The "Best Colleges" edition of US News and World Report is out, and administrators in Gainesville must be dancin' in the ivory tower, I mean, the streets - UF broke into the Top 50!

Here's a break down of SEC schools, with a couple others near and dear to Outsporters thrown in for curiosity's sake (these rankings do not distinguish between public and private schools of national stature):

1. Harvard
19. Notre Dame
20. Vanderbilt
21. UC Berkeley
22. Virginia
25. Michigan
26. UCLA
29. UNC-Chapel Hill
30. USC
34. Wisconsin
38. Georgia Tech
41. Illinois
48. Penn State
50. UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
53. Maryland
54. Texas
59. Georgia
60. Ohio State
62. Miami (surprised it was this high)
67. BYU
68. Indiana
69. Texas A&M
95. Auburn (surprised it was this low)
98. Tennessee
103. Alabama
109. Kentucky
114. FSU (Florida's Safety University)
116. South Carolina
126. Oregon

Tier 3 - Arkansas, Ole Miss, Miss. State, LSU

Actually, Harvard is tied for first with Princeton, which was #1 by itself the two years prior.

South Carolina #116? eek! ....absolute blasphemy, GJ!....no argument from me about FSU, though.

That's remarkable that The Ohio State Univ. is as high as 60 !! The tuition is only around $6,500 per year !! How much to go to some of those other schools? Is OSU the cheapest?

Depends. For most in state students, probably UNC. If you're in the top 10% of your high school class, I think Georgia is free. Not sure.

Is CIT from the same makers of MIT?

I can't believe how seriously people (esp. parents) have taken this rather myopic poser of a list. As an high school outreach volunteer for my alma mater (Stanford), I have met many parents and students that quote this list. I can't believe that people actually think that this list is the ultimate, objective analysis of the best colleges.

How does one calculate the projected graduation rate solely based on the SATs? How is alumni giving an indication of how good the school is now? The more alumni give, the better the school is? As large and dynamic any university is, does it make sense that it can drop 1,2,3 spots in just one year?

This list is like "Time Person of the Year." It should be looked with a grain of salt. Don't use it to determine what colleges to apply to. As much as not all students is right for a university, not all universities is right for a student.

How good of a list could this be, when it doesn't even take into consideration the non-academic side (like athletics and extra-curricular and co-curricular activities) of college that influences the large portion of a student's life?

[ March 08, 2004, 10:01 PM: Message edited by: RJ in Huntington ]

RJ, you've got a great point. This is nothing that should ever really influence or decide anything in a college decision process. Quite frankly, there isn't much of a difference between most of the Top 20, the top 20-60, etc.

However, stuff like alumni giving is something that actually does mean something. When you're happy with your school, you are much more willing to give money. So it's essentially a satisfactory rating. However, it shouldn't really be factor in the best university though.

There are plenty of overrated statistics when it comes to college decision making and the one that bothers me is acceptance rate. A lot of people tend to think that just because a school has a low acceptance rate, it's a great school.

And U.S. News leaves out probably the most important factors of college decision making these days.

1) Job placement. I know plenty of people that went to good schools, but their career services programs were horrible. Illinois was alright with it (not as good as it should be-it pretty much just relies on Chicago), DePaul is very good at it and I know from my boyfriend that Purdue was amazing with that. He had like 6 job offers all over the country.

2) Employer satisfaction. I think the Wall Street Journal does uses this to rank MBA programs across the country. They survey companies all over to rate how their employees from schools have been and how well prepared they were coming out of college. However, obviously it can be a little inaccurate if you've only had one or 2 employees from a school, that's not necessarily representative of everyone.

Here're the top 25. It goes without saying that these are the most competitive (and in most cases, the richest) universities in the United States, and in many case, in the world. Faculty members from the top 25 listed account for over 85%, I believe, of the Nobel Prizes won in the various sciences (including economic science), the Fields Medal for Mathematics, etc., over the last 35 years. This is not to say that other universities are not also good in many areas--the United States is especially blessed by having both some of the best private research and public research institutions in the world. The one area in which nearly all these universities and colleges do not rank as highly across the board--except Stanford and Michigan--is in athletics. Some excel in a few sports (Harvard in crew and squash; Duke in basketball; Columbia in fencing; Penn in basketball and Div I-AA football; etc.), but in general are not athletics-oriented, but that's okay. Diversity is a good thing.

BTW, what happened to Texas? When I was in college and graduate school, U-Texas was ranked in the top 20, I believe. What's happened there? It certainly has one of the best research libraries in the world.

1. Harvard University (MA)
  Princeton University (NJ)
3. Yale University (CT)
4. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology
5. California Institute of Technology
  Duke University (NC)
  Stanford University (CA)
  University of Pennsylvania
9. Dartmouth College (NH)
  Washington University in St. Louis
11. Columbia University (NY)
  Northwestern University (IL)
13. University of Chicago
14. Cornell University (NY)
  Johns Hopkins University (MD)
16. Rice University (TX)
17. Brown University (RI)
18. Emory University (GA)
19. University of Notre Dame (IN)
  Vanderbilt University (TN)
21. University of California – Berkeley *
  University of Virginia *
23. Carnegie Mellon University (PA)
  Georgetown University (DC)
25. University of Michigan – Ann Arbor *

[ March 09, 2004, 12:12 PM: Message edited by: fantomas ]

i dunno bout no cawl-liges. me onlee a 69th playce Aggie.

lol, cattledog. It could be worse - you coulda been a 100-something place criminole. eek!

I was surprised, too. Their last governor musta gutted the state education program with "No Longhorn Left Behind."

Yeah, right. They wish!

I think the Hahvahd alums must have greased some palms. Looking at the numbers shown in the chart, Princeton clearly beats them out for #1. Of course, I may be biased. I always did think the little red brick school up the road from MIT was overrated.

RJ is right of course, people take these rankings far too seriously.

HOWEVER, I am proud to say that my little liberal-arts-college-that-could, Williams, is again ranked first in the nation for colleges!!!! And although the number one ranking is really misleading (the same three schools, Amherst, Swarthmore and Williams have been 1-2-3, in some order or another, almost since the rankings began - I'd call that a tie), it is a HUGE marketing tool, and I am surprised that Williams has not yet issued a press release (although they may be taking the New England snotty we-don't-want-to-get-too-excited path).

Interestingly, I had a friend from high school whose experience is really telling when you are trying to measure the quality of a school. Jay was a grad student in chemistry at the University of Illinois, and of course was working as a TA and teaching undergraduates. Jay's advisor, who was tenured at Illinois, was offered a tenured position at Harvard (these schools commonly cherry pick each other's faculty), and he insisted that the 4 - 5 grad students, Jay included, whose research was tied very closely with his own, be transferred to Harvard to finish their PhDs, so suddenly Jay went from Illinois TA to Harvard TA.

At our next high school reunion he had nothing good to say about the Harvard undergrads - he thought the Illinois students, many of whom were the first in their families to go to college, and many of whom were paying their own way, worked harder, were more serious about their education, more engaged in class, and more fun to teach. The Harvard students all seemed blase about the education they were getting, and simply expected to succeed in life, so didn't work as hard.

Now, this may have been some sour grapes on Jay's part, but I have to believe that those students who appreciate the chance of an education, and are really motivated to succeed, must add a certain attitude to campus that is infectious for other students. And that may be one of those intangibles that are never measured in a ranking like this, but could make the difference between someone enjoying their college experience and hating it.

[quote]beachjock73:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by savvy:
[qb] Is CIT from the same makers of MIT? [/quote]Yeah, right. They wish!

I don't get it. For Caltech or MIT?

fantomas, perhaps Texas was/is in the Top 20 in PUBLIC universities... I know Penn State is usually ranked highly (top 10 or 25 depending on the various methods of determining these rankings) among public universities, but slips many spots when you include private universities, as the private schools tend to dominate at the top.

Or maybe Bush "rubbed off" on them during his time in Austin.

And why is this the third post of yours today I've responded to?

Stanford, by far, is the best school with regard to getting a combination of high-quality athletics and academics, but don't leave Duke out of the mix with Stanford and Michigan. Check out the dominance of the tennis team. Lax is very competitive as is soccer. I don't what the heck they are gonna do with that wretched football program, but Duke is NOT JUST a basketball school. At any rate, I am glad that they are again in the Top 10. GO DUKE!

We've been gradually moving down the list during the past decade. I'm sure it's largely because of the battles with our trustees and the steady decrease in funding as a result of being in a financially strapped state.

Don't forget that this is for the ALL universities and not Public....AU is still in the top 50 in the public universities.

Give me a 1
Give me a 2
Give me a big fat 6!
Put it all together and we're 1-2-6!

Goooooooooooo Oregon!(jumping up & down, waving pom pom's & doing fan kicks)

Spoken like a true Duck! I was showing this post to a coworker who also happens to be a duck and he thought your post was hilarious! It made his day!

Aubie, join me in singing:

Rocky Top, you'll always be
FIFTH IN THE S-E-C!

(looking at watch and counting minutes until bobby bursts in)

:cool:

Hey now, I thought the words were:

"Rocky Top, you'll always be
Pumping gas for me..."

Double checking my heat shields for the impending flames.

I didn't look at it that way. My "cow college" school is second in the Big 12, after that little university in the great city of Austin. While I was a little surprised that Iowa State and Baylor's ranks were so high, I am was a little surprised that Colorado and Oklahoma were so low. I didn't see Nebraska or Kansas anywhere. ...and Texas Tech, don't make me laugh!

My "turtle" school ranked sixth in the ACC, and would still be sixth with the new additions. Not bad. But with automatic bids, I guess they wouldn't make the NCAA tournament for best colleges, just like their basketball team this year. No surprise that Duke was number 1 in another category in the ACC.

Fear the turtle, indeed. I wonder which Div. I-A conference has the most schools in the top tier. I'm guessing that it may be the ACC.

(edited: wow! all 11 schools, including VT and Myammy are in the top tier. In comparison, the SEC only has 8 of its 12 members in the top tier, the Big Ten has all 11, and the Pac-10 has 8)

[ March 11, 2004, 08:10 AM: Message edited by: GatorJamie ]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by GatorJamie:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Aubie in Bham:
AU is still in the top 50 in the public universities.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aubie, join me in singing:

Rocky Top, you'll always be
FIFTH IN THE S-E-C!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quoted by PennState
Hey now, I thought the words were:

"Rocky Top, you'll always be
Pumping gas for me..."

That's a damn good one PennState. Gaytorette, I know there are buildings in Knoxville, but I wasn't aware that they actually had classes in them. Damn, I'm shocked! I've always heard that freshmen english was conducted from books donated by the Dolly Parton Reading Initiative.

Damn, I'm going get blasted over this one.