Virginia vs. Maryland for Universities

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand that someone's child in this thread either went to or will go to William and Mary because the promotion of that school has been very aggressive so far. But, if it's so good for liberal arts then shouldn't it be ranked specifically for liberal arts very highly? Instead, the only reputable ranking of arts and humanities puts UMD at 150 worldwide and William and Mary at below 400 (https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/arts-humanities)

I have posted about W and M. My kid goes to UMD so no dog in the fight. When he was applying we looked at all area schools including the Virginia schools. For Stem it seemed like UMD was comparable to UVA and better than VT (and UMD has more seats). For the humanities UVA was better but there are good departments at UMD. The second and third tier places in both states are comparable The glaring comparison is between St Mary’s in MD and W and M in VA. W and M is an excellent liberal arts university with robust research programs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
UMCP is a solid school, but it's not as good as UVA or W&M overall, and for STEM you can do just as well as Virginia Tech as at Maryland.

Then, once you look beyond that tier of schools, Virginia has a whole bunch of schools (JMU, GMU, UMW, VCU, CNU, VMI) that are more desirable than the next tier of schools in Maryland (Towson, UMBC, St. Mary's) and other schools (ODU, Longwood, Norfolk State, Virginia State, Radford) that are as good as their Maryland equivalents (UMES, Salisbury, Frostburg, Bowie State, Coppin State, Morgan State).

Yes, UMD is as good as UVA. I would not live in Charlottesvile if it were free. And all the others are privates except VATech and W&M so it doesn't matter.

HAHA! Try again. USN&WR has rated UVA no 2, 3 or 4 best public university in America for the last 27 years. UMCP is 24. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/top-public

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
UMCP is a solid school, but it's not as good as UVA or W&M overall, and for STEM you can do just as well as Virginia Tech as at Maryland.

Then, once you look beyond that tier of schools, Virginia has a whole bunch of schools (JMU, GMU, UMW, VCU, CNU, VMI) that are more desirable than the next tier of schools in Maryland (Towson, UMBC, St. Mary's) and other schools (ODU, Longwood, Norfolk State, Virginia State, Radford) that are as good as their Maryland equivalents (UMES, Salisbury, Frostburg, Bowie State, Coppin State, Morgan State).

Yes, UMD is as good as UVA. I would not live in Charlottesvile if it were free. And all the others are privates except VATech and W&M so it doesn't matter.

UVA is not as good as UMD and these are all public universities. So you're 0 for 2 and therefore cancelled.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Interesting to see UVA has 10% more students looking for work than UMD, considering UVA is half the size you'd thinking getting jobs would be easier with less competition.

Majors may be more important. Maryland had 35% of graduates in computer science, engineering, and business for 2018-19 vs 24% for UVA.

That doesn't make sense, W&M has no engineering school and the vast majority are non-comp sci/business, larger humanities %, but it has ~15% higher employment.

W&M has fantastic, top-ranked career services.

Whats the source on this? AFAIK the top finance and tech firms do not recruit at W&M.

Its career services are consistently ranked in the top 20 in the country by Princeton Review (which bases their reviews on outcomes and services).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand that someone's child in this thread either went to or will go to William and Mary because the promotion of that school has been very aggressive so far. But, if it's so good for liberal arts then shouldn't it be ranked specifically for liberal arts very highly? Instead, the only reputable ranking of arts and humanities puts UMD at 150 worldwide and William and Mary at below 400 (https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/arts-humanities)

You have the sequence wrong. I only commented on William & Mary when someone made false claims, so the calling it "promotion" is misleading.

Rankings like the one you cited are largely based on research publications (citations per paper, H-index citations). It favors larger research universities. Colleges like Williams and Amherst that are considered by many to be strong in liberal arts education aren't even included in the QS rankings because they really focus on teaching, not research.

We are talking about undergraduate education here. Research may have some benefit for undergraduate education, but it can also certainly be detrimental. Faculty can spend time doing research or teaching. At many research universities, faculty get reduced teaching loads so they can devote more time to research. This "departmental" research (as opposed to sponsored research) is funded through the normal sources of tuition and appropriations. So you are in essence paying for the professor to do research rather than teach. The teaching load is then handled by 1) increasing class sizes 2) using less expensive adjuncts rather than tenured (research) faculty or 3) using teaching assistants. William & Mary doesn't have teaching assistants for lectures. They are only used for supervising labs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
UMCP is a solid school, but it's not as good as UVA or W&M overall, and for STEM you can do just as well as Virginia Tech as at Maryland.

Then, once you look beyond that tier of schools, Virginia has a whole bunch of schools (JMU, GMU, UMW, VCU, CNU, VMI) that are more desirable than the next tier of schools in Maryland (Towson, UMBC, St. Mary's) and other schools (ODU, Longwood, Norfolk State, Virginia State, Radford) that are as good as their Maryland equivalents (UMES, Salisbury, Frostburg, Bowie State, Coppin State, Morgan State).

Yes, UMD is as good as UVA. I would not live in Charlottesvile if it were free. And all the others are privates except VATech and W&M so it doesn't matter.

You do not know what you are talking about. Every other school listed is public.
JMU= James Madison University
GMU= George Mason University
UMW= University of Mary Washington
VCU= Virginia Commonwealth University
CNU= Christopher Newport University
VMI= Virginia Military Institute
These are all public schools.

I think it's reasonable to concede that while not exactly the same (different strengths, characteristics) that UMD and UVA are equally good.
The point a lot of people are making is that once you move past those two schools, Virginia has a much deeper bench of high quality options. (The part I bolded above.)

Except that no college ranking says they're equally good. UVA is routinely ranked higher. The ranking that is most often cited, US News and World Report, has UVA way higher, and W&M is also ranked higher.

The vast majority of reputed university rankings routinely rank UMD higher - rankings based on academics and faculty rather than endowment size or alumni donations.

However the lower half of students at UVA is probably academically brighter than UMD's lower half as UMD is double the size of UVA. Academic rigor in sciences/engineering is probably higher at UMD versus humanities/arts which is probably higher at UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that someone's child in this thread either went to or will go to William and Mary because the promotion of that school has been very aggressive so far. But, if it's so good for liberal arts then shouldn't it be ranked specifically for liberal arts very highly? Instead, the only reputable ranking of arts and humanities puts UMD at 150 worldwide and William and Mary at below 400 (https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/arts-humanities)

You have the sequence wrong. I only commented on William & Mary when someone made false claims, so the calling it "promotion" is misleading.

Rankings like the one you cited are largely based on research publications (citations per paper, H-index citations). It favors larger research universities. Colleges like Williams and Amherst that are considered by many to be strong in liberal arts education aren't even included in the QS rankings because they really focus on teaching, not research.

We are talking about undergraduate education here. Research may have some benefit for undergraduate education, but it can also certainly be detrimental. Faculty can spend time doing research or teaching. At many research universities, faculty get reduced teaching loads so they can devote more time to research. This "departmental" research (as opposed to sponsored research) is funded through the normal sources of tuition and appropriations. So you are in essence paying for the professor to do research rather than teach. The teaching load is then handled by 1) increasing class sizes 2) using less expensive adjuncts rather than tenured (research) faculty or 3) using teaching assistants. William & Mary doesn't have teaching assistants for lectures. They are only used for supervising labs.

What reputed university has teaching assistants for lectures? People keep mentioning this but this is simply not true at larger publics either, at least the ones that are talked about here.

W&M TA's teach lab and discussion sections - the exact same as Michigan, Berkeley, UNC, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that someone's child in this thread either went to or will go to William and Mary because the promotion of that school has been very aggressive so far. But, if it's so good for liberal arts then shouldn't it be ranked specifically for liberal arts very highly? Instead, the only reputable ranking of arts and humanities puts UMD at 150 worldwide and William and Mary at below 400 (https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/arts-humanities)

You have the sequence wrong. I only commented on William & Mary when someone made false claims, so the calling it "promotion" is misleading.

Rankings like the one you cited are largely based on research publications (citations per paper, H-index citations). It favors larger research universities. Colleges like Williams and Amherst that are considered by many to be strong in liberal arts education aren't even included in the QS rankings because they really focus on teaching, not research.

We are talking about undergraduate education here. Research may have some benefit for undergraduate education, but it can also certainly be detrimental. Faculty can spend time doing research or teaching. At many research universities, faculty get reduced teaching loads so they can devote more time to research. This "departmental" research (as opposed to sponsored research) is funded through the normal sources of tuition and appropriations. So you are in essence paying for the professor to do research rather than teach. The teaching load is then handled by 1) increasing class sizes 2) using less expensive adjuncts rather than tenured (research) faculty or 3) using teaching assistants. William & Mary doesn't have teaching assistants for lectures. They are only used for supervising labs.

What reputed university has teaching assistants for lectures? People keep mentioning this but this is simply not true at larger publics either, at least the ones that are talked about here.

W&M TA's teach lab and discussion sections - the exact same as Michigan, Berkeley, UNC, etc.

I have a friend that taught English classes at Yale as a TA. Pretty sure this is fairly common practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that someone's child in this thread either went to or will go to William and Mary because the promotion of that school has been very aggressive so far. But, if it's so good for liberal arts then shouldn't it be ranked specifically for liberal arts very highly? Instead, the only reputable ranking of arts and humanities puts UMD at 150 worldwide and William and Mary at below 400 (https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/arts-humanities)

You have the sequence wrong. I only commented on William & Mary when someone made false claims, so the calling it "promotion" is misleading.

Rankings like the one you cited are largely based on research publications (citations per paper, H-index citations). It favors larger research universities. Colleges like Williams and Amherst that are considered by many to be strong in liberal arts education aren't even included in the QS rankings because they really focus on teaching, not research.

We are talking about undergraduate education here. Research may have some benefit for undergraduate education, but it can also certainly be detrimental. Faculty can spend time doing research or teaching. At many research universities, faculty get reduced teaching loads so they can devote more time to research. This "departmental" research (as opposed to sponsored research) is funded through the normal sources of tuition and appropriations. So you are in essence paying for the professor to do research rather than teach. The teaching load is then handled by 1) increasing class sizes 2) using less expensive adjuncts rather than tenured (research) faculty or 3) using teaching assistants. William & Mary doesn't have teaching assistants for lectures. They are only used for supervising labs.

What reputed university has teaching assistants for lectures? People keep mentioning this but this is simply not true at larger publics either, at least the ones that are talked about here.

W&M TA's teach lab and discussion sections - the exact same as Michigan, Berkeley, UNC, etc.

Berkeley has lots of TA.

[Anonymous]

For state universities, VA is better. MD is on a tiered system while VA has a more independent system. This has enabled VA to develop more prestigious schools giving VA residents more in state options. W&M also has a very small/mid level private liberal arts feel to it which is really rare in state systems. If your child doesn't get into UVA then W&M or Virgina Tech are still good schools.

In MD everything below UMD CP is really bottom of the barrel community college. Everyone in MD is trying for UMD CP to avoid expensive private tuition so its actually hard to get into now which wasn't the case 10 years ago. UVA has been difficult to get into for decades because of its prestige.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that someone's child in this thread either went to or will go to William and Mary because the promotion of that school has been very aggressive so far. But, if it's so good for liberal arts then shouldn't it be ranked specifically for liberal arts very highly? Instead, the only reputable ranking of arts and humanities puts UMD at 150 worldwide and William and Mary at below 400 (https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/arts-humanities)

You have the sequence wrong. I only commented on William & Mary when someone made false claims, so the calling it "promotion" is misleading.

Rankings like the one you cited are largely based on research publications (citations per paper, H-index citations). It favors larger research universities. Colleges like Williams and Amherst that are considered by many to be strong in liberal arts education aren't even included in the QS rankings because they really focus on teaching, not research.

We are talking about undergraduate education here. Research may have some benefit for undergraduate education, but it can also certainly be detrimental. Faculty can spend time doing research or teaching. At many research universities, faculty get reduced teaching loads so they can devote more time to research. This "departmental" research (as opposed to sponsored research) is funded through the normal sources of tuition and appropriations. So you are in essence paying for the professor to do research rather than teach. The teaching load is then handled by 1) increasing class sizes 2) using less expensive adjuncts rather than tenured (research) faculty or 3) using teaching assistants. William & Mary doesn't have teaching assistants for lectures. They are only used for supervising labs.

What reputed university has teaching assistants for lectures? People keep mentioning this but this is simply not true at larger publics either, at least the ones that are talked about here.

W&M TA's teach lab and discussion sections - the exact same as Michigan, Berkeley, UNC, etc.

USNews cites these schools as having at least 18% of classes with primary instructor being a TA. It includes UNC at 20%. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/2017-02-21/10-universities-where-tas-teach-the-most-classes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that someone's child in this thread either went to or will go to William and Mary because the promotion of that school has been very aggressive so far. But, if it's so good for liberal arts then shouldn't it be ranked specifically for liberal arts very highly? Instead, the only reputable ranking of arts and humanities puts UMD at 150 worldwide and William and Mary at below 400 (https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/arts-humanities)

You have the sequence wrong. I only commented on William & Mary when someone made false claims, so the calling it "promotion" is misleading.

Rankings like the one you cited are largely based on research publications (citations per paper, H-index citations). It favors larger research universities. Colleges like Williams and Amherst that are considered by many to be strong in liberal arts education aren't even included in the QS rankings because they really focus on teaching, not research.

We are talking about undergraduate education here. Research may have some benefit for undergraduate education, but it can also certainly be detrimental. Faculty can spend time doing research or teaching. At many research universities, faculty get reduced teaching loads so they can devote more time to research. This "departmental" research (as opposed to sponsored research) is funded through the normal sources of tuition and appropriations. So you are in essence paying for the professor to do research rather than teach. The teaching load is then handled by 1) increasing class sizes 2) using less expensive adjuncts rather than tenured (research) faculty or 3) using teaching assistants. William & Mary doesn't have teaching assistants for lectures. They are only used for supervising labs.

What reputed university has teaching assistants for lectures? People keep mentioning this but this is simply not true at larger publics either, at least the ones that are talked about here.

W&M TA's teach lab and discussion sections - the exact same as Michigan, Berkeley, UNC, etc.

USNews cites these schools as having at least 18% of classes with primary instructor being a TA. It includes UNC at 20%. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/2017-02-21/10-universities-where-tas-teach-the-most-classes

From a few years ago, W&M reported primary teacher for credit hours as 0% Teaching Assistant, 17% Supplemental (Adjunct). UVA was 8% Teaching Assistant, 14% Supplemental. VT was 6% Teaching Assistant, 26% Supplemental. The rest were taught by Tenure/Tenure track/Non-Tenure track faculty.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I understand that someone's child in this thread either went to or will go to William and Mary because the promotion of that school has been very aggressive so far. But, if it's so good for liberal arts then shouldn't it be ranked specifically for liberal arts very highly? Instead, the only reputable ranking of arts and humanities puts UMD at 150 worldwide and William and Mary at below 400 (https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/arts-humanities)

You have the sequence wrong. I only commented on William & Mary when someone made false claims, so the calling it "promotion" is misleading.

Rankings like the one you cited are largely based on research publications (citations per paper, H-index citations). It favors larger research universities. Colleges like Williams and Amherst that are considered by many to be strong in liberal arts education aren't even included in the QS rankings because they really focus on teaching, not research.

We are talking about undergraduate education here. Research may have some benefit for undergraduate education, but it can also certainly be detrimental. Faculty can spend time doing research or teaching. At many research universities, faculty get reduced teaching loads so they can devote more time to research. This "departmental" research (as opposed to sponsored research) is funded through the normal sources of tuition and appropriations. So you are in essence paying for the professor to do research rather than teach. The teaching load is then handled by 1) increasing class sizes 2) using less expensive adjuncts rather than tenured (research) faculty or 3) using teaching assistants. William & Mary doesn't have teaching assistants for lectures. They are only used for supervising labs.

What reputed university has teaching assistants for lectures? People keep mentioning this but this is simply not true at larger publics either, at least the ones that are talked about here.

W&M TA's teach lab and discussion sections - the exact same as Michigan, Berkeley, UNC, etc.

USNews cites these schools as having at least 18% of classes with primary instructor being a TA. It includes UNC at 20%. https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/2017-02-21/10-universities-where-tas-teach-the-most-classes

The link said % of graduate TAs who report being a primary instructor, not % of classes where primary instructor is a TA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I understand that someone's child in this thread either went to or will go to William and Mary because the promotion of that school has been very aggressive so far. But, if it's so good for liberal arts then shouldn't it be ranked specifically for liberal arts very highly? Instead, the only reputable ranking of arts and humanities puts UMD at 150 worldwide and William and Mary at below 400 (https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/university-subject-rankings/2019/arts-humanities)

Do you even know what a liberal arts education means? Or what it means to be a LAC? Liberal Arts is about a broad educational experience. It is not about focusing on the humanities. One of the top LAC's is Harvey Mudd, which is focused on STEM, but with a broader societal view.

Liberal Arts colleges tend to excel in undergraduate teaching because that is their focus. Furthermore, most top LAC's use undergraduates for research -- even in the sciences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
UMCP is a solid school, but it's not as good as UVA or W&M overall, and for STEM you can do just as well as Virginia Tech as at Maryland.

Then, once you look beyond that tier of schools, Virginia has a whole bunch of schools (JMU, GMU, UMW, VCU, CNU, VMI) that are more desirable than the next tier of schools in Maryland (Towson, UMBC, St. Mary's) and other schools (ODU, Longwood, Norfolk State, Virginia State, Radford) that are as good as their Maryland equivalents (UMES, Salisbury, Frostburg, Bowie State, Coppin State, Morgan State).

Yes, UMD is as good as UVA. I would not live in Charlottesvile if it were free. And all the others are privates except VATech and W&M so it doesn't matter.

UVA is not as good as UMD and these are all public universities. So you're 0 for 2 and therefore cancelled.

I love it when stats win on this site and the posters turn personal because they have nothing left in their arsenal.