Reply to 40 Colleges & Universities Receive 5 Star Academic Rating

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The book notes 5 star UCLA's strongest programs as:

Computer Science, Engineering, English, Fine Arts, Mathematics, Performing Arts, Political Science, and Psychology.

UCLA seems like an interesting community.

Overall, this college guidebook loves the UC system with 4 UCs receiving the second highest academic rating (4.5 stars) and one (UCLA) receiving a full 5 star rating for academics.

Many seem to underestimate the quality of the University of Virginia. Univ. of Virginia is an outstanding university.

When I wrote the first two posts in this thread, I thought that there would be strong reaction to rating the academics of UC-Berkeley the same as for Boston University and the Univ. of Florida, and Boston College.

To really stir things up, I will list the SLACs that earned a 4.5 star academic rating (same as UC-Berkeley) :

Smith College, Wesleyan University, Bucknell University, Bates College, Univ. of Richmond, Scripps College, Colgate University, Colby College, Colorado College, College of the Holy Cross, Lafayette College, Union College, Vassar College, & Grinnell College.

Th three authors of the book all have earned doctorates--two PhDs and an EdD.[/quote]

The thing is, a bachelor's degree is just not a big deal. Nearly any school has adequate resources to teach bachelors level material. If a student can find engaged faculty and peers and access to  the programs that they are interested in, they can do great from anywhere. While I would never advise a kid to choose BU or UVA over Cal for a PhD program in most sciences, they can absolutely get just as good of an undergraduate education at any of these schools, and many, many others.[/quote]

Regarding the assertion that "a bachelor's degree is just not a big deal", my response is that it can be depending upon the particular school and upon the particular major.[/quote]

There are certain majors and certain schools which are "a big deal" at the undergraduate level.

My position is that if accepted to any of these schools, one should do everything within reason to attend:

Princeton, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, CalTech, Carnegie Mellon University, Harvey Mudd College, USMA at West Point, USNA at Annapolis, & the USAFA at Colorado Springs.
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With respect to Selective Liberal Arts Colleges (SLACs):

If accepted to Amherst, Williams, Harvey Mudd, Claremont McKenna, any of the three main service academies, one should do everything within reason to attend assuming that the students accepted to Williams and/or Amherst are not also accepted to any of Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Chicago, Duke, UPenn--especially the Wharton School of Business, or to any other top 25 National University including Georgetown and Virginia.[/quote]

For some students, sure.  For others, I would advise almost exactly the opposite.  It comes down to matching the individual student to the environment that best fits their needs, imo.

I know some that thrive in large, anonymous environments.  Or who want to go to a large school for a particular major (eg, engineering or a specialized business program.) Or who have no intention of being a top student in college and want to coast a bit more than some on reputation and “networking.”  (No judgement!)

I know others who prefer small classes, or having long conversations with professors after class, or who want a small residential community where everyone lives on campus but without the fraternities/sororities of larger private schools.

There’s outcome data supporting top LACs (like grad school placement and even long term satisfaction in the form of alumni giving or reunion attendance) and there’s data supporting top universities (salary, particularly early, though the availability of engineering in universities might skew that some.)

It’s not one size fits all, and perhaps that’s a good thing.  [/quote]

I started this thread.

I agree with the above post except for one distinction:

A 2014 study done at Vanderbilt University broke down schools into 4 categories. I recall the top 3 categories as "Private National Universities", "Liberal Arts Colleges", and "Public National Universities".

The 2014 Vanderbilt study revealed that a higher percentage of students at major Private National Universities attend graduate school, next was SLACs, then major Public National Universities.

https://archive.ph/s0K2w Why You Can't Catch Up by Nancy Hass Aug. 1, 2014 citing a study done by Vanderbilt University economics and law professor Joni Hersch[/quote]

Thanks for the interesting link.

I searched for the full paper and found this from 2019 (same author and title, just longer and more current):

https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=240069002121076005084000120114078075017073054032033092074008012074008126004024065069126000025041062008124018121065118085113126007080012013002115081114029027120003058038123017087018076029001030098119121069117102102095072104108126120024098108003098&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE

If you look through the schools used for the groupings, you can find 40 in their tier 1 private research universities (r1 and r2) and 159 in the liberal arts college category!  The 159 set is not what I meant by “top LACs.”  Basically, they authors are comparing a group of universities that have already gone though a vetting to achieve r1 and r2 status to pretty much any school that wants to consider itself an LAC.  Needless to say, this pulls down the LAC averages.

It’s hard to find reliable and consistently updated data for grad school placement, but I think the NSF comes closest with its PhD baccalaureate origins tables.  Swarthmore does a nice service for the entire higher ed community summarizing it each year.  I will post the link below.  Note 20 of the top 30 for the all PhDs category are LACs (adjusted for school size of course.)

https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/institutional-research/Doct%20Rates%20Top%20100%20Tot%20Sci%20Rankings%20-Summary%20to%202020.pdf

The obvious limitation here is not everyone is interested in a PhD.  But it’s a good starting point for comparing grad school placement.  Anecdotally, there seems to be fair correlation between most of the schools on this list with professional grad program placement.  Which shouldn’t be surprising as PhD programs are among the most selective, in part cause they are generally funded… But of course everyone should check the schools their kids are interested in for themselves!

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