considering being an Engineer.</p></li>
<li><p>What famous Berkeley banking and government grads are there? Please enlighten me.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>OP’s family in India hasn’t heard of any US school besides Harvard. Except for the uncle who knew Dartmouth, Duke and Williams. He knows someone who goes to networking events in DC. And, he’s still clinging to wsj- </p>
<p>These things cannot be quantified- except with very narrow constraints. Every so often, a responding poster pounds on the idea of taking this information and applying some critical thinking.</p>
<p>But the Northeast was wildly overrepresented in that widely discredited WSJ survey.</p>
<p>Not to take the US News rankings as definitive, but just for comparison purposes: In the WSJ survey, 11 of the “top 15” professional school programs, or 73.3% of the total, were in the Northeast. In the US News rankings, 53% of the “top 15” programs (top 5 in each of medicine, law, and business, including several ties at the #5 position) are in the Northeast. So US News would agree with you that a “majority of the prestigious professional schools in the country are located” in the Northeast. But you can agree with that statement and still think WSJ skewed too heavily toward schools in the Northeast, about 40% too heavily by the US News comparison.</p>
<p>We can quibble about which particular schools should be in and which should be out, but you’re almost invariably going to get a biased sample in one direction or another when you use such small numbers. I think we can all agree that the top 10 business, law, and medical schools all count as prestigious. Using that metric, 17 of the top 30 business, law, and medical programs as ranked by US News are in the Northeast, or 56.6%—again, a “majority,” but nowhere near the 73.3% in the WSJ survey.</p>
<p>FWIW, US News and WSJ agree that 3 of the top 5 law schools are in the Northeast, and they even agree on the top 5 schools, except US News lists Michigan at #7 and Stanford at #3. But WSJ has 80% of the top medical schools in the Northeast while US News has only 50% in that region. Same for business schools, WSJ with 80% in the northeast, US News with 50%. Business Week has 40% of its top 5 MBA programs in the Northeast (Harvard and Wharton), and also 40% of its top 10 (adding Columbia and MIT). Forbes, ranking MBA programs by return-on-investment, has 60% of its top 5 MBA programs in the Northeast (Harvard, Penn, Columbia), and also 60% of its top 10 (adding Dartmouth, Cornell, and MIT). So whichever you use as a comparative benchmark, it looks like the Northeast is heavily overrepresented in the WSJ survey, at least in comparison to other semi-reputable rankings.</p>
<p>And why would anyone believe this could be any different from the “quality” of the Peer Assessment? Did USNews suddenly uncover a better mousetrap to avoid relying on hearsay, idle speculation, or gamesmanship in a joke of a survey?</p>
<p>Add the numbers of TAs, GSF, or whatever they are called, as a balancing criterion, and then we’ll talk!</p>