JMU right now has both football and basketball ranked in the top 25 for Division I. That kind of high profile success will have an impact. I know many of you will scoff about it, but it’s true. Soon enough we will be talking about the Big 4 in VA and not just the Big 3.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With VT now being in the top 50 in the US news, expect it will get only worse.

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

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.

Anonymous wrote:This subject line has to be a joke. I can't think of many other states with better options except CA, but those are hard to get into.

'''I


i think it's a frustrated Maryland or DC parent who wants to troll

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP is nuts. Virginia has a lot of good public colleges for only 8.6M residents. Way more options on a per capita basis than vast majority of states of a similar size.

Pennsylvania has 12.9M residents.

How many decent public colleges/universities for a state of that size? Penn State and Pitt. That's it. Neither of which hold a candle to UVA, W&M, and VT. Pitt is a slightly better version of JMU. Penn State doesn't have an analogue in VA, it's more similar to UMD-CP.

So yeah, VA has an amazing public university system given the moderate size of the state. Sure, the UC system is the best in country but those schools are ENORMOUS. And "best" is really just a measurement of research dollars. If your kid wants a classic liberal arts education prior to going to law school, they are better off at UVA than UCLA or Berkeley.

California has 40 million residents. UCLA and Berkeley have become nearly impossible to get in in-state (and of course OOS because it is now limited to 10% OOS and international)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Richmond is private, not public.

But there are lots more....VCU, CNU, ODU, Radford, VMI, UMW. Not sure what more OP needs.

Some are very selective, some not selective at all and some in between.

+1. VA has some of the better state schools around. What the OP wants, I suspect is more schools at the UVA/W&M/VaTech "ranking". They could not imagine sending their kid to GMU, JMU, VCU, ODU, Radford, Mary Washington, etc.

MD has UMD and then it drops to UMBC (266) and then Towson (459)

UVA is 55 and VaTEch is 106 (These are college simply rankings, so you merge all LA, SLAC, regional universities into one ranking). JMU is 258, GMU is 244, VCU 455.

It's a no brainer---VA has much better options for in state than MD.

Just use USNWR rankings, like everyone else. No one uses "college simply."
DP

USNWR does NOT rank all universities in one, single category. So while not perfect, college simply is a good method for rankings if you want to compare.

Yes, it does. Best National Universities. https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with OP. The good schools kids want to go to are too hard to get into. They’re also expensive for in-state.

How is $37K a year at UVA expensive?

Compare it to UNC in state, Clemson in state, Georgia in state, Florida in state...

UCLA and Berkeley are $40K a year for residents. That's the better comparison. UVA at $37K all in is a steal compared to SLACs now surpassing $90K a year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Richmond is private, not public.

But there are lots more....VCU, CNU, ODU, Radford, VMI, UMW. Not sure what more OP needs.

Some are very selective, some not selective at all and some in between.

+1. VA has some of the better state schools around. What the OP wants, I suspect is more schools at the UVA/W&M/VaTech "ranking". They could not imagine sending their kid to GMU, JMU, VCU, ODU, Radford, Mary Washington, etc.

MD has UMD and then it drops to UMBC (266) and then Towson (459)

UVA is 55 and VaTEch is 106 (These are college simply rankings, so you merge all LA, SLAC, regional universities into one ranking). JMU is 258, GMU is 244, VCU 455.

It's a no brainer---VA has much better options for in state than MD.

Don't knowo what you are looking at but UVA is T24 for USNWR now

Did you read and comprehend? Apparently not.

I stated those are College simply rankings---that way you have All schools merged together into one ranking...not separate ones for "regional" or SLAC or whatever category USNWR does. Best way to compare schools is a ranking that puts them ALL into one ranking.

May not be perfect, but it's the simplest way to do a baseline comparison of all schools (although I think rankings are imperfect on many levels)

and you were correctly told that no one cites to College Simply - USNWR is the gold standard. Any other ranking serves only the interest of the fee-generating website.

This subject line has to be a joke. I can't think of many other states with better options except CA, but those are hard to get into.

OP is that parent who hasn't been through the college admissions process yet. Hubris to be replaced by humility soon enough. How dare that "safety" reject my child!

It's the circle of life.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with OP. The good schools kids want to go to are too hard to get into. They’re also expensive for in-state.

How is $37K a year at UVA expensive?

Compare it to UNC in state, Clemson in state, Georgia in state, Florida in state...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Richmond is private, not public.

But there are lots more....VCU, CNU, ODU, Radford, VMI, UMW. Not sure what more OP needs.

Some are very selective, some not selective at all and some in between.

+1. VA has some of the better state schools around. What the OP wants, I suspect is more schools at the UVA/W&M/VaTech "ranking". They could not imagine sending their kid to GMU, JMU, VCU, ODU, Radford, Mary Washington, etc.

MD has UMD and then it drops to UMBC (266) and then Towson (459)

UVA is 55 and VaTEch is 106 (These are college simply rankings, so you merge all LA, SLAC, regional universities into one ranking). JMU is 258, GMU is 244, VCU 455.

It's a no brainer---VA has much better options for in state than MD.

Just use USNWR rankings, like everyone else. No one uses "college simply."
DP

USNWR does NOT rank all universities in one, single category. So while not perfect, college simply is a good method for rankings if you want to compare.

Anonymous wrote:OP is nuts. Virginia has a lot of good public colleges for only 8.6M residents. Way more options on a per capita basis than vast majority of states of a similar size.

Pennsylvania has 12.9M residents.

How many decent public colleges/universities for a state of that size? Penn State and Pitt. That's it. Neither of which hold a candle to UVA, W&M, and VT. Pitt is a slightly better version of JMU. Penn State doesn't have an analogue in VA, it's more similar to UMD-CP.

So yeah, VA has an amazing public university system given the moderate size of the state. Sure, the UC system is the best in country but those schools are ENORMOUS. And "best" is really just a measurement of research dollars. If your kid wants a classic liberal arts education prior to going to law school, they are better off at UVA than UCLA or Berkeley.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Richmond is private, not public.

But there are lots more....VCU, CNU, ODU, Radford, VMI, UMW. Not sure what more OP needs.

Some are very selective, some not selective at all and some in between.

+1. VA has some of the better state schools around. What the OP wants, I suspect is more schools at the UVA/W&M/VaTech "ranking". They could not imagine sending their kid to GMU, JMU, VCU, ODU, Radford, Mary Washington, etc.

MD has UMD and then it drops to UMBC (266) and then Towson (459)

UVA is 55 and VaTEch is 106 (These are college simply rankings, so you merge all LA, SLAC, regional universities into one ranking). JMU is 258, GMU is 244, VCU 455.

It's a no brainer---VA has much better options for in state than MD.

Don't knowo what you are looking at but UVA is T24 for USNWR now

Did you read and comprehend? Apparently not.

I stated those are College simply rankings---that way you have All schools merged together into one ranking...not separate ones for "regional" or SLAC or whatever category USNWR does. Best way to compare schools is a ranking that puts them ALL into one ranking.

May not be perfect, but it's the simplest way to do a baseline comparison of all schools (although I think rankings are imperfect on many levels)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Virginia also has W&L, URichmond, VCU, etc., all of which (with JMU and GMU) are arguably better than all of Maryland's non-College Park schools.

W&L and U of R are private. Neither is better than JHU or St. John's or the USNA.

Both W&L and UR are better than St. John's.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Richmond is private, not public.

But there are lots more....VCU, CNU, ODU, Radford, VMI, UMW. Not sure what more OP needs.

Some are very selective, some not selective at all and some in between.

+1. VA has some of the better state schools around. What the OP wants, I suspect is more schools at the UVA/W&M/VaTech "ranking". They could not imagine sending their kid to GMU, JMU, VCU, ODU, Radford, Mary Washington, etc.

MD has UMD and then it drops to UMBC (266) and then Towson (459)

UVA is 55 and VaTEch is 106 (These are college simply rankings, so you merge all LA, SLAC, regional universities into one ranking). JMU is 258, GMU is 244, VCU 455.

It's a no brainer---VA has much better options for in state than MD.

If you cannot get in, that’s not an option. UVa, W&M and VT are not options for many many Virginia kids.

Being better than MD doesn’t mean much.

Did you read what I wrote? Beyond UVA, VaTech and W&M, the state of VA has much better options. So those are available if your kid cannot get into the Top 3. MD has only UMDCP and UMBC. VA has the top 3 plus JMU and GMU in the same range (down to UMBC ranking). 2 schools vs 5 schools.

So if your kid cannot get into UVA/VATECH/W&M, then then likely won't get into UMCP (MD's similarly ranked school).

The state is not going to have places for all kids at the top 3 schools---that would mean the top 3 schools are not that good. I live in a state where our 2nd ranked school admits everyone with a 3.5+ (UW) automatically. Well that school is ranked in the 100 points below JMU.
Plenty of kids go there because it's affordable. Not their first choice, but excellent education.

You are just mad your snowflake cannot get into the Top 3 schools in the state. But there are plenty of va schools they can get into. Your choice whether you want to overpay and go elsewhere or not. Not the states job to provide entry to the TOP schools for everyone. Not how it works