Virginia vs. Maryland for Universities

[Anonymous]

Heavily depends on the major, but IMO on median student academic quality, UMBC tops that list.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you put aside UVA, UMD , W&M, VT, how would you rate the rest of the public options in Maryland and Virginia top to bottom in a combined list?

Not in rank order from the top of my head below:

UMBC, Towson, Salisbury, Frostburg, St. Mary's, etc.

George Mason, James Madison, VCU, Old Dominion, Mary Washington, Christopher Newport, Radford, Longwood, VMI, etc.

I do not know anything about the MD schools. For VA it is heavily dependent on the goals...

Engineering/STEM: GMU>ODU
Science: JMU/GMU/ODU > CNU>VCU>Longwood>Radford
Business: JMU/GMU > the rest
Social Sciences/Humanities: JMU>MWU/CNU/VCU>ODU>Radford/longwood

Now, if you want the feeling of a small liberal arts college, Mary Washington.
If you want a military experience, VMI

Arts: VCU.

GMU is generally looked down upon around here because of the proximity to us.


Average SAT scores:
UVA 1430
W & M 1415

VT 1285

--
GMU 1220
JMU 1205
CNU 1203
Mary Washington 1172
VCU 1165
ODU 1098
Longwood 1052
Radford 1041
...
VMI 1190 (separate because of the military component).

[Anonymous]

No one seems to care enough about the Maryland schools below UMD to take a shot at it. Telling.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:PP compare the number of courses offered for CS, Physics, or any subject really at UT-Austin vs. W&M, and then come back to complain about course selection.

W&M uses a large number of adjuncts, as does UVA, as do the vast majority of SLACs other than perhaps the very tip top ones.

You simply seem to have very little understanding about how teaching happens at universities.

Actually, W & M is 21% adjunct. GMU, on the other hand, is 50%. Berkeley, the gold standard for State schools is 37%.

40% of professors at W&M are adjuncts, according to College Factual. Where are you getting your information?

University of Michigan is 16% adjunct. University of Maryland is 29% adjunct.

One of you is probably citing percentage of classes taught by adjuncts and the other is citing a source for percentage of faculty of record that are adjuncts.

I do not know where the other person is getting data. College factual is my source, and he claims it is his source.

From:https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/college-of-william-and-mary/academic-life/faculty-composition/#secComposition

"At College of William and Mary, only 21.0% of the teaching staff are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is far below the national average of 52.4%, which could be indicative of College of William and Mary's commitment to building a strong, long-term instructional team."


That is what what makes schools like W & M special. Most of the faculty are not adjuncts.

This is entirely incorrect and you are conflating adjuncts with part-time. Adjuncts can be full-time as well. College of W&M has 51% non-tenure track, meaning non-PhD, instructors according to CollegeFactual. That's much higher than other universities.

Non tenure-track does NOT mean non-PhD! You have to have the terminal degree to teach. It means they have full-time term appointments and their primary focus is on teaching undergraduates.

No, you don't need a terminal degree to teach at W&M or UVA or most colleges. You can literally Google the instructors/lecturers at W&M and figure out that they don't have Ph.D.'s

Or any other university...

That is true, but the PP is right that you cannot equate non-TT with non-PhD. It totally depends on the university. A lot of research-intensive universities have full-time, non-TT faculty who are "teaching stream". You have to have a PhD and often some postdoctoral experience to get these jobs. Different schools use different titles for the non-TT positions. The UC system, for example, uses the word adjunct even for people who are full time. I agree that looking at the % of faculty with terminal degrees and who are full time are a better metric than just looking at TT vs. non-TT.