What’s the difference between a college and university?
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Anonymous
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Why are there separate rankings?
How does a school like Williams or Swarthmore compare to Penn or NYU? |
Anonymous
| Universities typically have graduate programs. |
Anonymous
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Typically colleges are a sub-unit of a university, though not always. College in the United States specifically refers to undergraduate education in most contexts. A university includes both undergraduate and graduate education.
In international contexts, a college is typically seen as a "level below" universities, or somewhat of a "junior" institution to universities, or specifically refers to an institution of secondary education (i.e. high school). |
Anonymous
+1 This. In practice, colleges have more of a focus on undergraduate teaching and less research driven professors because they don't have the grad schools behind them. But they get less big name faculty typically for the same reason. |
Anonymous
This is true, but OP, remember that some schools with College in their name, are Universities in practice ( I.e. Boston College is a university) |
Anonymous
Note that lack of graduate programs also means professors at colleges have different job responsibilities than those at universities. They still have research requirements but no graduate students to teach (or to hire). Depending on the field, research funding may be vastly different too. |
Anonymous
Yes this is an accurate description. |
Anonymous
| Its confusing when people say name of their residential college instead of commonly know university's name. |
Anonymous
| Berkeley College is at Yale, not at Berkeley and Brown college is at Rice, not at Brown. |
Anonymous
Who would ever do this aside from Oxbridge alums when talking to other Oxbridge alums? |
Anonymous
Professors at colleges without grad programs tend to be more focused on teaching. You won’t have grad students teaching at a college, you will always get the professor. |
Anonymous
US News Best Colleges uses separate rankings for Liberal Arts Colleges and National Universities, but the wall Street Journal / Times Higher Education (WSJ/THE) rankings combine the two categories. By splitting the rankings, US News allows small colleges to get their own stage and recognition. The WSJ/THE combines the rankings because the primary focus on that ranking is outcomes based. When combined by the Wall Street Journal / Times Higher Education ranking, private National Universities occupy the top 21 positions (#1 through #21). Amherst College & Williams College & Pomona College & Swarthmore College are the top ranked LACs appearing at #22, #23, #25, and #29 respectively. The top ranked public Nation University is #24 University of Michigan. Penn is ranked at #12, while NYU is ranked at #26. |
Anonymous
| NYU is 28 |
Anonymous
WSJ utilizes subjective survey data to assess schools. It's a sham ranking, just like Niche. |
Anonymous
NYU in ranked #26 by the 2022 WSJ/THE rankings. |