Top university in your city/general area

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by SlidellWx

Tulane University.

i used to wander around tulane in the early morning with tulane students after snake and jakes or whatever imagining and wishing that i went there.

[austlar1]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Sure, but Dallas would still absolutely be better off with a prestigious university.

I totally agree. It surprises me that the good (and VERY wealthy) citizens of Dallas have not built up SMU's endowment to anything particularly noteworthy, nor have they expressed a great deal of interest in fostering the kind of academic excellence obtained by other nominally Methodist universities in the south such as Emory, Duke, or Vanderbilt. SMU has an endowment of close to $1.6 billion which is slightly smaller than the endowment of Fort Worth's TCU ($1.7 billion). SMU has an academic ranking only slightly higher than TCU's, although SMU is better known, SMU and TCU are remarkably similar in demographics and academic standing. It is possible that University of Texas/Dallas might emerge as a top tier UT campus over the next decade or so. UTDallas leaders are clearly aspirational in their thinking. Guess we'll have to wait to find out. As long as the region remains an economic hot spot, DFW should be able to attract most the talent it needs, but one or two really strong academic contenders would certainly be a welcome addition over the long haul.

[pj3000]

Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh; both are top universities, difficult to say which one is “better”

Miami: University of Miami

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

Texas (and Florida for that matter) seems drastically underserved by top universities for its size.

Here are the top ten CSA's and the best schools within:

NYC: Colombia,Princeton,Yale, NYU
LA: Caltech, UCLA, USC, UCI
Chicago: UChicago, Northwestern (Notre Dame in periphery)
Washington/Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, Georgetown
SF/SJ: Stanford, Cal
Boston: Harvard, MIT, Brown, Tufts, BC
DFW: SMU?!?, TCU?!?
Houston: Rice, Houston?!?
Philly: Penn, Villanova (Princeton in periphery)
Miami: Miami!?, FAU!?

I wonder if some day Miami and SMU will become much more elite. Those metros seem too large to have zero top schools.

Villanova is not considered to be top school. It is a good Catholic school, but it is not nearly comprehensive enough in its offerings or output to be in any upper tier. You could put your question marks and exclamation points after it as well.

[Razor]

I'm just wondering how common it is for certain Universities to be labelled as "last chance U"? That moniker may be a Canadian thing. Don't know.

[Nomad9]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Villanova is not considered to be top school. It is a good Catholic school, but it is not nearly comprehensive enough in its offerings or output to be in any upper tier. You could put your question marks and exclamation points after it as well.

Idk, I’d keep Nova there. It’s top 50 in US News (flawed as it is) for undergrad, competitive admission, lots of well-off alum in the Philly area. Although in terms of prestige, Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr are elite liberal arts colleges. Temple is probably second in terms of research. University of Delaware is solid too. Philly is often overlooked in the discussions of cities with best universities, but it’s pretty strong (this isn’t even mentioning Drexel, Rutgers-Camden, and several medical schools.)

[pj3000]

Villanova is nowhere near one of the “top 50” universities in the US. Attempting to somehow portray Villanova as a “better” university than Penn State or Pitt (to only mention a couple in PA) is total silliness, and clearly illustrates how preposterous these rankings are (particularly those of USNWR).

The whole ranking “systems” by various magazines is complete bullshit, which change year to year, removing some parameters/adding others/weighting data differently year to year/etc. Aside from select Ivies and a handful or so of other usual suspects, schools jump up and down those stupid lists arbitrarily. Schools that were ranked in the 20s and 30s a few years ago and have only improved during that time, drop far out of the “top 50”, only to return a few years later when a publication decides to change their algorithms, presumably just to fuck with university administration.

[DCReid]

I know U of Michigan is a prestigious top tier university and Ann Arbor not far from Detroit metro, and Michigan State is a top university as well, but it is surprising that the Detroit metro did not foster a top tier private university.

[Matthew]

In Winston-Salem it's Wake Forest University and the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. That is a big part of why Winston-Salem is called "The City of Arts & Innovation." It's great to have two very different schools like this, including a well-respected arts conservatory. They both invest in downtown and are a part of the city's startup scene.

[Nomad9]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Villanova is nowhere near one of the “top 50” universities in the US. Attempting to somehow portray Villanova as a “better” university than Penn State or Pitt (to only mention a couple in PA) is total silliness, and clearly illustrates how preposterous these rankings are (particularly those of USNWR).

The whole ranking “systems” by various magazines is complete bullshit, which change year to year, removing some parameters/adding others/weighting data differently year to year/etc. Aside from select Ivies and a handful or so of other usual suspects, schools jump up and down those stupid lists arbitrarily. Schools that were ranked in the 20s and 30s a few years ago and have only improved during that time, drop far out of the “top 50”, only to return a few years later when a publication decides to change their algorithms, presumably just to fuck with university administration.

I don’t think anyone’s disputing that rankings like USNews are flawed. Nor am I debating whether it’s better or worse than Penn State/Pitt (they aren’t in Philly). But IMO its academic profile makes it worthy of that list.

Also, I don’t think it’s fair to put Yale in NYC or ND in Chicago. Just because those schools have a strong alumni base/cultural connection to those cities doesn’t mean they still aren’t like 80-90 miles away. Princeton is also difficult to categorize since it’s almost equidistant from NYC and Philly.

For DC/Baltimore I’d add Maryland.

[llamaorama]

To be honest, I think some cities can't help that the big schools are in outlying towns. I'm willing to bet this is why Houston's big public university game is weak. Aside from UH, all the other 4-year universities in the metro area are all either tiny and private and/or niche. Rice, St. Thomas, TSU(an HBCU), Houston Baptist, etc.

Texas A&M in College Station is both massive in terms of enrollment, and is also generally regarded as being pretty good in engineering, certain sciences, etc. It's 90 miles northwest of Houston. Also about 45 miles north of Houston there's Sam Houston State University, which is a fairly typical state school that is also getting big in terms of enrollment.

There's probably a historical reason for this. Old cities that were big when a lot of small private colleges were being founded in the early 19th century have a lot of them. In the South and Plains states, huge land grant universities were being founded out in the middle of nowhere far from cities, and until very recently these sucked up an excessive share of funding and also enrollment, etc in their region.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Nomad9

I don’t think anyone’s disputing that rankings like USNews are flawed. Nor am I debating whether it’s better or worse than Penn State/Pitt (they aren’t in Philly). But IMO its academic profile makes it worthy of that list.

I know they’re not in Philly... I was just using them as an examples of in-state universities which are inarguably superior schools in comparison to Villanova, yet are somehow not listed in the “top 50” while Villanova somehow now is.

It’s just completely ridiculous how some schools are all of a sudden “top 50” national universities, when they simply are not deserving of that ranking (meaningless and flawed as it is) and haven’t been too close to that “tier” in recent memory. It’s particularly puzzling to see certain entrants listed in comparison to other universities which have been consistently and widely recognized by peer institutions as superior to those entrants.

Villanova is one on that list, along with schools like Pepperdine, Georgia, Santa Clara, Northeastern, Florida, and Ohio State. These are certainly all good schools, but none of them have any business being ranked ahead of numerous others.

[Nomad9]

Originally Posted by pj3000

I know they’re not in Philly... I was just using them as an examples of in-state universities which are inarguably superior schools in comparison to Villanova, yet are somehow not listed in the “top 50” while Villanova somehow now is.

It’s just completely ridiculous how some schools are all of a sudden “top 50” national universities, when they simply are not deserving of that ranking (meaningless and flawed as it is) and haven’t been too close to that “tier” in recent memory. It’s particularly puzzling to see certain entrants listed in comparison to other universities which have been consistently and widely recognized by peer institutions as superior to those entrants.

Villanova is one on that list, along with schools like Pepperdine, Georgia, Santa Clara, Northeastern, Florida, and Ohio State. These are certainly all good schools, but none of them have any business being ranked ahead of numerous others.

The entire notion of ranking schools by number is a little ridiculous (yes, I know I initially mentioned “top 50”). . I think of them more as tiers. You have the truly elite schools like the Ivies, Stanford, Chicago, MIT, etc. Then you have the “near” elite schools (let’s be honest, these are still elite to 99% of the US population) like Vandy, WashU, Rice, etc. Then there’s a broad category of very good schools like the ones you mentioned. Most Big 10 schools, the Villanovas and Pepperdines of the world, UGA and UF...the list goes on for a while. Most of these schools won’t wow people by name prestige, but are nonetheless respected institutions that will vary widely on which is “better” depending on a student’s goals. It doesn’t (or shouldn’t) really matter whether that school is ranked 41 or 73.

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by pj3000

I know they’re not in Philly... I was just using them as an examples of in-state universities which are inarguably superior schools in comparison to Villanova, yet are somehow not listed in the “top 50” while Villanova somehow now is.

It’s just completely ridiculous how some schools are all of a sudden “top 50” national universities, when they simply are not deserving of that ranking (meaningless and flawed as it is) and haven’t been too close to that “tier” in recent memory. It’s particularly puzzling to see certain entrants listed in comparison to other universities which have been consistently and widely recognized by peer institutions as superior to those entrants.

Villanova is one on that list, along with schools like Pepperdine, Georgia, Santa Clara, Northeastern, Florida, and Ohio State. These are certainly all good schools, but none of them have any business being ranked ahead of numerous others.

I don't disagree, I was just trying to list the "best" schools in each metro, not the set of schools that are elite in each Metro (that's why Houston and FIU were listed). I'm not implying that all the schools I listed are elite. But you're right, I forgot about the elite liberal arts colleges along the main line (Bryn Mawr, Haverford), although those don't have the same impact as a major university. And of course whether Villanova is actually better than Drexel or Temple is unclear (the latter two are more research-oriented) and I don't really know. Anecdotally, I personally know researches at Drexel and Penn but not the other schools in Philly, but of course I only have a narrow view of a tiny slice of the academic world.

[dchan]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

Another went to Washington & Lee (not sure how much longer that name will stick)

I remember looking this one up in recent months, and this is one name that I don't agree should be "cancelled". The Lee that it is named for is not the Confederate General, but the President of the University who headed the institution sometime after the Civil War, even though they are the same person. Without Robert E. Lee's stewardship, it is doubtful that the university becomes as prestigious as it is today.

[plinko]

Originally Posted by Razor

I'm just wondering how common it is for certain Universities to be labelled as "last chance U"? That moniker may be a Canadian thing. Don't know.

More common in the states to hear "13th Grade". You hear this often about places like UCF in Orlando.

[plinko]

Santa Barbara has UCSB, which is a pretty good school (especially for sciences) considering its reputation for mega parties like Halloween. And despite being 100 miles away in San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly is a very common destination for SB kids for engineering and architecture.

Cal State Channel Islands is in the area as well (relatively new), but isn't much more than a degree mill.

[Nomad9]

Originally Posted by plinko

More common in the states to hear "13th Grade". You hear this often about places like UCF in Orlando.

Really? That’s news to me. When I was in high school in Florida, UCF and USF were pretty well respected. Florida is obviously huge and growing, and the relatively limited number of established universities (UF, Miami, and FSU really) mean that UCF/USF get an overflow of smart students who don’t go to the three primary schools.

[Ric 0_0]

In Atlanta it's Emory and GA Tech tied for 1st with UGA quickly catching up.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Nomad9

Really? That’s news to me. When I was in high school in Florida, UCF and USF were pretty well respected. Florida is obviously huge and growing, and the relatively limited number of established universities (UF, Miami, and FSU really) mean that UCF/USF get an overflow of smart students who don’t go to the three primary schools.

When I was in training at UF (Shands Hospital), and later when I was living in Orlando, nobody ever heard of UCF or USF if they existed back then (I think they were essentially "community colleges"). THE schools in FL were UF, FL State, U. of Miami and maybe, way down the list, FL Atlantic. There were some other smaller private schools like Rollins in Winter Park and Stetson that weren't bad but got little notice.

Originally Posted by plinko

Santa Barbara has UCSB, which is a pretty good school (especially for sciences) considering its reputation for mega parties like Halloween. And despite being 100 miles away in San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly is a very common destination for SB kids for engineering and architecture.

Cal State Channel Islands is in the area as well (relatively new), but isn't much more than a degree mill.

As Californians know, the entire U. of California system is the state's elite public university system. As in Communism, some equals are more equal than others with UC Berkeley and UCLA being on top, but the other "University of California" campuses all get the cream of the crop students from their areas and, if they have a particular focus or are in an attractive area like Santa Cruz, other parts of the state.

Below the UC system is the California State University system that absorbs most CA resident students who can't get into UC, don't live near a UC campus and want to live at home and so forth. With these I'd say the quality probably varies considerably but some are pretty good. My impression is the Cal State system also takes a fair number of foreign students (who pay full tuition and add to the schools' budgets) because of being relatively easier than U. of CA to get into (and needing the money).

Finally there are the local and community colleges that educate a lot of working adults, many of whom go part time. There is a strong movement, at least in the Bay Area, to make these schools tuition-free. I don't know if it will happen.