Rank the Big East schools academically?

Perhaps it is just perception, but as a perosn who spent most of his life in corporate America, I would say you are all underrating Nova.

No order, G'Town, Nova and Notre Dame grads get attention and perception-wise are about equal to or a slight tick below Berkley, Duke, UVA and Stanford, etc.

what should be clear is that the BE is a truly horrible conference from an academic standpoint. the ACC, B10 and PAC10 destroy the BE academically and the SEC and B12 even are better. moreover, pitt and syracuse aren't even in the BE anymore so there go the clear cut #4 and #5 schools.

Syracuse is unranked by http://www.shanghairanking.com/ARWU2011.html

villanova is much better than most of the people on here are giving it credit. however, a slight tick below duke and stanford? it's not even in the same ballpark. villanova MIGHT make it on as a safety school for the typical kid who goes to duke or stanford who is exponentially more qualified than his/her counterpart at villanova. also, ask yourself how many people in the first year classes at the top medical, law and business schools went to villanova and do firms like GS even recruit there?

Shanghi Rankings are a way for people who go to shitty but large schools to say their ranking is better than everyone in the US knows.

MilesDavis wrote:

Shanghi Rankings are a way for people who go to shitty but large schools to say their ranking is better than everyone in the US knows.

I think that you make a good point. Every ranking system contains some bias, intrinsically, because *someone* chose the criteria that *they* feel are important.

I think the Times Higher Learning rankings are nicer to the schools mentioned than is the Chinese assessment. I think few people -- though not NONE -- would have a deep disagreement with the top 50. They're reasonable and you're probably not a total dumb-dumb if you attend any of them. OTOH, I attended one of them and may simply be too dumb to see my dumb-dumb-ness.

:)

Other than Rutgers and Pitt the Big East is academically about the same as the SUNY state schools in New York. Hope this helps.

[quote]Cave Johnson wrote:

5- University of Connecticut

seriously Uconn number 5!? there is no way its only 1 school below Nova

If you choose a school based on world rankings:

#2 Stanford

#4 Berkeley

#35 Duke

#57 Pittsburgh

#59 Rutgers

unranked: Georgetown, Norte Dame, Virgina, Villanova

Since I first saw this thread a couple of days ago, I have talked to a lot of people and "TrackCoach" has it right. Georgetown and Notre Dame are top. Villanova is number three and has a lot better reputation in the real world than any of the other Big East schools except the first two. I am speaking about undergrad reputation/selectivity.

TrackCoach wrote:

Perhaps it is just perception, but as a perosn who spent most of his life in corporate America, I would say you are all underrating Nova.

No order, G'Town, Nova and Notre Dame grads get attention and perception-wise are about equal to or a slight tick below Berkley, Duke, UVA and Stanford, etc.

Ha. It is funny that you mention GS as your example, as out of roughly the 10 business school people i am close with that graduated 4 of them work for Goldman. I just found that quite funny.

BTW Villanova consistently has a top ten undergraduate program for Engineering, Business and Nursing year in and year out. Our doctoral programs suck tho so take it for what it is.

So tier 1 is Gtown and ND

Tier 1.5 is Nova

Then the other schools need to start filling out Tier 3 cause really aside from the top 3 the BE is poor academically compared to other conferences especially the West coast.

GS is funny wrote:

Ha. It is funny that you mention GS as your example, as out of roughly the 10 business school people i am close with that graduated 4 of them work for Goldman. I just found that quite funny.

BTW Villanova consistently has a top ten undergraduate program for Engineering, Business and Nursing year in and year out. Our doctoral programs suck tho so take it for what it is.

So tier 1 is Gtown and ND

Tier 1.5 is Nova

Then the other schools need to start filling out Tier 3 cause really aside from the top 3 the BE is poor academically compared to other conferences especially the West coast.

(1) what is more funny is the fact that you are delusional and think that villanova has a consistent top 10 engineering program. please show me where it is on this list:

i stopped looking when i got to 100. nb, that lehigh, which actually does have a good engineering program, is on the list, so small liberal arts schools are not excluded.

who cares about undergrad business school? other than penn, what other top schools even offer a business undergrad degree? even worse, who cares about nursing? are you kidding me???

(2) regarding GS, how many of those 4 got their jobs from on campus recruiting or from dad's connections? does GS recruit at villanova or does it not?

i'll repeat myself, villanova would be lucky to be the safety school of the typical student at a stanford or duke. it's not even in the same ballpark. i will agree with you that it's the #3 BE school academically, which shows you how horrific the BE is academically.

buffet rule not wrote:

who cares about undergrad business school? other than penn, what other top schools even offer a business undergrad degree? even worse, who cares about nursing? are you kidding me???

i'll repeat myself, villanova would be lucky to be the safety school of the typical student at a stanford or duke. it's not even in the same ballpark. i will agree with you that it's the #3 BE school academically, which shows you how horrific the BE is academically.

Who cares about nursing??? Are you kidding? Nurses are much more important than engineers. And there's probably a lot more nurses than engineers. People like you need to realize that engineering isn't the only occupation in the world.

How are you ranking these schools? Why is Stanford academically better than Georgetown or Villanova for undergrads? Why is the Big East "horrible"? These rankings have nothing to do with the academic level of undergraduate education. Calculus 101 is Calculus 101. It does not matter where you go. Reputation, however, might be dependent on where you go. But not actual undergraduate education.

(1) we are talking about ACADEMICS -- not what profession is more or less important to society. a good electrician is more important to society than a harvard english major but it doesn't make your local community college a better academic institution than harvard.

(2) whatever metric you want, stanford destroys georgetown and villanova. would you like to use the quality of the students enrolled as measured by the SATs/GPAs (yes, the quality of the students you are in class with actually matters to the education you get as i would expect there to be discussions in classes. the better the other students, the better the discussions). would you like to use average starting salaries of grads? would you like to use number of grads admitted to top md/mba/jd/phd programs? that's how i measure it.

(3) the BE is horrible because it is comprised mostly of 3rd rate institutions. compare the schools to the schools in the ACC, PAC10 or B10. ask yourself how many 1Ls at HLS went to pitt. that should help.

outsider jones wrote:

This is pretty close.

It's more like:

Tier 1: ND, Georgetown

Tier 2: Pitt, Syracuse, Marquette

Tier 3: Rutgers, UConn, Villanova

Tier 4: St. Johns, DePaul, Seton Hall

Tier 5: Cincinnati, Providence, Louisville

Tier 6: West Virginia, South Florida

Start at the top with a 3.9/1400. Each tier down, drop .2 and 75 SAT points on the old scale.

Pretty close to what I'm thinking. Swap UConn and St. John's. Swap Seton Hall and Providence. I've taught a ton of kids that got into UCONN that didn't get into St. John's or Providence. (Yes, I know major and demographics play into it)

1) you were the one who said "who cares about nursing"

2) the quality of the incoming students does not have that much affect on the academics (in the physical and life sciences at least). What sort of class discussion could possibly go on in a calc 1 class? And how often?

Average starting salary isn't automatically a good metric either. Are you controlling for job proximity. Stanford has Silicon Valley right next to it. Pitt does not so I'd bet that less students apply to jobs way across the country. Or controlling for each job position? A computer engineer will make much more than a Physics student. Also, are you controlling for the difference in cost of living? Starting pay for similar jobs can be twice as much in San Francisco vs other places.

3) Ask myself? That's not a good measure. I hope that's not where your opinions are coming from. What are the ACTUAL law school successful admittance rates for these schools? Not just what you thin by asking yourself.

Ray wrote:

outsider jones wrote:

This is pretty close.

It's more like:

Tier 1: ND, Georgetown

Tier 2: Pitt, Syracuse, Marquette

Tier 3: Rutgers, UConn, Villanova

Tier 4: St. Johns, DePaul, Seton Hall

Tier 5: Cincinnati, Providence, Louisville

Tier 6: West Virginia, South Florida

Start at the top with a 3.9/1400. Each tier down, drop .2 and 75 SAT points on the old scale.

Pretty close to what I'm thinking. Swap UConn and St. John's. Swap Seton Hall and Providence. I've taught a ton of kids that got into UCONN that didn't get into St. John's or Providence. (Yes, I know major and demographics play into it)

What do gpa and SAT scores have to do with how academically good a school is? All that means is that they are likely more selective or have higher standards of admittance, but neither of those have anything to do with a school's level of academics.

(1) it was a rhetorical question. nobody except you cares about nursing with respect to the academic quality of a school. are you now going to claim that the school with the best PE program is an academic juggernaut?

(2) the quality of incoming students has A LOT to do with the education you get (clearly someone hasn't been in classes with smart students). using your example, when you are struggling with your problem set in calc 1, would you rather have a bunch of classmates who are just as clueless as you who can't help you or would you rather have numerous classmates who can explain what you are struggling with? moreover, not every class is calc 1. any rigorous class is going to have student/student interaction whether it be english or physics. i tend to learn more from other bright people but maybe that's just me.

(3) average starting salary isn't an absolute metric but it's a pretty damn good start. do you think harvard has a higher or lower one than, say, pitt? what about cal tech versus st john's, which is in nyc? do you think stanford has a higher or lower starting avg salary than menlo college (job proximities are identical in case you didn't know that).

(4) here's a list of feeder undergrad schools for HLS, UVA and YLS:

may i ask why this list roughly matches up with the us news list of top colleges and we don't see any of the junky BE schools on it that you seem to think are great launching pads into the top law schools? i'll help you out -- they AREN'T.

what do u think of the rutgers woman track coach? should she be coaching a big east team ?