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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Take the word of former UVA President Teresa Sullivan. When she was president, she wrote a highly critical memo to the UVA Board diagnosing the university's ills:

She called out the "reputation gap" -- “In a number of critical areas we are reputed to be better than we actually are,” she wrote.

“The more recent emphasis on science and engineering is interpreted in some quarters as a sign that we will no longer cherish our traditional strengths, and recent political attacks on universities reinforce this fear. Meanwhile, our need to improve [science, technology, engineering and math] fields persists.

“It must be candidly admitted that some of the fields that bring us the greatest distinction are not those in which most people would today invest (e.g., Spanish, English, Religious Studies),” Sullivan wrote.

“In some of these units, our reputation is derived from a small number of faculty, rending the reputation of those units particularly vulnerable to the outside recruitment of a single person or a few departures of senior leaders.”

“It is true that we have some international ‘star’ quality faculty, but many fewer than most of our peer institutions,” Sullivan wrote.

https://www.dailyprogress.com/news/sullivan-saw-reputation-gap-at-uva/article_3dcc495b-fdfb-5e52-b27f-0029288c8e7a.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/is-university-of-virginias-reputation-gap-growing/2012/06/17/gJQAi8kVjV_blog.html?utm_term=.fd3311e4897a

[/quote]

Sullivan came from Michigan and had worked at the University of Texas.  She was probably using schools like that and Berkeley as a reference.  There are a number of schools, usually significantly larger, that are stronger across the board in graduate education and research than UVA (UVA is strong in professional fields like law and business, but not as strong in areas in STEM, that get a lot of focus at these schools).  While some of her points are certainly valid (the focus is shifting to STEM), I thought it was the wrong comparison.  Schools like Brown and Dartmouth can't go toe-to-toe with these schools at a graduate or research level either, but a lot of people would argue they provide a better undergraduate experience.  A lot of state schools are really indifferent to undergraduates in my view (particularly if they are outside of favored areas).  If UVA has an advantage over those schools, it will be in that undergraduate experience.  She was worrying that this sounds subjective rather than objective, but really it is what is perceived to distinguish the Ivy experience and an LAC experience.  [/quote]

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