I'm sorry, but any list that does not have Michigan as a top 25 university is flawed, whether you like the school or not. |
We're talking about UNDERGRADUATES. |
|
The bulk of Michigan undergrads are in their HUGE liberal arts college, known as Languages Sciences and the Arts, or L.S.A.
...but on campus they coin it L, S and Play because it's full of idiots. Only Michigan's undergrad engineering and business colleges are worthy of accolades. |
The WSJ/THE rankings combine what USNews calls National Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges. USNews ranks those separately, so the evaluation set is expanded in WSJ and includes very good LACs like Williams College. |
It's a prep thread for the great reveal of exact rankings tomorrow, where the real gloating and bashing can begin. |
It is still barely in the top 40 even when you remove the LAC's |
. Oh no! You mean there’ll be more of this tomorrow?! Can we please, please have a dedicated forum for UVA? |
Good point |
What exactly is vandy’s Value prop? Their stem programs? Business programs? Their liberals arts? I find the Emory grads I run into in dc to be a lot more intellectually curious than vandy grads. |
SEC |
And here's the next thread ... http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/751226.page |
What is the sample size that you base your conclusion on? |
Vandy is in what is now a trendy city and has used merit aid and a focus on standardized tests to greatly increase perceived selectivity. If you look at standardized tests, they are well above UVA and W&M and they used to be below. They essentially have done what Duke did years ago and Chicago did more recently. |
Don't. This is WSJ's third year only. No one in higher education recognizes it yet. USN&WR has been around since 1983 and it remains the gold standard. Inbetween USN&WR there are Princeton Review, Kiplinger's, Business Insider, and many others. WSJ is just trying to break into the field to make a buck. |
| A much better indicator on the USN&WR charts than this category which lumps together private and public universities, LACs and SLACs (apples and oranges) is USN&WR's lists of top public universities. There UVA has placed 1, 2 or 3 for 27 years, always ahead of Michigan. This year it is 3 behind Berkeley and UCLA. You simply cannot compare a huge public university like UCLA to a small SLAC like Williams. |