Is uva a prestigious college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Falls into the “I don’t think less of someone for having gone there, but it doesn’t make me think more highly of them either” category. Like many schools. Basically, only other alumns might find it an interesting/important fact.

if you think more or less of someone based off of what school they went to, that's really weird.

Thinking of situations where that’s one of the first or only things you know about someone — eg a job candidate. And my point was it’s very rare that where you went to school matters to anyone other than alumns from the same college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching

It's ranked the 11th best public school for undergraduate education.

? Are we looking at the same list? I see William and Mary at #7; I don't see UVA anywhere.

You need to keep scrolling.

how far?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching

It's ranked the 11th best public school for undergraduate education.

? Are we looking at the same list? I see William and Mary at #7; I don't see UVA anywhere.

You need to keep scrolling.

how far?

to #17...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching

It's ranked the 11th best public school for undergraduate education.

? Are we looking at the same list? I see William and Mary at #7; I don't see UVA anywhere.

You need to keep scrolling.

how far?

to #17...

Got it. Thank-you. Well, that's really not in the top 5 like someone above claimed now is it?

[Anonymous]

Overall, I think UVA reputation is quite good, but you need to be realistic and nuanced when you look at it.

I lived in California for quite a while and I don't ever recall UVA getting mentioned the same way one might hear Stanford or Harvard mentioned or in the same way it is mentioned on this board. That doesn't mean it isn't well regarded in business or hiring circles, it just illustrates that a lot of talk about a school's reputation is regional.

Although USNews tries to bucket colleges into just a few categories, I think you need to break a school into its components. UVA has been strongest historically, in my view, in a couple of graduate professional fields, law and business. Medical is pretty strong, but not as strong as those two.

UVA is not nearly as strong as an across-the-board research and graduate university (think Berkeley or Michigan), particularly in STEM. It is much closer to upper middle of the pack for state universities, and would be behind schools like Wisconsin, Texas, and Washington, for instance. This is what largely being rated in these world university rankings, which is why UVA rates pretty low in reports like the QS ranking, where I think it recently ranked 193.

I think UVA is considered to be one of the best public schools for overall undergraduate education. Many state schools, in my opinion, use undergraduates to prop up the graduate and research programs, and they put their undergraduate focus into select programs like business, engineering, and honors colleges. These schools are effectively giving much more favorable treatment to some undergraduates at the expense of others. I think UVA does less of this (as does W&M) than most public universities.

There is a well-to-do, highly-privileged segment of the population that largely only look at private schools for undergraduate. You will see relatively few students from say Collegiate school in NYC that go to say UVA or W&M. They are really targeting elite privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, not nationally. It’s only popular in this area. None of my CA friends have even heard of it.

That says more about your friends than it does about UVA. It's the flagship of one of our 50 states. It's like saying you haven't heard of the University of Texas, or Michigan, or New Hampshire. You may not regard it highly or know much about it, but to not have heard of it means you must walk around with your head in a bag.

NP. We lived in northern CA for 5 years and my dh is a UVA alum. People didn’t regard UVA as any different than any other big state U. It’s not that it’s unheard of, it’s just that it isn’t considered among the elites.

+1 another from CA

UVA is an elite public university. Whether some Californians are aware of that or choose to acknowledge it speaks only to their own mindset. It’s like asking some people on the East Coast to weigh in on Pomona or Claremont McKenna.

What is a Pomona?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching

It's ranked the 11th best public school for undergraduate education.

? Are we looking at the same list? I see William and Mary at #7; I don't see UVA anywhere.

You need to keep scrolling.

how far?

to #17...

Got it. Thank-you. Well, that's really not in the top 5 like someone above claimed now is it?

I think a number of the top schools on that list are probably pretty good at undergraduate education (Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton, W&M), but I'm pretty shocked to see Michigan at 6. It is one of the most graduate and research focused schools in the country in my view. I wonder if there is some gaming going on here or it is perhaps influenced by a particular school like Ross. The problem with almost all USNews lists is they are ultimately subject to some for of gaming and manipulation. See the meteoric ascent of Northeastern (and even Vanderbilt and Chicago) as examples.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, not nationally. It’s only popular in this area. None of my CA friends have even heard of it.

That says more about your friends than it does about UVA. It's the flagship of one of our 50 states. It's like saying you haven't heard of the University of Texas, or Michigan, or New Hampshire. You may not regard it highly or know much about it, but to not have heard of it means you must walk around with your head in a bag.

NP. We lived in northern CA for 5 years and my dh is a UVA alum. People didn’t regard UVA as any different than any other big state U. It’s not that it’s unheard of, it’s just that it isn’t considered among the elites.

+1 another from CA

UVA is an elite public university. Whether some Californians are aware of that or choose to acknowledge it speaks only to their own mindset. It’s like asking some people on the East Coast to weigh in on Pomona or Claremont McKenna.

What is a Pomona?

It was hot at DC's private this year. Several of those who couldn't get in went to places like UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, not nationally. It’s only popular in this area. None of my CA friends have even heard of it.

That says more about your friends than it does about UVA. It's the flagship of one of our 50 states. It's like saying you haven't heard of the University of Texas, or Michigan, or New Hampshire. You may not regard it highly or know much about it, but to not have heard of it means you must walk around with your head in a bag.

NP. We lived in northern CA for 5 years and my dh is a UVA alum. People didn’t regard UVA as any different than any other big state U. It’s not that it’s unheard of, it’s just that it isn’t considered among the elites.

+1 another from CA

UVA is an elite public university. Whether some Californians are aware of that or choose to acknowledge it speaks only to their own mindset. It’s like asking some people on the East Coast to weigh in on Pomona or Claremont McKenna.

What is a Pomona?

Ever hear of Carleton, Swarthmore, Bowdoin, Williams? Probably not

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching

It's ranked the 11th best public school for undergraduate education.

? Are we looking at the same list? I see William and Mary at #7; I don't see UVA anywhere.

You need to keep scrolling.

how far?

to #17...

Got it. Thank-you. Well, that's really not in the top 5 like someone above claimed now is it?

The overall USNews undergraduate ranking does have UVA top 5 for public schools, I believe. (The top of the rankings are dominated by private schools.) I think it is currently 3. The teaching quality ranking, rightly or wrongly, is a secondary rating. (One could argue that most of the USNews ranking criteria may really have nothing to do with quality of undergraduate education.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching

It's ranked the 11th best public school for undergraduate education.

? Are we looking at the same list? I see William and Mary at #7; I don't see UVA anywhere.

You need to keep scrolling.

how far?

to #17...

Got it. Thank-you. Well, that's really not in the top 5 like someone above claimed now is it?

The overall USNews undergraduate ranking does have UVA top 5 for public schools, I believe. (The top of the rankings are dominated by private schools.) I think it is currently 3. The teaching quality ranking, rightly or wrongly, is a secondary rating. (One could argue that most of the USNews ranking criteria may really have nothing to do with quality of undergraduate education.)

? Pay attention. The discussion above showed that UVA is #17 among national universities for undergraduate teaching.
As for "teaching quality" being a "secondary" rating, I don't know your reason for sending you kid to college but right now I'm only interested in the quality of undergraduate education -- not the reputation of the business school or Law School.

[Anonymous]

I don't consider any southern colleges to be "prestigious" OP, so no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't consider any southern colleges to be "prestigious" OP, so no.

Duke?
Rice?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't consider any southern colleges to be "prestigious" OP, so no.

You sound sooooo smart. Share some with the rest of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/undergraduate-teaching

It's ranked the 11th best public school for undergraduate education.

? Are we looking at the same list? I see William and Mary at #7; I don't see UVA anywhere.

You need to keep scrolling.

how far?

to #17...

Got it. Thank-you. Well, that's really not in the top 5 like someone above claimed now is it?

The overall USNews undergraduate ranking does have UVA top 5 for public schools, I believe. (The top of the rankings are dominated by private schools.) I think it is currently 3. The teaching quality ranking, rightly or wrongly, is a secondary rating. (One could argue that most of the USNews ranking criteria may really have nothing to do with quality of undergraduate education.)

? Pay attention. The discussion above showed that UVA is #17 among national universities for undergraduate teaching.
As for "teaching quality" being a "secondary" rating, I don't know your reason for sending you kid to college but right now I'm only interested in the quality of undergraduate education -- not the reputation of the business school or Law School.

The point stands. In the primary USNews ranking of national undergraduate universities, UVA is 3rd behind Berkeley and UCLA. The quality of teaching ranking is separate and does not feed the overall rating.