USNews 2019 Best Colleges in Texas (Houston, Dallas: credit, high school, law)

[UnfairPark]

Originally Posted by serger

Funny tidbits from that "ranking":

Caltech is not in top 10... Lol
Pepperdine?!? is ahead of Urbana Champaign and UT...

I could continue but what's the point. And, yes, UT should be ahead of Rice, but that's not going to happen in these type of rankings.

Caltech slid to 12th this year, still among top 20 and ones rated above him are not lightweights either. Caltech and Rice type schools are way more selective, have much higher graduation rate, higher average income, better professional school acceptance rate, much much higher per student endowment.

It’s like comparing apples and oranges when one school has 6,000 students and other 60,000. One has to admit 10% from every darn school in the state boundaries while other is free to reject top 1% in 50 states. Just consider basics like campus housing, UT’s housing situation is utter chaos, Rice has one of the best residential college system in the country.

Bottom line , don’t go by the exact rank, use rankings as general guideline, 6 & 12 are peers but 7th & 57th, not even same tier. No doubt UT is a good public school but in no universe, it should be ahead of Rice.

[EDS_]

[quote=Fisherman99;53180842]

Originally Posted by EDS_

UC Merced is definitely the new kid on the block amongst its UC peers since it is barely 10 years old and no college was at the top in only 10 years after inception...Rome wasn't built in a day. It can be argued that Brown University is the last place school amongst its Ivy League cohorts as well...still a damn good school. Of course, UC Merced is not Brown and not for everybody due to inland location or whatever other reasons. However, for those looking for a cost effective, small but rapidly growing campus (about 8 thousand people). that still has a personal touch where you are not just a number, small classes, with personalized student/teacher interaction, where you will graduate on time, and receive a solid education as part of the excellent University of California system...it may just be worth a look and tour of the campus. Not sure how long it will take to build (rapidly happening now), but moving up 29 spots on 2019 US News...the 5th biggest jump in the NATION is really showing the upward and onward movement at UC Merced which will continue in the future.

1). Generally, I agree that UC Merced will be a really great school and in many ways is right now.

2). As these rankings are based on little other than a GPA/SAT/ACT/class rank rubric of incoming freshmen UC schools, as relatively strict meritocracies, will show well.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by UnfairPark

Caltech slid to 12th this year, still among top 20 and ones rated above him are not lightweights either. Caltech and Rice type schools are way more selective, have much higher graduation rate, higher average income, better professional school acceptance rate, much much higher per student endowment.

It’s like comparing apples and oranges when one school has 6,000 students and other 60,000. One has to admit 10% from every darn school in the state boundaries while other is free to reject top 1% in 50 states. Just consider basics like campus housing, UT’s housing situation is utter chaos, Rice has one of the best residential college system in the country.

Bottom line , don’t go by the exact rank, use rankings as general guideline, 6 & 12 are peers but 7th & 57th, not even same tier. No doubt UT is a good public school but in no universe, it should be ahead of Rice.

So how do you countenance the fact that between undergrad and grad schools UT has close to 75 or 80 programs that are demonstrably better than Rice? While Rice might have 8 or 10 that are demonstrably better than UT.

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I'm really trying to figure out if you sent/are sending your kids private colleges and serially rationalize private school greatness to make yourself feel better or what?


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Rankings other than department by department or major by major are pretty useless.

[UnfairPark]

Rice is a small school with undergraduate focus, UT is a huge school with 10 times more undergraduate students and 4 times more graduate students compared to Rice. Graduate school is a totally different ball game. I don't know why we are mixing them.


7,022 students are enrolled into Rice University where 4,001 students enrolls into undergraduate courses and 3,021 for graduate programs.

51,525 students are enrolled into The University of Texas at Austin where 40,492 students enrolls into undergraduate courses and 11,033 for graduate programs.

Personally, I care about our state and would like public institutions to do better than other states and our only elite private to rise even higher on top 20 list.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by UnfairPark

Rice is a small school with undergraduate focus, UT is a huge school with 10 times more undergraduate students and 4 times more graduate students compared to Rice. Graduate school is a totally different ball game. I don't know why we are mixing them.


7,022 students are enrolled into Rice University where 4,001 students enrolls into undergraduate courses and 3,021 for graduate programs.

51,525 students are enrolled into The University of Texas at Austin where 40,492 students enrolls into undergraduate courses and 11,033 for graduate programs.

Personally, I care about our state and would like public institutions to do better than other states and our only elite private to rise even higher on top 20 list.

I'd care if Newsweek/US News rankings were based on metrics that really mattered.

[L210]

UC Merced's ranking is quite impressive considering how young it is. UTSA is ranked much lower, and it's almost 50 years old.

I do think that the ranking of the department or degree program is most important. Some low-ranked schools have individual programs that are ranked high. For example, Sam Houston State University is ranked #20 for criminology.

[Fisherman99]

Originally Posted by L210

UC Merced's ranking is quite impressive considering how young it is. UTSA is ranked much lower, and it's almost 50 years old.

I do think that the ranking of the department or degree program is most important. Some low-ranked schools have individual programs that are ranked high. For example, Sam Houston State University is ranked #20 for criminology.

Very true about looking at the ranking of the department/major which can widely vary from the overall ranking of the school.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by L210

UC Merced's ranking is quite impressive considering how young it is. UTSA is ranked much lower, and it's almost 50 years old.

I do think that the ranking of the department or degree program is most important. Some low-ranked schools have individual programs that are ranked high. For example, Sam Houston State University is ranked #20 for criminology.

Well UTSA as one of its core missions accepts and educates a very high percentage of Hispanic kids. Traditionally this is a very tough group to reach and the school suffers greatly in terms of rankings for doing so.

[redguard57]

California's higher ed system was set up with a lot more intention than Texas's, which was more ad hoc. California was also not a Jim Crow state like Texas was, which partly explains the problem. Education in all the old Jim Crow states is worse than in those that were not, since they built their systems for a smaller slice of their populations. That's some legacy for you.

If you are a strong high school student in CA you get into one of the UC's, all of which are different degrees of top tier. Texas only has 3-4 public equivalents.

If you are an above average HS student, you get into one of the Cal-States, all of which have typical state university quality. Texas has many equivalents - UH, UNT, Texas State, the better UT/A&M branches etc... but not enough equivalents to be proportional to its population.

If you were a below average HS student, you get into the community colleges, which in CA are quite large with lots of large lecture classes designed at the end of 2 years to get you into a Cal-State or a UC if you really excel. They actually reminded me of Texas's lower tiered 4-year colleges. Texas community colleges seem like a bit harder high school.

Then there is a tech school syatem, which I think Texas does okay at but again, not enough given its population size.

[redguard57]

Originally Posted by L210

UC Merced's ranking is quite impressive considering how young it is. UTSA is ranked much lower, and it's almost 50 years old.

I do think that the ranking of the department or degree program is most important. Some low-ranked schools have individual programs that are ranked high. For example, Sam Houston State University is ranked #20 for criminology.

That makes sense given the enormous prison complex and state criminal justice agencies being located in Huntsville.