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View Poll Results: Your favorite choice in this match up?
Atlanta 82 35.65%
Denver 55 23.91%
Seattle 93 40.43%
Voters: 230. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 04-14-2014, 03:49 PM
 
Location: San Francisco
2,079 posts, read 6,099,599 times
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While I have been repeatedly bashed by countless Atl posters here for not being positive about Atlanta, I think there is no question that in the area of higher education, Atlanta is pretty much leagues above the other two cities, and I have to come to its defense here.

"U Dub" is a great public research institution, no doubt. It actually has 2 more Nobel Laureates than Georgia Tech. However, the school itself is twice the size and is much more of a regional/state oriented school. Consider that 17% of the 2013/2014 entering freshman class at UW is out-of-state, the highest on record, and 13% overall. For Georgia Tech, I don't have 2013-2014 entering freshman class statistics readily at hand, but all statistics I can find for the school are that ~32% overall are out-of-state and 12% are international. In this sense, it's a much less "state-focused" school, and in fact I have run into people that are surprised to learn at all that it is public.

UW also has the following breakdown:

30,790 undergrad (72%)
12,117 grad (28%)
42,907 total (endowment of $54,676 per student)

GT:

14,558 undergrad (68%)
6,913 grad (32%)
21,471 total (endowment of $79,829 per student)

Two totally different schools that serve totally different purposes. Tech focuses on engineering (where it ranks among top 5 every year and is uttered in the same sentence as Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, and Cal Tech, typically ahead of Carnegie Mellon), computer sciences (where it is top 10 each year), and business (only recently a major focus, but now ranked in top 25 with Emory, and climbing...though the MBA is too small a program imho to be considered worthwhile).

The most common majors at UW are in the social sciences, which is almost a rarity at GT. Very different schools.


Emory, depending on who you ask, is more "prestigious" than all of them. It's in the same league as Vanderbilt, Duke, Rice, USC, Northwestern (well Northwestern is better overall actually), Brown, Cornell, etc etc. Georgia Tech is more nerdy and science-focused, but is often put in the same category as UVA, College of William & Mary, Michigan, Berkeley, UT-Austin, and Chapel Hill. Maybe it's because UW is tucked away in Seattle, but nationally I don't think you really even hear about it that much, which is a shame because it's a great school!

Emory:

7,836 Undergrad (54%)
6,677 Grad (46%)
14,513 total (endowment of $400,744 per student)

I would say Atlanta contains GT, Emory as the core "prestigious" schools with good rankings, and it can claim UGA, which is only an hour away (and all UGA grads end up in Atlanta anyway...UGA's business school is in Buckhead in the city). In addition, Atlanta has some of the finest HBCUs (the other two cities have none), some all girl schools (like Agnes Scott), SCAD (which is one of the top art schools in the country, the main campus down in Savannah), and major state schools such as Georgia State, right downtown. Atlanta feels like a university driven city, though in all honesty does a mediocre job retaining the best graduates (many of whom come from out of state) at Tech and Emory.

Tech in particular is the best thing going for Atlanta as a whole. It also happens to have one of the finest architecture/city planning schools in the country (as does UW actually), which has made the most positive impact on the city. Despite UGA having the real estate school, Tech produces virtually all of Atlanta's homegrown developers, as well (not UGA, which I find interesting).
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Old 04-14-2014, 06:03 PM
 
Location: Georgia
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Don't even make me mention the suburban universities.
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Old 04-14-2014, 06:20 PM
 
Location: San Francisco
2,079 posts, read 6,099,599 times
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Well no offense to schools like Kennesaw State (KSU), but every major city has those kind of schools. They serve a great purpose, but for comparative purposes really only add to the numbers of students in a city/metro area rather than add to the prestige of the list of universities in a city/metro area. But yes, Atlanta also has KSU (24,600 students), Southern Polytechnic (5,500 students), Clayton State (6,900 students), and a massive community college network.

When one spends enough time in Atlanta, it's easy to realize that a good chunk of the city is "student". Half of the bars between Midtown and Decatur are filled with Tech and Emory students. The bars downtown and around Grant Park, etc are filled with Georgia State students. Morehouse and Spelman fill the bars SW of the city. UGA students/alum fill the Buckhead bars. KSU students, well we made fun of them for coming in to the city and filling whatever bars and sticking out like sore thumbs (I guess when you go to Emory or Georgia Tech you are a little snobby, but that comes with the territory).

While much much much less sophisticated and a little all over the map, the "college/young intellectual" scene in Atlanta is like a light version of Boston, New York, Chicago, DC, etc. You have the uber nerds from Georgia Tech, the predominantly Jewish/Waspy wealthy kids from the NE at Emory, the exclusively black student populations of Morehouse/Spelman, the awkward girl population of Agnes Scott, the "art students" of SCAD, the southern fratty kids from UGA, and the "public school" kids from Georgia State all mixed in a relatively confined area.
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Old 04-14-2014, 06:22 PM
 
Location: Denver/Atlanta
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Are we still going on about Higher Education? Atlanta obviously wins that. I don't get why some Seattle boosters are trying to argue otherwise.

Seattle and Denver definitely beat Atlanta in public schools though. I think so, at least.
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Old 04-14-2014, 06:53 PM
 
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
10,733 posts, read 23,710,979 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Red John View Post
I expect Denver to enter the higher leagues one day, I probably wont be around in this country to see it but it'll be of the few places on my very short and limited lists in the United States that I'll keep both an eye on and plan a visit to as much as I can.
I've visited Denver about a dozen or so times since my first visit in 1998. What I like about it is I always find something new there every time I go back. The lions share of the area is mostly suburban sprawl, though the city core and downtown has a lot of impressive urban infill going on. Lot's a high density infill going on in LoDo and around Coors Field. The 16th Street Mall and LoDo seem a lot more lively than they use to be.

The Union Station redevelopment and new parkland along the Platte River are all fairly impressive and all the new light rail and commuter rail lines funneling into downtown are improving downtown quite a bit as well. I'd put Denver in the category of among the most improved cities within then last 15 years and it will no doubt continue to make bigger strides in years to come.
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Old 04-14-2014, 07:36 PM
 
1,640 posts, read 2,645,781 times
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Originally Posted by Mezter View Post
Seattle and Denver definitely beat Atlanta in public schools though. I think so, at least.
Mostly due to both cities having much lower black/African-American populations than Atlanta.
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Old 04-14-2014, 07:50 PM
 
Location: PNW
2,011 posts, read 3,446,213 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mezter View Post
Are we still going on about Higher Education? Atlanta obviously wins that. I don't get why some Seattle boosters are trying to argue otherwise.

Seattle and Denver definitely beat Atlanta in public schools though. I think so, at least.
I think alot of people from other parts of he county don't appreciate UW very much and locals feel the need to defend it. UW is a public ivy league school, easily in the top ten public universities. Bu rankings are so subjective and can differ alot by each publication. Fact is UW is an elite medical and science school, gt is elite in technology and engineering, and emory is good At what it does, you cant go wrong with any of these schools, shoot most parents would he proud if their child even got in the all 3 schools. Atlanta overall is better then Seattle many because it has more options. No when it comes to public high schools Seattle easily beats atlanta there. Having known several people who had the chance to go to school in both areas they all unanimously chose Seattle. Eastside of Seattle has some of the best schools in the country so its hard to compete, even if you take the schools in south sound area with lower income demographics and put it head to head with those in states in the south with similar demographics the schools here are leaps and bounds ahead. Too much segregation of social classes in the south to give the inner city schools a fighting chance.
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Old 04-14-2014, 08:08 PM
 
Location: PNW
2,011 posts, read 3,446,213 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 8to32characters View Post
Mostly due to both cities having much lower black/African-American populations than Atlanta.
I went to a school south of seattle that was 90% reduced lunch, 28% white 27% non white hispanic, 21% black, 14% asian, 10% pac islander. Most of the kids were low income families living in a cheaper part of he area but the past 5 years the school excelled surpassing all the other schools with the same demographics. Now test scores werent something to jump out of of your chair about but they show progress. The reason our school succeeded was great admin who were strict but committed to student success and teachers who cared. Our school had kids who were homeless, had gangbangers (most moved up from california), and kids without support systems but they did there best to provide the best opportunity to the kids and set them up for college. The demographics are no excuse for district officials and admin who have just given up on the school and the kids. Schools in the inner city are more complicated, more attention needs to be given versus the suburban schools. Seattle used to bus kids from different neighborhoods around the city to different schools to diversify the schools and make sure all schools were equal. The result was suburban white kids ended up going to schools in the worst neighborhoods in the cities but it provided opportunities for those schools.
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Old 04-14-2014, 08:23 PM
 
Location: Prince George's County, Maryland
6,208 posts, read 9,175,918 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 8to32characters View Post
Mostly due to both cities having much lower black/African-American populations than Atlanta.
Figures a comment like this would eventually pop up.
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Old 04-14-2014, 09:42 PM
 
Location: Atlanta
7,579 posts, read 10,728,034 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by DevanXL View Post
I think alot of people from other parts of he county don't appreciate UW very much and locals feel the need to defend it. UW is a public ivy league school, easily in the top ten public universities. Bu rankings are so subjective and can differ alot by each publication. Fact is UW is an elite medical and science school, gt is elite in technology and engineering, and emory is good At what it does, you cant go wrong with any of these schools, shoot most parents would he proud if their child even got in the all 3 schools. Atlanta overall is better then Seattle many because it has more options. No when it comes to public high schools Seattle easily beats atlanta there. Having known several people who had the chance to go to school in both areas they all unanimously chose Seattle. Eastside of Seattle has some of the best schools in the country so its hard to compete, even if you take the schools in south sound area with lower income demographics and put it head to head with those in states in the south with similar demographics the schools here are leaps and bounds ahead. Too much segregation of social classes in the south to give the inner city schools a fighting chance.
This public ivy thing keeps coming up again and again.

If this is going to become a recurring point we need to clear the air.

UW was not an original public ivy. It was one 9 honorable mentions being a worth runner-up. Another one of those 9 was Georgia Institute of Technology.

This needs to be taken for a grain of salt. It was a title written from the opinion of one person who was a noteworthy admissions officer at Yale...among other Universities.

Another set of writers have since created a more expansive list of 30 schools with a regional component.

Only in that list is UW a public ivy.

If we are to go down that road... UGA just outside Atlanta is a Public Ivy, but since no one is discussion Denver... The University of Colorado Boulder is one too.

I just had to get that out, because it keeps getting mentioned.

In regards to public grade schools... I think we need to be very careful here. I'm going to jump out on a limb and say it is doubtful anyone here really has a fully accurate picture of all the public schools throughout Atlanta, Seattle, and Denver metro areas to get an accurate picture of who is ahead.

Generally speaking all 3 have large populations or well-educated white collar workers and all 3 are mostly public school centric. I would suspect that all these well-educated workforces in all 3 cities would have school districts that these people would want their kids to go to. After all, it is the primary place where each city is establishing their high-quality work forces.
With this in mind, I would take a huge degree of skepticism that puts down the public grade schools, as a whole, across these 3 successful cities dependent on white-collar workers.


Your comments about segregation of social classes in Atlanta is very interesting. It is a half truth. Atlanta is very desegregated racially, but highly segregated socioeconomically.... but mostly in the city itself, which is very small. Nonetheless I know your criticisms are a bit off the mark too. Schools north of Atlanta are actually top notch, incidentally this is also where most people in the Atlanta region actually live.

Gwinnett County Public Schools, a large school district of over 160,000 students, won the prestigious Broad Prize in 2010. It is a finalist again, the first year being eligible after winning, this year.

Both times the district become a finalist it was specifically mentioned that the school district was able to have a high quality of success across the board and specifically mentioned the ability to have better success at closing the gap with racial minorities and close the gap between those of different socioeconomic groups.

Many in Atlanta won't even consider these the best schools. While I admit I wouldn't want my family members to go to certain schools across town and a hand full of our school districts have had some issues at the district management level, some of this seems to be in stark contrasts of your viewpoint of public grade schools in the Atlanta area. It is often odd discussing public schools here. Schools are often administered at the county level and we have many small counties, so we have many small school districts. It also promotes many having large-scale perceptions of different schools districts throughout town.
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