Decreasing in Quality

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Seven sisters schools

Sad but true

Especially the non-Wellesley/Barnard ones. Smith, MoHo, and Bryan Mawr are nothing like the used to be.

Disagree. They are great places to be an interested, curious student.

No one said they’re garbage but instead that they have dimmed which is absolutely true for obvious reasons.

Since the top universities are open to women and have been for decades now, the caliber of student going to a seven sisters school is just lower than it used to be since top students have more options. Most Bryan Mawr students now wouldn’t have gotten in 50 years ago. The women who would have gotten in then, go to Penn now.

There’s a possible yes and no to this. Because those schools also had a certain number of students who just came from families able to pay. Like the Ivy League, actually. So there were bright young women with no other options who could be very academic at these schools, and there were those who could pay. And sometimes, but not always, they were both. Right now, with options for limiting international students, they will probably miss some shining stars that came from underserved communities abroad.(and some full pays from abroad, too.) just saying: variety.

Bryn Mawr used to have the highest average score on the English section of the SAT. That was an almost impossible distinction to hold on to. These schools still provide good options.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Returning to the original question, I would not spend out of state tuition to send my kids for undergraduate studies at one of University of California schools (such as Berkeley or UCLA) due to terrible budget concerns and overcrowding that cause kids to take 6 years to graduate, on average.

I don’t understand this comment. The four year grad rate at UCLA and Berkeley is 77% and 75% respectively. With the exception of UVA and W&M, that’s right on par with other top publics.

yeah but 77% is Terrible. UVa is like 94%.

Cmu is only 72%. Lehigh’s is similar but I can’t remember what it is

This is due to CMU's strong encouragement of multiple majors with little overlapping coursework.

It is simply tougher to graduate from some schools (MIT, CMU, Georgia Tech) than other in 4 years due to the difficulty and requirements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how someone has not mentioned UVA. Little STEM. The VA schools with strong STEM just keep getting stronger.

This is such a weird/incorrect comment since UVa is a tier-one research university with extensive undergraduate and graduate programs in sciences, engineering, math, and medicine funded by vast funding and resources. If anything, the educational emphasis at UVa has shifted to stem fields in the last twenty-years to reflect the social/economic emphasis on these fields.

But UVA has a very low percentage of graduates majoring in STEM fields compared to other top schools. Vast funding and resources is also inaccurate if you are doing a comparison.

Here is a list of top 20 national universities plus top 5 national LACs plus selected publics (Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Texas, UVA) ranked by percentage of students in CS, Engineering, Physical Sciences, Bio/Life Sciences, and Math/Statistics:

University Total
Caltech 98%
MIT 89%
Stanford 50%
Duke 48%
Princeton 47%
Harvard 46%
Swarthmore 44%
Cornell 44%
Rice 42%
WashU 41%
Michigan 41%
Pomona 40%
Berkeley 36%
Brown 36%
Williams 35%
Northwestern 34%
Amherst 34%
Texas 34%
Wellesley 33%
Yale 33%
UCLA 33%
Notre Dame 33%
Dartmouth 32%
Vanderbilt 31%
Penn 30%
UVA 27%

[Anonymous]

At least two of the Pomona consortium got caught cheating the us news ranking and were kicked out of the ranking game for several years each. These people know how to cheat. They know how it’s done. They are pros.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haverford
Mills college
Dickinson
Franklin and Marshall
Unc

Weird list of schools. On what basis here? One might argue that, given that COVID will be around for a while, I would prefer that my child attend a SLAC in a small or rural town than a big city school. Much lower risk.

[Anonymous]

Agreed....but the hospitals nearby???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how someone has not mentioned UVA. Little STEM. The VA schools with strong STEM just keep getting stronger.

Not UVA affiliated, but that's a weird take. Why would STEM percentage be equated with decreasing quality? You could have no STEM and still be improving quality of what you offer. Is Julliard decreasing in quality because of their STEM percentage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agreed....but the hospitals nearby???

My Alma mater is located in an extremely rural hospital, yet it is five minutes away from one of the best hospitals in the state

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to the original question, I would not spend out of state tuition to send my kids for undergraduate studies at one of University of California schools (such as Berkeley or UCLA) due to terrible budget concerns and overcrowding that cause kids to take 6 years to graduate, on average.

I don’t understand this comment. The four year grad rate at UCLA and Berkeley is 77% and 75% respectively. With the exception of UVA and W&M, that’s right on par with other top publics.

yeah but 77% is Terrible. UVa is like 94%.

For large public universities it is good. UVA is 89%.

Going down the list of top 25 USNews public colleges:
UCLA - 77%
UCB - 75%
Michigan - 79%
UVA - 89%
Georgia Tech - 40%
UNC - 82%
UCSB - 70%
University of Florida - 68%
UC Irvine - 68%
UC San Diego - 62%
UC Davis - 61%
William and Mary - 85%
Wisconsin - 62%
Illinois - 70%
Texas - 61%
Georgia - 66%
Ohio State - 59%
Florida State - 66%
Penn State - 66%
Purdue - 56%
Pitt - 65%
Rutgers - 61%
University of Washington - 67%
Umass - 71%
UMD - 70%
UConn - 73%

Now, if PP wanted to make the argument that she wouldn’t send her kid to large publics as a whole because their graduate rates tend to be lower than privates, that would be fair. But to single out the UC schools as having low graduation rates is an argument that does not hold water. It’s a large public school thing, not a UC school thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At least two of the Pomona consortium got caught cheating the us news ranking and were kicked out of the ranking game for several years each. These people know how to cheat. They know how it’s done. They are pros.

Claremont McKenna. But why single them out? That list includes Emory, Berkeley, Temple, Oklahoma, Bucknell, Tulane, George Washington, etc.

[Anonymous]

A family member of mine has a ton pull at one of the above schools (donates buildings, etc) and flat out offered by child a spot, so I’m not surprised they got in trouble for gaming the rankings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how someone has not mentioned UVA. Little STEM. The VA schools with strong STEM just keep getting stronger.

UVA getting weaker? I'd argue UVA needs to increase percentage of students majoring in STEM. (And they are doing some things like the data science school.) It is well behind comparable schools in this regard. But not sure that means it is decreasing in quality.

It's actually not. I have a fourth year there in engineering, but you seem to want to keep repeating this so you do you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Returning to the original question, I would not spend out of state tuition to send my kids for undergraduate studies at one of University of California schools (such as Berkeley or UCLA) due to terrible budget concerns and overcrowding that cause kids to take 6 years to graduate, on average.

I don’t understand this comment. The four year grad rate at UCLA and Berkeley is 77% and 75% respectively. With the exception of UVA and W&M, that’s right on par with other top publics.

yeah but 77% is Terrible. UVa is like 94%.

For large public universities it is good. UVA is 89%.

Going down the list of top 25 USNews public colleges:
UCLA - 77%
UCB - 75%
Michigan - 79%
UVA - 89%
Georgia Tech - 40%
UNC - 82%
UCSB - 70%
University of Florida - 68%
UC Irvine - 68%
UC San Diego - 62%
UC Davis - 61%
William and Mary - 85%
Wisconsin - 62%
Illinois - 70%
Texas - 61%
Georgia - 66%
Ohio State - 59%
Florida State - 66%
Penn State - 66%
Purdue - 56%
Pitt - 65%
Rutgers - 61%
University of Washington - 67%
Umass - 71%
UMD - 70%
UConn - 73%

Now, if PP wanted to make the argument that she wouldn’t send her kid to large publics as a whole because their graduate rates tend to be lower than privates, that would be fair. But to single out the UC schools as having low graduation rates is an argument that does not hold water. It’s a large public school thing, not a UC school thing.

This would lead you to believe that Georgia Tech is the worst and has the worst students. I believe they now have the highest average SAT scores of all public universities, so perhaps we need to take into account degree of difficulty?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous[b wrote:]I don't know how someone has not mentioned UVA. Little STEM[/b]. The VA schools with strong STEM just keep getting stronger.

This is such a weird/incorrect comment since UVa is a tier-one research university with extensive undergraduate and graduate programs in sciences, engineering, math, and medicine funded by vast funding and resources. If anything, the educational emphasis at UVa has shifted to stem fields in the last twenty-years to reflect the social/economic emphasis on these fields.

But UVA has a very low percentage of graduates majoring in STEM fields compared to other top schools. Vast funding and resources is also inaccurate if you are doing a comparison.

Here is a list of top 20 national universities plus top 5 national LACs plus selected publics (Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Texas, UVA) ranked by percentage of students in CS, Engineering, Physical Sciences, Bio/Life Sciences, and Math/Statistics:

University Total
Caltech 98%
MIT 89%
Stanford 50%
Duke 48%
Princeton 47%
Harvard 46%
Swarthmore 44%
Cornell 44%
Rice 42%
WashU 41%
Michigan 41%
Pomona 40%
Berkeley 36%
Brown 36%
Williams 35%
Northwestern 34%
Amherst 34%
Texas 34%
Wellesley 33%
Yale 33%
UCLA 33%
Notre Dame 33%
Dartmouth 32%
Vanderbilt 31%
Penn 30%
UVA 27%

Did it ever occur to you that UVA doesn't need more STEM because Virginia has Virginia Tech? And we also have William & Mary for the smaller LAC experience. Then there are all the other Virginia universities to select from.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know how someone has not mentioned UVA. Little STEM. The VA schools with strong STEM just keep getting stronger.

UVA getting weaker? I'd argue UVA needs to increase percentage of students majoring in STEM. (And they are doing some things like the data science school.) It is well behind comparable schools in this regard. But not sure that means it is decreasing in quality.

It's actually not. I have a fourth year there in engineering, but you seem to want to keep repeating this so you do you.

The statement is factually correct. It does lag behind other top ranked schools in percentage of students majoring in STEM. Not sure what your fourth year would have to do with that other than being one student in the numerator.