TurtlePhobic

Where does UC fit in the pantheon of Ohio colleges. I imagine OSU looks down its nose at the Bearcats, but where do Ohioan's place UC?

taxguy

Honestly, in some way UC is the best of the bunch. You just need to understand their advantages.

Miami of Ohio has the reputation of the strongest liberal arts offerings. Thus, if you are interested in Political Science, English, Language, Philosophy etc., they are the considered the best school for these.

Ohio State in considered the Ohio Flagship school and certainly has the best sports teams and strong programs in science and engineering. In fact, most programs are quite good.

Cincinnati is widely considered to have the best programs in Criminology, design, art, architecture, and planning and in music and musical theater. IN fact, these programs are nationally known and are considered to be in the top 5 or so in the country!

UC is close to Ohio State in Engineering, where OSU may still have the edge. However, with the advent of Cincinnati's coop program, as discussed below, this may not be the case.

Business is considered somewhat close in reputation to Ohio State as well and Cincinnati may even have an edge due to Cincinnati's strong coop program ,which Ohio State doesn't have. This also applies to some other majors such as engineering.

Cincinnati also has a very strong program in Pharmacy and Medicine.

Ohio State Marching band is considered the best in Ohio;HOWEVER, they only have brass in the band. If you want to play woodwind instruments or other instruments, you are better off with Cincinnati, who not only provides more varied opportunities in their marching bands but provide more musical opportunities overall.

Ohio State does, however, have a MUCH better and bigger football stadium and better sports teams overall.

Bottom line: OSU has a slightly better reputation overall. However, Cincinnati and Miami of Ohio have a stronger reputation for certain departments and majors.

BaghDAD

Lots of people in Ohio don't know much about the schools in the state. Many people wear OSU gear, but have never attended the school, have any kids at the school or just went to the stadium.

That being said, as Taxguy stated, there are some great programs at OSU and most people will say, "oh just go to OSU." However, two of the best prospective engineering students who graduated from some local High Schools here in 2006 chose UC. Why? UC has a really neat BSME/MBA program. Engineers learning business??? Exactly. It's something nobody thinks about until they are a program manager on an expensive widget and need to know how to pay for it within a company's bottom line.

Oh, and I am seeing a lot more 'Cats gear being worn...Love to see OSU have to play at Nippert one of these years

taxguy

I wanted to clarify my post #2 here. Although I do like the programs at Ohio State, University of Cincinnati really does stand out in a number of ways.

First, they have among the strongest program in Ohio and arguably in the US in art, design, architecure, planning, music, musical theater, and criminology. Other good programs, although not as well known as those above are, pharmacy, law, medicine, business and engineering. There may be other good programs that I am not familiar with as well.

Second, they have an immensely successful coop program. I can't overstate how important this is. Students in many majors get 1.5 years of PAID experience that they can add to their resume. These coops not only usually result in job offers but really enhance the resume of students over that of other schools. As one professor noted to me, "by the time these kids become seniors, we think of them more as collegues and less as students."

I should note that University of Cincinnati was the first coop program in the country. They have coops in every state of the country and in most foreign countries as well. The only problem is that not all majors have coop opportunities. For example, most liberal arts majors don't have too many coop opportunities. You really need to investigate whether your major has these coops.

This benefit should be filtered into everyone's consideration when evaluating colleges.