<p>Do you consider LSU an up and coming school, a school on the decline, or neither (neutral view)?</p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>Sports. What else matters.</p>
<p>exactly, what is more important than SEC FOOTBALL, WOOOOOH!!! les miles is god</p>
<p>It definitely was on the rise as it is attracting better students and clearly through evidence such as national scholarship winners is proving to produce more competitive students.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the huge budget cuts are a setback. I still think it will continue to gain more respect as an academic institution as more students choose to attend for the incredibly low cost.</p>
<p>LSU is an up and coming school. The school is producing more national scholarship winners. Many kids that I know have won academic scholarships, which have made them decide to go to LSU than elsewhere.</p>
<p>“Sports. What else matters.”</p>
<p>Unfortunately, that is still the prevalent mindset among the student body and as long as that remains LSU will likely be near the bottom of the SEC in just about every academic ranking system. Now I don’t really believe that LSU is 10th out of the 12 SEC schools, which is where US News has the university ranked currently, but no real progress will be made until there are some serious changes. The rather large budget cuts are only going to hurt also.</p>
<p>LSU needs to shoot to be like a Univeristy of Florida, but we are closer related with Ole Miss, hell if we could even be like georgia or a U Alabama that would be a step. It is a school on the rise, and I want to see what the US News says about it in the new rankings coming out in a few more days. The budget cuts will hurt the school’s progress. But hopefully we continue the upward trend.</p>
<p>It’s more of a reflection of the pre-college schooling that keeps LSU from reaching a U of Florida or Georgia level. I came from the Midwest and it was a bit surprising to see how woefully unprepared a lot of the students seemed to be. LSU has all the resources for students to succeed, but it seems like a lot of them, especially from public schools, start with a huge disadvantage.</p>
<p>I agree with LSUguy. I think LSU has to increase their admission standards in addition the state of Louisiana has to better their public schools with more funding and a revamped education system. Many students come to LSU without the basic skills needed to succeed in college and therefore LSU has to teach the basics before they can even get into a real college curriculum.</p>
<p>The problem is not with LSU it is with the Louisiana Public School system. From my own observation, the students who do really well most of the time come from states in Texas or elsewhere. Since Texas has a great education system those students do really well, especially when it comes to the engineering programs. You really see the difference, and there is a significant gap in the level of HS school there and HS here. A large gap at that. So much of a gap, that while the texas students will finish the engineering program in 4 years, it takes the louisiana students atleast 5-6 depending on what school they came from in Louisiana. I will say though, that the Baton Rouge area students seem significantly more prepared than the surrounding parishes. It shows up in the test scores.</p>
<p>For example, the majority of Louisiana High Schools don’t offer AP courses. The programs they do have a severly watered down compared to the programs in other states. In all honesty, the Louisiana Public HS system is geared more towards technical and vocational training than University. Reason being, the majority of jobs in Louisiana are trades and are related to the oil field. Which is not a high tech industry by any means. It is not like we have to prepare people to take up jobs in Texas Instruments, Dell, or the Space program. I think that is why the majority of students are unprepared.</p>
<p>baton rouge’s school system is one of the worst, so i’m not sure what you’re talkign about, foreverlsu. there are a few good private schools though, and baton rouge magnet and mckinley aren’t bad as far as public schools go</p>
<p>@ Forever LSU. As someone who moved to Louisiana from one of the best school districts in the Northeast, I can definitely say Louisiana is behind the rest of country in education.</p>
<p>Comparing admitted student stats from neighboring states is not a good way to compare their education systems. Keep in mind that the bar is set higher for out of state admissions and many good OOS students are given generous scholarships. LSU, meanwhile, accepts a number of in-state students ranging from superb to subpar. It has more or less an obligation to take some in-state academically unprepared students. Go to a university in any other state and you will see the same thing. A state’s “mother university” can pick and choose all its wants from someone else’s flock, but also has to take what’s already in its nest.</p>
<p>One way to compare states is to look at standardized test scores. Louisiana’s average ACT is a 20.0. Texas is 20.5. The national average is 20.8. The Lone Star state only ranks 7 places about LA:
[ACT</a> National and State Scores for 2008: Average ACT Scores by State](<a href=“http://www.act.org/news/data/08/states.html]ACT”>http://www.act.org/news/data/08/states.html)</p>
<p>So while Texas schools may be better, they’re not that much better.</p>
<p>Louisiana suffers from severe brain drain. No one who can avoid it wants to stay in-state. To put the issue into perspective, around 40% of students from Louisiana’s flagship public high school- the Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts- go out of state for college.</p>
<p>Finally, there are a number of good schools in Louisiana, such as the aforementioned LSMSA, magnet schools, Ben Franklin, Jesuit, and a few other parochial schools. As far as I know, most do offer some sort of AP curriculum and many students also take classes at local colleges.</p>
<p>Well excuse me, I think some of you have very little faith in LSU, and it is embarrassing. (pride speaking, problems?) First of all, US News is a load of crap. Criticizing of US News :</p>
<p>"Some higher education experts, like Kevin Carey of Education Sector, have argued that U.S. News and World Report’s college rankings system is merely a list of criteria that mirrors the superficial characteristics of elite colleges and universities. According to Carey, “[The] U.S. News ranking system is deeply flawed. Instead of focusing on the fundamental issues of how well colleges and universities educate their students and how well they prepare them to be successful after college, the magazine’s rankings are almost entirely a function of three factors: fame, wealth, and exclusivity”</p>
<p>And in my opinion, that kind of sounds like propaganda. I’m very happy for anyone that doesn’t look to this site to choose a school. Second of all, how do you expect LSU to be affordable and have so many perks if it were more selective? Have you seen all of the software we can download from PAWS? And the awesome rec center? And all of the campus events? Third of all, what is so wrong with people being attracted to the sports program and social life? Most people want a well-rounded college experience, where they can have a reward for so much brain-numbing studying and school work. Interpersonal skill is more important than knowledge when it comes to applying for jobs, to be honest. Who really <em>wants</em> to eat, sleep and study for 4/5 years? Those that don’t get the job done though lose money and/or leave the university.</p>
<p>Stop worrying about stats. It is the individual that matters. (but since you all care about US News so much, did you guys miss when LSU became a 1st tier school?)</p>
<p>Also, the nation’s entire secondary school system is a wreck. Not just Louisiana’s. Please tell me what the ACT has to do with what college is really about. ACT has nothing to do with the work ethic and dedication you need to do well in college. It is just a very tiresome test on things you don’t remember that encourages students to feel superior or inferior because of a test score. Want to know about me? I went to a less-than-reputable high school in a small city in Louisiana and made a 24 on the ACT. I learned very little about applying to colleges and didn’t really know my options. I felt like **** when meeting other students from fancy schools with 30+ ACT scores. But it turns out that my work ethic resulted in a 3.2 gpa and better grades than said students. (bio major by the way)</p>
<p>With that said, have a little faith. LSU is on its way to bigger and better things. Don’t ever compare it to UF again.</p>
<p>…but comparing it with UF would probably be a good thing, it is a step in the right direction. </p>
<p>Yes the ACT is stupid, along with the ACT, and thats why colleges look at your GPA too(I wish they would weigh it more). </p>
<p>But quite frankly, I would think comparisons to UF are good, they are something to strive for if you want your degree to be worth more outside of Louisiana.
But, don’t take this too bad yall, but LSU still has a long, long way to go before it can be compared to UF or even UGA. You mentioned it yourself, it just became a Tier 1 school a few years ago. </p>
<p>:: puts flame retardant suit on::
haha</p>
<p>thisdude415, I know baton rouge has a bad school system, but compared to the bayou parishes baton rouge HS are like prepatory academies. Honestly, you may think it is bad, but you haven’t seen bad, lol.</p>
<p>coollege, I also believe stacking it up against UF is a good thing, along with UGA. The simple fact is UF is in our conference. UF is a strong state school. It isn’t because the US News ranks it in the top 50, it is because it has about 3 times the endowment funds that LSU does. It is deeper than some stupid US News rankings. Anyone realize that harvard, the topped ranked school in the US News, also has the highest endowment of any school in the US. Not to mention, it has about 10 billion more than every other ivy that is ranked with it. Money is the key to being a good school. More money for reaserch, more money to pay well known professors, more money to give out financial aid to the needy, more money to build state of the art facilities for engineering/science research, etc. The reason why I compare it to UF is UF has a quality engineering program, they put out solid research, and there grads are recognized as quality engineering grads. As for LSU, one of the prof. said himself that companies are just starting to realize that our eng. grads are quality products of the university. I read that in the Daily Reville last year. The plans for LSU’s future are bright, such as building a new chemical eng. facility, chemistry building, and business complex. Although, I am interested in seeing how the recent budget cuts will affect all of these future plans. The more money we shove in the endowment the better off the university will be in the long run. I also interested in seeing if we moved up any from the bottom level of the Tier One system. I mean come on, Florida State is ranked higher than us, that it is not considered the flagship of the state of Florida. As the leading univeristy in our state, we need to shoot to be the example university, the model univeristy. Hopefully, in the next 15-20 years, we’ll finally be there, but the funding has to be there if we ever will reach that position.</p>