Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
=13. Washington University in Saint Louis
- Saint Louis, Missouri
=15. Brown University
- Providence, Rhode Island (Boston CSA)
=15. Cornell University
- Ithaca, New York
=17. Rice University
- Houston, Texas
=17. Vanderbilt University
- Nashville, Tennessee
19. University of Notre Dame
- Notre Dame, Indiana
20. Emory University
- Atlanta, Georgia
21. Georgetown University
- Washington, DC (Washington DC MSA (DMV CSA))
22. University of California at Berkeley
- Berkeley, California/Oakland, California (Oakland Metropolitan Division (Bay Area CSA))
=23. Carnegie Mellon University
- Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
=23. University of Southern California
- Los Angeles, California
=25. University of California at Los Angeles
- Los Angeles, California
=25. University of Virginia
- Charlottesville, Virginia
=25. Wake Forest University
- Winston-Salem, North Carolina
28. Tufts University
- Medford, Massachusetts (Boston MSA)
29. University of Michigan Ann Arbor
- Ann Arbor, Michigan (Detroit CSA)
30. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
- Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Research Triangle CSA)
=31. Boston College
- Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts (Boston MSA)
=31. College of William & Mary
- Williamsburg, Virginia
33. New York University
- New York City, New York
34. Brandeis University
- Waltham, Massachusetts (Boston MSA)
=35. Georgia Institute of Technology
- Atlanta, Georgia
=35. University of California at San Diego
- San Diego, California
=37. Lehigh University
- Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
=37. University of Rochester
- Rochester, New York
=39. University of California at Davis
- Davis, California (Sacramento MSA)
=39. University of California at Santa Barbara
- Santa Barbara, California
=41. Case Western Reserve University
- Cleveland, Ohio
=41. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
- Troy, New York
=41. University of California at Irvine
- Irvine, California (Los Angeles MSA)
=41. University of Washington
- Seattle, Washington
=45. University of Texas at Austin
- Austin, Texas
=45. University of Wisconsin at Madison
- Madison, Wisconsin
=47. Pennsylvania State University at University Park
- University Park, Pennsylvania
=47. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Urbana, Illinois/Champaign, Illinois
=47. University of Miami
- Coral Gables, Florida
50. Yeshiva University
- New York City, New York
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 16,034,220 times
Reputation: 4047
Quote:
Originally Posted by adavi215
Raleigh-Durham has 2, Triad has 1, Charlotte 0. Poor Charlotte. But good to see 3 NC schools on the list.
What's impressive is that Boston's Metropolitan Area has 6 in the Top 35. That is absolutely insane. I get why Boston is so proud of its title as the Educational Capital of America (possibly the world). To those curious this is the overall ranking not in any selected field, but the overall.
6 out of 35 = 17.10% INSANE!! Boston Area makes 17% of the Top 35 list! I'm not even from Boston, but that is by far and away the most impressive record.
Its a travesty that US News' flawed rankings are given so much weight by so many people.
US News' overall undergrad methodology has lots of things that are not really pertinent to 1. the quality and reputation of the faculty and 2. the academic quality of the students.
-student/faculty ratio is irrelevent.
-faculty compensation is irrelevent.
-% of faculty that is full time is irrelevent.
-class size is irrelevent.
-financial resources per student is irrelevent.
-alumni giving is irrelevent.
After looking at the actual programs offered, it appears that many of the top private schools that dominate the overall ranking are actually well beneath their public counterparts when it comes to actual fields of study.
And that is very disturbing because the quality of the fields of study should be paramount in importance, trumping all other aspects of a ranking of 'best colleges and universities'.
Boston is the college capital of the WORLD solely on account of MIT and Harvard.
Not to mention there's about 50 other colleges in the area, many of which are highly regarded and prestigious; and would be many other states' "best" college (i.e. Brandeis, Tufts, BC, BU, Northeastern, etc.).
State-wise, I'd say CA or NY would be a distant 2nd and 3rd, respectively. All other states are generally pretty even--boasting one, maybe two, reputed uni's.
Voting "no" to this thread is absolutely absurd--and I'm glad this thread shows who voted for what, so I know who's opinion to completely disregard in future discussions.
Last edited by 5ive8ight5ive; 11-03-2010 at 03:11 AM..
regardless of the validity of your argument, the fact remains that this list is by-and-large pretty damn accurate. i mean, where are your points of contention within the list itself? i don't see any worth noting... and notwithstanding a few subtle and trivial 1-3 spot variations, there seems to be a consensus among the many different 'ranking' sources that this is the top 50. I can't see many people disagreeing with this either--especially those affiliated with academia.
what's wrong, your Alma Mater didn't make the cut? haha just kidding.
adavi--
that part of NC is truly a mecca for higher education. way too many people (myself included) overlook this, but having WF, UNC, and Duke all in that little triangle is remarkable--and probably the closest any area comes to resembling Boston in terms of its density of prestigious uni's.
Last edited by 5ive8ight5ive; 11-03-2010 at 03:35 AM..
Location: Austin, TX/Chicago, IL/Houston, TX/Washington, DC
10,138 posts, read 16,034,220 times
Reputation: 4047
Quote:
Originally Posted by 5ive8ight5ive
Not to mention there's about 50 other colleges in the area, many of which are highly regarded and prestigious; and would be many other states' "best" college (i.e. Brandeis, Tufts, BC, BU, Northeastern, etc.).
State-wise, I'd say CA or NY would be a distant 2nd and 3rd, respectively. All other states are generally pretty even--boasting one, maybe two, reputed uni's.
To be frank I'm not really a state type of person. I normally go off cities and their respective metropolitan areas directly. Sometimes one can wonder when you live in such a vast and expansive state or in the Northeast about how much the rest of the state really even matters.
I would say the in terms of education the line up for the metropolitan areas would be as such:
01. Boston
02. Bay Area
03. Chicago
04. New York City
05. Los Angeles
06. Philadelphia
07. Washington DC-Baltimore
08. Atlanta
09. Research Triangle
Those practically are the main ones, not to say other places don't have good schools because they do, Houston, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Miami, Denver, Austin all boost some really top schools. But they don't have enough of the good schools to match the ones above on a larger scale.
Yeah I never really leave my poll closed, I leave it open so it can be seen who votes for what and how.
There are other rankings, specifically if you want to get into departments and where each school specializes in, but yeah that's a different matter.
To be frank I'm not really a state type of person. I normally go off cities and their respective metropolitan areas directly. Sometimes one can wonder when you live in such a vast and expansive state or in the Northeast about how much the rest of the state really even matters.
I would say the in terms of education the line up for the metropolitan areas would be as such:
01. Boston
02. Bay Area
03. Chicago
04. New York City
05. Los Angeles
06. Philadelphia
07. Washington DC-Baltimore
08. Atlanta
09. Research Triangle
Those practically are the main ones, not to say other places don't have good schools because they do, Houston, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Miami, Denver, Austin all boost some really top schools. But they don't have enough of the good schools to match the ones above on a larger scale.
Yeah I never really leave my poll closed, I leave it open so it can be seen who votes for what and how.
There are other rankings, specifically if you want to get into departments and where each school specializes in, but yeah that's a different matter.
good points re: state-wide comparisons--i feel the same way.
I agree with the particular areas you've included in your top 9; however, I would order it a little differently. namely, i think the research triangle and DMV should be placed higher.
rockridge--
regardless of the validity of your argument, the fact remains that this list is by-and-large pretty damn accurate.
And what makes it accurate? In reality I wouldnt be so adverse to their ranking if they titled their ranking "The Best Colleges for Undergraduate Study."
At least that legitimizes their fluffier, unimportant criteria such as faculty pay and alumni giving. In order to quantify and rank "The Best Colleges" overall, that's a fight that needs to be had between the quality of not only Undergraduate study but also Graduate study and this ranking doesnt do that.
Now if we're talking the best of the best, Im way more inclined to believe the following ranking:
Academic Ranking of World Universities, 2010 Methodology Quality of Education
Alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals Alumni 10% Quality of Faculty
Staff of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals Award 20%
Highly cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories 20% Research Output
Papers published in Nature and Science 20%
Papers indexed in Science Citation Index-expanded and Social Science Citation Index 20% Per Capita Performance Per capita academic performance of an institution 10% Total 100%
In other words, the most decorated alumni, the most decorated faculty, the greatest amount of reseach cited by the most important academic publications and per capita academic performance. PERIOD.
By that extremely stringent criteria, here are the best of the best:
Top Universities in the World, 2010 1 Harvard U., USA 2 UC Berkeley, USA 3 Stanford, U. USA 4 MIT, USA
5 U. Cambridge, UK 6 Cal Tech, USA 7 Princeton U., USA 8 Columbia U., USA 9 U. Chicago, USA
10 Oxford U., UK 11 Yale U., USA 12 Cornell U., USA 13 UC Los Angeles, USA 14 UC San Diego, USA 15 U. Pennsylvania, USA 16 U. Washington, USA 17 U. Wisconsin, Madison, USA 18 Johns Hopkins U., USA 19 UC San Francisco, USA
20 U. Tokyo, Japan
21 U. College London, UK 22 U. Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA
23 Swiss Federal Institute of Tech, Zurich, Switzerland
24 Kyoto U., Japan 25 U. Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA
26 The Imperial College of Science, Tech & Medicine, UK
27 U. Toronto, Canada 28 U. Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA 29 Northwestern U., USA 30 Washington U. St Louis, USA 31 New York U., USA 32 UC Santa Barbara, USA 32 U. Colorado, Boulder, USA 34 Rockefeller U., USA 35 Duke U., USA
36 U. British Columbia, Canada 36 U. Maryland, College Park, USA 38 U. Texas, Austin, USA
39 Pierre and Marie Curie U., France
40 U. Copenhagen, Denmark 41 U. North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA
42 Karolinska U., Sweden 43 Pennsylvania State U., University Park, USA
44 U. Manchester, UK
45 U. Paris Sud, France 46 U. California, Davis, USA 46 U. California, Irvine, USA 46 USC, USA 49 U. Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, USA
50 Utrecht U., Netherlands
51 U. Zurich, Switzerland
52 U. Munich, Germany 53 Vanderbilt U., USA 54 Rutgers U., USA
54 U. Edinburgh, UK
56 Technical U. Munich, Germany 56 U. Pittsburgh, USA 58 Carnegie Mellon U., USA
59 The Australian Natl U., Australia 59 Ohio State U., USA
61 McGill U., Canada
62 Melbourne U., Australia
63 King's College, London, UK
63 U. Heidelberg, Germany 65 Brown, USA
66 U. Bristol, UK
66 Uppsala U., Sweden 68 U. Florida, USA 69 Purdue U., USA
70 Leiden U., Netherlands
71 Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris, France
72 The Hebrew U., Jerusalem, Israel
72 U. Helsinki, Finland
74 Moscow State U., Russia
75 Osaka U., Japan
75 U. Oslo, Norway 77 Boston U. , USA 78 U. Arizona, USA
79 Stockholm U., Sweden
79 Nagoya U., Japan 81 Arizona State U., USA 82 U. Rochester, USA 82 U. Utah, USA
84 Tohoku U., Japan
84 U. Nottingham, UK 86 Michigan State U., USA
86 U. Basel, Switzerland
88 McNaster U., Canada
88 The U. Sheffield, UK
90 Ghent U., Germany 90 Indiana U., Bloomington, USA
92 U. Sydney, Australia
93 U. Bonn, Germany
93 U. Goettingen, Germany 95 Texas A&M U., College Station, USA 96 U. Virginia, USA 97 Case Western Reserve U., USA
98 U. Aarhus, Norway 99 Rice U., USA
99 U. Birmingham, UK http://<a href="http://www.arwu.org/...WU2010.jsp</a>
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Poor Charlotte. But good to see 3 NC schools on the list.
