Not for undergrad, even though they should. |
I compared the US News profiles of Wake Forest and Michigan. The sole reason Wake Forest is ranked higher is because it has a lower student/faculty ratio (10:1 vs 15:1) and only 1% of its classes are over 50 students, whereas at Michigan that number is 17%.
Otherwise, the US News indicators are identical. So if the US News ranking of the undergrad programs are almost identical and Michigan is ranked better on the global stage (Times Higher Education ranking) and has better grad departments, then Michigan comes out on top when you consider the universities as a whole. |
well you're wrong about that because the USNWR rankings are of national "universities," not just their undergraduate programs. Indeed UVA is only ranked as high as it is because of its business and Law School. |
Do you understand what "region" means? HINT: It doesn't mean just VA. |
So what. There are about 4000 colleges in the US. Parsing out the differences between #31 and #32 or even #5 and #35 is meaningless and a waste of time. They are both excellent schools whose graduates do well in whatever sector they choose to enter. Let’s have some perspective here. |
They call them university rankings because they are rankings of research universities, but the indicators they use are for the undergrad programs. You should probably actually read their methodology before making specious claims. |
sorry pp, you did say "if." So this the last post was just to clarify: the rankings are of the schools as a whole. |
Also, if these were overall university rankings, why would they not include the USNWR rankings of grad departments as part of the computation? Answer: because they are separate sets of rankings. |
O.K. but Wake still beats Michigan for undergrad ![]() |
Lots of people could care less abou uva |
Not in my NOVA neighborhood. It's the holy grail. |
by one USNWR point. Wake Forest has 75 and Michigan has 74. Michigan wins on grad dept rankings, which means better academic opportunities for undergrads. Student life is better -- Ann Arbor is routinely ranked as the best or second-best college town in America -- and Michigan athletics are about a million times better than Wake Forest. Sorry -- when you look at the universities as a whole, there's really no contest. |
but you don't go to a university as a whole. You go undergrad, or to a specific graduate program. BTW, UVA is also better than Michigan. |
Do you not understand the concept that when you major in something as an undergrad, you are benefitting from the quality of the department? That means that Michigan undergrads have access to better departments--meaning better professors and better research opportunities--than UVA or Wake Forest undergrads. I take it you've never been privy to the dynamic among undergrads, graduate students, and professors in academic departments. High achieving undergrads can be treated as graduate students in training, and having access to better graduate departments mean those undergrads have access to better opportunities, positioning them to be more competitive for graduate and professional programs. |
BTW:
For undergraduate teaching (an indicator I assume you value?): Michigan -- 6 Wake Forest -- 12 UVA -- 17 |