Texas Colleges (Houston, Dallas, Austin: homes, transfer, best school)

[UnfairPark]

Houston university named No. 1 in Texas

Personal finance website WalletHub has released 2019's Best College & University Rankings. Rice takes the No. 1 Texas spot and comes in at No. 9 overall in the U.S.The University of Texas at Austin follows as the No. 2 best school in Texas, and Trinity University comes in No. 3.

Rounding out the top Texas schools are Texas A&M University (No. 4), Southern Methodist University (No. 5), University of Dallas (No. 7), Baylor University (No. 9), and University of Texas at Dallas (No. 10).

[War Beagle]

I put little value in rankings like this for entire universities. What matters is the individual programs. For instance, if someone was interested in working in local government, UNT smokes UT.

There's no doubt that some schools like Rice are more prestigious. But if someone wants to be a teacher or nurse, going to Rice would be silly.

[UnfairPark]

Originally Posted by War Beagle

I put little value in rankings like this for entire universities. What matters is the individual programs. For instance, if someone was interested in working in local government, UNT smokes UT.

There's no doubt that some schools like Rice are more prestigious. But if someone wants to be a teacher or nurse, going to Rice would be silly.

I agree, rankings need few grains of salt. However, with their new extremely generous financial aid policy, if one can get admission and aid, Rice could boost careers. Specially for health professions, as they are smacked in the middle of a huge medical district with nursing and medical schools across the street for research and internships.

[Treasurevalley92]

Originally Posted by War Beagle

I put little value in rankings like this for entire universities. What matters is the individual programs. For instance, if someone was interested in working in local government, UNT smokes UT.

There's no doubt that some schools like Rice are more prestigious. But if someone wants to be a teacher or nurse, going to Rice would be silly.

I think that is more true of the larger universities. For small schools like Trinity and UD, I think the quality of the education over all is vastly superior to other, comparably small private colleges in Texas.

Granted, if you are most interested in getting a degree in something like Nursing or Teaching, and less so in being challenged academically in other subjects, the cheapest 2nd or 3rd tier state school option is makes the most sense.

Between the local private schools, TCU and SMU hold more prestige than UD and have larger, wealthier and better connected alumni networks. All of them offer quality education.

From an actual undergrad course load perspective though, at least in the case of everyone I know who has transferred between those schools, UD is the most academically challenging for undergrad, regardless of major. This is largely the function of the very robust and not very flexible Core which requires everyone (even non liberal arts majors) to take the same 3 semesters of philosophy, 4 of literature, 4 of history, Economics, 4 Foreign Language, Math, 2 Science etc. That certainly isn't for everyone.

[Treasurevalley92]

Originally Posted by UnfairPark

I agree, rankings need few grains of salt. However, with their new extremely generous financial aid policy, if one can get admission and aid, Rice could boost careers. Specially for health professions, as they are smacked in the middle of a huge medical district with nursing and medical schools across the street for research and internships.

The biggest advantage of Rice is the Alumni network. The same goes for IVY schools. The reason to go to Harvard for undergrad is to network with the Economic and Academic elite.

[texasdiver]

Any ranking that puts Letourneau University in Longview ahead of TCU, Baylor, Texas Tech, and Houston is not one I would take seriously. Letourneau is a small evangelical school favored by homeschoolers with an endowment of just $20 million.

I would also not rank UT Dallas over Tech or Houston.

[MaryleeII]

Don't forget the AGGIE network

[UnfairPark]

Alumni network advantage comes later, having selected highest performing students as peers in small classes is what seems to be the biggest advantage at small and selective colleges. You can’t replicate that rigor in less selective and huge enrollment universities. When at one college average SAT/GPA is 1550/4.3 and at other 1250/3.4, there is a big gap to begin with.