Is uva a prestigious college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Really? You are impressed if you hear someone went to Sidwell? A very low bar. I guess everyone is different.

Never said I was impressed. I said it's a prestigious high school. And it is.

If it is not impressive, what makes it prestigious?

Consult your dictionary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Business -- Michigan 7, UVA 13 UMD 48
Education -- Michigan 14, UVA 16 UMD 33
Engineering -- Michigan 4, UVA 40 UMD 22
Law -- Michigan 8, UVA 9 UMD 49
Medicine -- Michigan 15, UVA 26 UMD31
Nursing -- Michigan 8, UVA 20 UMD 13
Biology -- Michigan 23, UVA 46 UMD 62
Chemistry -- Michigan 15, UVA 48 UMD 41
Computer Science -- Michigan 11, UVA 30 UMD 16
Math -- Michigan 12, UVA 47 UMD 22
Physics -- Michigan 13, UVA 44 UMD 14
Economics -- Michigan 12, UVA 29 UMD 21
English -- Michigan 8, UVA 6 UMD 30
History -- Michigan 6, UVA 18 UMD 27
Political Science -- Michigan 4, UVA 37 UMD 29
Psychology -- Michigan 3, UVA 17 UMD 39
Sociology -- Michigan 1, UVA 32 UMD 24

Just sayin

and yet, despite all this, UVA is still the higher ranked national university for undergraduate education.
Both are very good schools, but I suspect people around here lean toward UVA and people in the Midwest lean toward Michigan or Notre Dame.

+1. Those that are unaware are probably older. The college/university world has changed a lot in just the last five year.

Changed since this year's rankings? That is what is shown above, to which you are responding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I lol at the idea of any public university being considered prestigious.

Then you're an idiot. UC - Berkeley is prestigious AF, to name just one.

Berkeley is in a different league from UVA. Outside of the East Coast and Southeast, UVA is considered excellent, but not in the same league as Chicago or Duke or the Ivies or Berkeley. UVA is more like Washington University, very, very good but not quite as good as some other places. Better than University of Illinois or University of Texas, though.

UVA is a great school. If you are in-state, and it's cheap, and your kid can get in, and you can afford it, and your kid likes it, then UVA is an awesome choice. Definitely a best value for in-state families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m from the west coast but spent most of my adult life in the Midwest before moving here. My husband grew up here.

He was shocked by how little we in the rest of the country think of UVA (he’s not an alum but like a lot of people in this thread has an inflated opinion of them).

Everywhere in the country recognizes Berkeley as elite. Probably UT and Michigan too. UVA is just plain regional.

UT is not considered elite anywhere outside of Texas. And Michigan is nationally known by the common man/woman more for football than academics. Plus, as you say, you spent most of your adult life in the midwest. Why wouldn't you know more about Michigan?

That UVA gets tens of thousands of applicants every year from the very top students in every state in the country speaks volumes. It's nationally known and respected among the group that matters.

What a weird rebuttal.

I worked in Chicago and PacNW doing hiring and both UT and Mich were more respected by hiring managers than UVA.

I’ve never been to Texas, but I’m sure they’re even more impressed with UT than the rest of us.

All of these schools gets loads of out of state applicants.

I worked for years doing hiring in DC and UT isn't even on the radar.

UT and Michigan are both huge, twice the size of UVA. Michigan is a couple hours' drive from Chicago and a major destination for UM grads. UVA grads typically look at DC, NYC and CA for employment -- not Washington state or Chicago. It's not surprising that your silly hiring managers are more familiar with UT and UM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I lol at the idea of any public university being considered prestigious.

Then you're an idiot. UC - Berkeley is prestigious AF, to name just one.

Berkeley is in a different league from UVA. Outside of the East Coast and Southeast, UVA is considered excellent, but not in the same league as Chicago or Duke or the Ivies or Berkeley. UVA is more like Washington University, very, very good but not quite as good as some other places. Better than University of Illinois or University of Texas, though.

UVA is a great school. If you are in-state, and it's cheap, and your kid can get in, and you can afford it, and your kid likes it, then UVA is an awesome choice. Definitely a best value for in-state families.

I'm a UVA booster, and I'd say this is about right. I don't think Duke is at the level of the others you listed, though. Above UVA, probably, but barely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^ Most people in the country don't know that Berkeley, University of California, and Cal are the same thing, or that they are different than any Cal state campus.

Most people in this country don’t realize that there’s an enormous difference between say, UC-Berkeley and University of Kentucky or Duke and Florida State. They just know them all as “big D1 schools good at sports” and that’s that. That’s why I always take these “my SO grew up in XYZ and no one knows UVA!!” (or insert any number of schools) reports with a grain of salt. The average American knows very little about colleges and using the opinion of random people to evaluate the prestige, selectivity, desirability etc. of a school is just silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Most people in the country don't know that Berkeley, University of California, and Cal are the same thing, or that they are different than any Cal state campus.

Most people in this country don’t realize that there’s an enormous difference between say, UC-Berkeley and University of Kentucky or Duke and Florida State. They just know them all as “big D1 schools good at sports” and that’s that. That’s why I always take these “my SO grew up in XYZ and no one knows UVA!!” (or insert any number of schools) reports with a grain of salt. The average American knows very little about colleges and using the opinion of random people to evaluate the prestige, selectivity, desirability etc. of a school is just silly.

Except for here on DCUM, where everyone is sooooo educated about everything that they know it all.

[Anonymous]

Well, judging from the other schools most UVA applicants appl to these are the peer schools:

1. College of William and Mary
2. Cornell University
3. Duke University
4. UNC - Chapel Hill
5. Georgetown

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ Most people in the country don't know that Berkeley, University of California, and Cal are the same thing, or that they are different than any Cal state campus.

Most people in this country don’t realize that there’s an enormous difference between say, UC-Berkeley and University of Kentucky or Duke and Florida State. They just know them all as “big D1 schools good at sports” and that’s that. That’s why I always take these “my SO grew up in XYZ and no one knows UVA!!” (or insert any number of schools) reports with a grain of salt. The average American knows very little about colleges and using the opinion of random people to evaluate the prestige, selectivity, desirability etc. of a school is just silly.

Except for here on DCUM, where everyone is sooooo educated about everything that they know it all.

This is generally correct. I'd say many people, if they had to name academically elite schools, would just name Harvard, etc. Beyond that, they may have some regional bias that influences them. Not a lot of academic names travel broadly.

However, in academic circles and some hiring circles, the people in the know, a lot more schools are known, and overall, for better or worse, they probably track pretty close to USNews in perception.

At the end-to-end graduate and research level, people in the know are aware that UVA is well below Michigan, Berkeley, etc. as the previous posts showed. People keep arguing against this but it can be objectively supported. They have to understand that universities are composed of a number of components. Very few indeed are strong across all or most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, judging from the other schools most UVA applicants appl to these are the peer schools:

1. College of William and Mary
2. Cornell University
3. Duke University
4. UNC - Chapel Hill
5. Georgetown

These are perhaps the ones that have application overlaps, but I'd say Duke in particular is not a peer in that it is quite a bit more selective and is going to be chosen over UVA a significant percentage of the time. (Parchment shows 90% Duke to 10% UVA.).

UVA is going to be chosen over W&M a lot of the time, but because W&M is quite a bit smaller, its stats are very similar. Georgetown has higher stats overall and Parchment shows 70% choose it over UVA so there are certainly some that would claim it to be above and not peer. I think of it as being in the same ballpark. UNC and UVA compete primarily for OOS students. UNC is very selective OOS due to small number of slots. I'd say these schools are closer to peers.

[Anonymous]

Prestige is subjective and relative. Hence this messy thread.

I had a boss who had earned highest honors from Harvard and a PHD also from Harvard at a very young age. He pretty much looked down his nose at most schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Prestige is subjective and relative. Hence this messy thread.

I had a boss who had earned highest honors from Harvard and a PHD also from Harvard at a very young age. He pretty much looked down his nose at most schools.

In hiring? If so, then he wasn't too smart

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prestige is subjective and relative. Hence this messy thread.

I had a boss who had earned highest honors from Harvard and a PHD also from Harvard at a very young age. He pretty much looked down his nose at most schools.

In hiring? If so, then he wasn't too smart

Yeah he sounds ignorant and mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prestige is subjective and relative. Hence this messy thread.

I had a boss who had earned highest honors from Harvard and a PHD also from Harvard at a very young age. He pretty much looked down his nose at most schools.

In hiring? If so, then he wasn't too smart

Yeah he sounds ignorant and mean.

Well, he was very smart, conceited, but judgement wasn't great. I wasn't saying he was right. I am just saying that was his view.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Prestige is subjective and relative. Hence this messy thread.

I had a boss who had earned highest honors from Harvard and a PHD also from Harvard at a very young age. He pretty much looked down his nose at most schools.

In hiring? If so, then he wasn't too smart

Yeah he sounds ignorant and mean.

Well, he was very smart, conceited, but judgment wasn't great. I wasn't saying he was right. I am just saying that was his view.