Why does PNW not have good universities ?? (Seattle, Spokane: appointed, insurance)

[texasdiver]

You can't really compare admissions rates at PNW colleges to CA or the east coast. Here is why.

These days it is trivially easy to apply to multiple colleges using the common app or the coalition app. You fill out one online app and then send it to as many schools as you want.

If you live in CA where there are 9 comprehensive UC campuses an ambitious in-state student will possibly apply to all 9. Here in WA an in-state student has just 2 flagship universities to apply to. Maybe throw in WWU as a safety and you are done. But maybe not since WSU has a pretty high admissions rate. Is UCLA 3x better than UW because it has a 3x lower admissions rate? Very doubtful. They just get massively more applications because CA is a massively larger state with a lot more options.

Likewise, if you are applying to private liberal arts colleges you basically have 5 options (Reed, Whitman, L&C, UPS, and Willamette) and depending on your likes/dislikes maybe only 3 or 4. If you live in the Northeast and want to attend a private liberal arts school you probably have 50 comparable options within a days drive. So you can shoot out a ton of options.

So PNW students tend to be more self-selecting. They don't tend to shoot out 25 applications because you quickly run out of choices before you even get 1/3 of the way there.

The real questions are the following:

1. Is the PNW lacking in skilled educated doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, etc. due to a paucity of good schools? Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, etc. Fred Hutch, etc. would argue no.

2. Are we lacking in creative tech startups and other indicators of economic vibrancy? Obviously not.

3. Are graduates of PNW colleges and universities lagging behind their peers from other parts of the country? If they are, it is because they spend too much time skiing and kayaking, not because their education was lacking.

I do think we will need to keep pace with population growth which will probably mean growing the UW and WSU branch campuses in places like Vancouver, Tacoma, and the Tri Cities. And they might need to start over with Evergreen which is a mess. But beyond that I don't see much problem.

[homesinseattle]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

You can't really compare admissions rates at PNW colleges to CA or the east coast. Here is why.

These days it is trivially easy to apply to multiple colleges using the common app or the coalition app. You fill out one online app and then send it to as many schools as you want.

If you live in CA where there are 9 comprehensive UC campuses an ambitious in-state student will possibly apply to all 9. Here in WA an in-state student has just 2 flagship universities to apply to. Maybe throw in WWU as a safety and you are done. But maybe not since WSU has a pretty high admissions rate. Is UCLA 3x better than UW because it has a 3x lower admissions rate? Very doubtful. They just get massively more applications because CA is a massively larger state with a lot more options.

Likewise, if you are applying to private liberal arts colleges you basically have 5 options (Reed, Whitman, L&C, UPS, and Willamette) and depending on your likes/dislikes maybe only 3 or 4. If you live in the Northeast and want to attend a private liberal arts school you probably have 50 comparable options within a days drive. So you can shoot out a ton of options.

So PNW students tend to be more self-selecting. They don't tend to shoot out 25 applications because you quickly run out of choices before you even get 1/3 of the way there.

The real questions are the following:

1. Is the PNW lacking in skilled educated doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, etc. due to a paucity of good schools? Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, etc. Fred Hutch, etc. would argue no.

2. Are we lacking in creative tech startups and other indicators of economic vibrancy? Obviously not.

3. Are graduates of PNW colleges and universities lagging behind their peers from other parts of the country? If they are, it is because they spend too much time skiing and kayaking, not because their education was lacking.

I do think we will need to keep pace with population growth which will probably mean growing the UW and WSU branch campuses in places like Vancouver, Tacoma, and the Tri Cities. And they might need to start over with Evergreen which is a mess. But beyond that I don't see much problem.

Well articulated, texasdiver, I agree!

[jabogitlu]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

1. Is the PNW lacking in skilled educated doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, etc. due to a paucity of good schools? Microsoft, Boeing, Amazon, etc. Fred Hutch, etc. would argue no.

2. Are we lacking in creative tech startups and other indicators of economic vibrancy? Obviously not.

A lot of our workers obviously emigrate from other parts of the country and world, but your points are well taken. If one were to calculate some sort of efficiency ratio measuring total higher education expenditures to economic output, I'd guess that we would be more efficient than areas like California or the Northeast. Seattle has always been big bang for the buck, in certain ways.

[chrish78]

Yield rate of UW is 28% despite being the most prominent university in WA. What it means is of those 100% admitted, only 28% end up actually attending the school. Compare that to Berkeley, Umich, UVA, UNC and Gatech whose yield rate hovers around 40 -45%. And keep in mind, these schools have a stiff competition from other public/ private schools from the region.

What it tells me is, most students admitted to UW actually end up going elsewhere (likely out of state).

[509]

Originally Posted by Transmition

In what way? And how are you evaluating it?

Go to the University of Washington website....AND look into the "competitive admit majors".

Yep, you can get accepted into the University of Washington and for your junior year find out that you will NOT be admitted to your major. There are a lot of majors in that category.

It happened to my daughter. She dropped out of college and never finished. A loss for her, and a HUGE WASTE of taxpayers dollars to have a student not being able to get into their major.

But the UW has always hated students, it is a real bother to them. I got accepted to UW twice for graduate school, and chose to get elsewhere because of their attitude towards students.

The entire higher education system in Washington state needs to investigated and reformed to serve the interests of the citizens of Washington.

The University is NOT there to be their OWN play toy and merely using the state taxpayers to finance their lifestyles.

Which getting back to my original point, is why the UW wanted to go private.

They thought they could make more money as a private school!!!

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by 509

Go to the University of Washington website....AND look into the "competitive admit majors".

Yep, you can get accepted into the University of Washington and for your junior year find out that you will NOT be admitted to your major. There are a lot of majors in that category.

It happened to my daughter. She dropped out of college and never finished. A loss for her, and a HUGE WASTE of taxpayers dollars to have a student not being able to get into their major.

What majors are hard to get into? STEM?

[509]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

What majors are hard to get into? STEM?

Go to the UW website....it is almost 50% of the majors.

Well, that was easy.....the UW published a list to show which students have the potential to get screwed in their majors.

https://www.washington.edu/newhuskie...ons-to-majors/

[Jacconn]

I’d never heard of UW before I moved to Seattle (from NYC). UW meant Wisconsin and Washington meant Wash U in St Louis. Hadn’t of heard of another college in the state either. No one I knew went there for undergrad or grad programs. It had zero east coast name recognition (I have a bachelors and masters from 2 different Ivies - I know good schools).

I acknowledge that UW has come up in prominence since then, particularly in Computer Science, but wouldn’t consider any other university or college in Washington to be particularly good. I worked for Amazon during its hyper-growth period (2010-2020) and so few of the qualified applicants came from Washington schools (straight out or alums). And not just CS/tech folks - even retail and marketing folks were more likely to be grads of Michigan than WSU or WWU. They weren’t even schools we recruited from in-campus. To me, that says a lot.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by 509

Go to the UW website....it is almost 50% of the majors.

Well, that was easy.....the UW published a list to show which students have the potential to get screwed in their majors.

https://www.washington.edu/newhuskie...ons-to-majors/

No, that's not what this shows. How it works, as far as I can make out, is that what major you list in your UW application letter as your first choice and second choice, may ********* out of admission altogether! It says, that choice of major is a factor in considering the applicant for admission!

This is strange. I can see that there might be a crush of students applying for STEM fields. But I don't know why obscure humanities majors are listed in the "pre-major" category. As if there's serious demand for Norwegian. Is this a symptom of the UW being underfunded, so they haven't been able to hire enough faculty to keep up with demand?

I don't know what to make of this. I do remember, that sometimes there was so much demand for certain language classes, that students had to be turned away. There wasn't enough staffing, including TA's, to open an additional section (class) to register the overflow.

Hmmm.....

[mayfair]

Originally Posted by 509

Go to the UW website....it is almost 50% of the majors.

Well, that was easy.....the UW published a list to show which students have the potential to get screwed in their majors.

https://www.washington.edu/newhuskie...ons-to-majors/

So many get admittance to UW but not the major they want. So what other choices are there for students who want to study something, have good grades (often above 3.8) and still can't study what they want? There is only WSU or WWU or a few expensive private colleges.

They can also choose a UW branch campus, which are mostly commuter schools with limited majors. There are not a lot of quality choices for students who want to stay in state. They can choose CWU or EW University, but both aren't highly ranked and are small.