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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]With VT now being in the top 50 in the US news, expect it will get only worse.

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This year’s USNWR rankings are not based on academics and are irrelevant to many posters on DCUM.[/quote]

Only because the second tier private schools that they’ve been sending the kids to have finally been revealed for what they are, which is second-tier.[/quote]

No USNWR changed the methodology and it's now largely non-academic.

Removing class size and high school ranking (if it's done) and portion of professors with terminal degrees IMO is important (HS ranking not as much so---but that's still there with GPA, etc).  Class size is very telling of the quality of academics offered at a school.  NO way you can convince me that a typical class with 30-40 students is not a much better learning experience than one with 500+ students (given the same quality of professor---obviously a bad prof is bad in all instances).  It's simply a very different learning environment and no expert would try to convince you that the 500+ environment is better.

Adding in Pell Grant graduation rates really does not demonstrate how one school is better than the other, given that outside factors for those students are often the reason they don't graduate on time, not what the university does or doesn't do.

All it means is that State universities jumped in the rankings and private, less than 15K undergrad universities lost placement.   That is mostly an indicator of class size and terminal degree.  DOn't know about you but I prefer my kids to sit in classes with 25-50 kids where they can actively learn during a lecture and be engaged with a professor who is an expert in their field, not the TA who is a first year graduate student.  
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You sound like every other class in State U has 500+ students.  Which they obvious don’t.  Your argument is specious.  [/quote]

In my experience, fresh/soph year for STEM/CS/Eng majors, that is the case for the core sequences or at least 200-300+.  And IMO, once you hit 100+, and then again at 200+, you are not in an environment that includes engagement during the lecture.  So first 2 years 3 of your 4 courses are exactly like that.  And the ones that aren't are not typically 25 students at a large state U, unless you are a Russian Lit major.

And at the smaller private Universities, my kids are/have been taught by actual professors for all their courses.  It's the Profs who hold office hours (so do TAs who run discussions/help with the course, but the profs always have weekly hours as well).  My kid can easily schedule a meeting with their advisor the same day or next day.  In fact, they had an advisor in their major assigned before they arrived on campus freshman year, who helped with course selection for fall freshman year.

I think the above adds great value to your education.  And while I do care that a University is making an effort to ensure low income kids graduate, I'm smart enough to recognize that ultimately that depends upon many factors outside the university's control.  So it's not an important part of "college quality"
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DP.  You specifically said "500+" in your earlier post.  So you admit, you were lying.  My DC attends VT and has never, ever had a class larger than 100 (34% of classes have fewer than 20 students) and has never had a TA teaching the class. Student to faculty ratio is 17:1. Profs all hold office hours, and advisors are easy to schedule appointments with.  Oh!  And my kid ALSO had an advisor in their major assigned to them the summer before freshman year, just like yours!  The same advisor has been with my DC each year.

Great that you're happy with your kids' smaller, private universities, but it doesn't seem like you know very much about the schools your kids DON'T attend.  Maybe you should stop making assumptions and sweeping generalizations?  [/quote]

DP: Doubt your kid is a STEM major at VaTech [/quote]

Find a class at Virginia Tech that has 500+ students, then get back to us.   :roll: [/quote]

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