THe Best Public Universities in the United States

[toobusytoday]

Originally Posted by Alexus

Berkeley has a very high percentage of asians. Although I applaud asians as a race for their academic success, it is easy for a school to teach robots who do nothing but study in solitude. The school's job is easy. They lay out the map, and the robots follow, obsessing over high grades and test scores in a one-dimensional pursuit. The school then gets ranked highly, but does this mean it's a good school?

I think the real test of a good school is how well it inspires those who are not the smartest, not the most disciplined, not the most privileged, not the most advantaged, not able to study in solitude or surround themselves with others who do same, not favored, and not given the greatest of considerations in this society. I think a good public school address the needs of the more well-rounded, less-advantaged student.

I haven't a clue which schools, if any, fall in this category.

Wow, there's a backhand compliment that manages to be racist to boot! Yes, Asians are generally taught to value education much more then Americans but to say that they are robots, is terribly rude.

I don't get the emphasis or the big interest in rankings. As other posters have mentioned, an ivy league education seems to be important if you want to become President of the United States (or maybe impressing the neighbors) but there are very few jobs where rankings matter at all. More important is how well you do in college, internships and connections made.

[Katiana]

I agree with toobusytoday, and I will add, "Asians" from the US are as American as anyone else. My daughter has an "Asian" friend who is actually half caucasian, and whose Asian parent's family has been in the US for many generations.

[Sandpointian]

BAck to the schools,
PLEASE take rankings with a heavy dose of salt. I hasd to laugh at some of these placements.

Berkeley 36th?? Behind NUS? After seeing this, the rankings were immediately invalid...UCB is easily top 10 in the world.

Stanford 17th? Easily top ten, usually considered top 5.

The QS rankings are yet another example of psuedo-scientific gibberish. It is a weighted average of factors where the weights are chosen in ways to highlight the achievements of some schools (usually heavily biased toward the preferences of the designer), irrespective of their true value to the market to humanity or to the career decisions of students.

Final comment: Minnesota is a much better school than 87th. Incredibly well respected. And in my book, worthy of consideration as a public Ivy.

[ocean2026]

Alexus was probably rejected from Berkeley. I remember Asians on the campus and they were like anyone else- a bit thinner and their hair was darker than average, hopefully those aren't racially demeaning stereotypes.

Minnesota is a good university -there are no bad ones in the Big Ten. Indiana Univ is also top notch, and a pretty campus not far from state forest and quarries etc.


Berkeley is just the top one -see my earlier post about Earl Warren etc

[mintgum84]

Berkeley is the best. UW @ Madison is a good school. The US has lots of good state schools, UM @ Ann Arbor etc.

[Gatornation]

Top Public Schools | Rankings | Top National Universities | US News

[mintgum84]

Originally Posted by Gatornation

Top Public Schools | Rankings | Top National Universities | US News

Like I said, UC Berkeley is #1.

California is full of quality state schools. UCB, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB are all quality institutions.