Is uva a prestigious college?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The original question was "Is UVA a prestigious college?" The definition of prestige through Google is:

Widespread respect and admiration felt for someone or something on the basis of a perception of their achievements or quality.
"he experienced a tremendous increase in prestige following his victory"

Using this definition, the word "widespread" is perhaps the biggest question mark.

It is a fine definition. Using it, I think "perception of achievements or quality" is the biggest question. Quality is entirely relative and often subjective. If we mean quality in line with other R1 AAU universities, then no doubt I agree. But, the UVA boosters seem to insist on trying to hold themselves above others in that category.

It is funny, because I have sided with them when they are arguing with the "only Ivies will do" crowd. Then they turn around with he same elitist drivel directed at other excellent state universities.

Yes. Some dismiss any slights as jealousy of the superiority of UVA, but then UVA supporters assail other schools and they think that is OK. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

STEM has been UVA's achilles heel at least historically. I had a friend in grad school who graduated from MIT. His sister was attending UVA and when I said that's a good school, he said "well, it is a 'soft' school". I took that to mean he didn't have a strong view of engineering, math, and science. Perhaps he meant UVA didn't push people, though. I didn't clarify.

Not true today. Try getting in as an aerospace engineer or any other engineering program.

I think he meant it from a quality and rigor perspective, not from a selectivity standpoint.

I know UVA has put focus on this and is making progress, but you also have to look at the extensiveness of the STEM programs at some of these state schools to understand. There are something like 22 undergraduate public engineering programs ranked as high or higher than UVA in USNews. When you get up to Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, GT, Purdue, Texas, they really are quite colossal enterprises.

The schools you cited can hold their own against almost any of the private programs (another counter to the weird DCUM narrative that schools like Michigan and Berkeley can't compete with Ivy League schools).

Undergrad Engineering Rankings:

1- MIT
2- Stanford
3 - Berkeley
4 - CalTech & Georgia Tech (tied)
6 - UIUC & Michigan (tied)
8 - Carnegie Mellon & Purdue (tied)
10 - Cornell
11 - Princeton & UT (tied)

UVA is #34

[Anonymous]

Oh, and PP mentioned aerospace engineering:

Michigan - 2
UMD - 9

It's not clear is UVA is ranked for undergrad aerospace engineering.

[Anonymous]

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STEM has been UVA's achilles heel at least historically. I had a friend in grad school who graduated from MIT. His sister was attending UVA and when I said that's a good school, he said "well, it is a 'soft' school". I took that to mean he didn't have a strong view of engineering, math, and science. Perhaps he meant UVA didn't push people, though. I didn't clarify.

Omg, talk about low social IQ ... something he may have learned at a soft school.

But it appears they don’t teach about having a thick skin.

[Anonymous]

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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.

Again, silly rebuttal. First, of course DC is more impressed. That’s the definition of regional. Second, if it had national reach as UT and Mich do, hiring managers in Seattle would be as impressed by UVA as Michigan and UT.

They aren’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh, and PP mentioned aerospace engineering:

Michigan - 2
UMD - 9

It's not clear is UVA is ranked for undergrad aerospace engineering.

Ranked 49 according to this site: https://aerospace-schools.com/university-of-virginia

I would have thought biomedical would have been a better choice to single one out.

[Anonymous]

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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.

Yes, it is. My DD attends UVA. She is very happy there. She was also accepted to UNC, NYU, and William & Mary, among others. In the end, it really came down to choosing between W&M and UVA. We pay $20,000 total cost for UVA. I cannot see paying more for another equally ranked school. When my company relocated me in 2008 to the DMV, we moved to Virginia. We chose Fairfax County for the schools and certainly had access to the great Virginia universities in mind as well, even though we already owned a home in Maryland. Go Hoos!

[Anonymous]

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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.

Again, silly rebuttal. First, of course DC is more impressed. That’s the definition of regional. Second, if it had national reach as UT and Mich do, hiring managers in Seattle would be as impressed by UVA as Michigan and UT.

They aren’t.

The destinationsmap from the career center shows Seattle and the Bay Area as hot spots. That shows accepted jobs, not all offers.

https://career.virginia.edu/uva-first-destination-reports/university-virginia-class-2016

[Anonymous]

The above map tells us nothing about the relative prestige of UVA vs Michigan, Berkeley, or anywhere else, vis-a-vis employment.

[Anonymous]

UVA is a good regional school but it’s hardly prestigious. Just a good to very good public university.

[Anonymous]

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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.

This is not surprising since a big part of the US News ratings is exactly this -- perception of schools by those working at universities. In fact, it was originally the only criteria for ranking. It has very little to do with the actual education happening on campus.

[Anonymous]

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Again, silly rebuttal. First, of course DC is more impressed. That’s the definition of regional. Second, if it had national reach as UT and Mich do, hiring managers in Seattle would be as impressed by UVA as Michigan and UT.

They aren’t.

The destinations map from the career center shows Seattle and the Bay Area as hot spots. That shows accepted jobs, not all offers.

https://career.virginia.edu/uva-first-destination-reports/university-virginia-class-2016

Hard to follow when there are so many quoted comments. The map is clearly a response to the comment about hiring managers in Seattle. The Seattle dot looks bigger than Chicago and Atlanta, so it seems hiring managers think well of UVA grads.

UT doesn't seem to have a destinations report. Michigan's data shows states, not specific metro areas. Only 7.6% of LSA grads head to California. Washington state must be less popular because it isn't even listed.

https://careercenter.umich.edu/article/first-destination-profile

[Anonymous]

Supporters of most colleges tend to be bullish on their school. UVA supporters, however, as a whole, seem to take this too far and oversell their school (and put down rivals). This draws a reaction/response.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No - too racist and anti-GBLT

It's the south.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Supporters of most colleges tend to be bullish on their school. UVA supporters, however, as a whole, seem to take this too far and oversell their school (and put down rivals). This draws a reaction/response.

Yeah, I think there are quite a few people who think UVA is a very good school, but think its supporters can just push it too hard or more than is merited.

[Anonymous]

Lol.