<p>I’ve tried searching for this topic, but I didn’t find anything. Here’s my story. I’m currently a sophomore at the University of Maryland University College. I take classes on a US Air Force base in Germany, and I’m looking to transfer this year. This being the case, I probably won’t be able to arrange campus visits until after I have applied to schools. My grades have been good so I don’t expect to have problems finding schools that will take me. However, I am looking for a school with a rigorous academic curriculum. I have a handful on my list, but they all seem to sound the same in terms of the quality of academics that they offer. </p>
<p>My question is: how do you determine the quality of a school’s programs? So far, I have referred to several college ranking guides. Also, a friend of mine suggested contacting the school to see if they can contact any alumni that may be interested in corresponding with me. Does anyone else have any ideas about this?</p>
<p>Also, what is the deal with “Honors Colleges/Programs”? Some say that they do provide a more challenging curriculum, while others say that these programs really don’t deserve the title. Thanks.</p>
<p>I think it depends on what you want to major, since schools have different strengths and weaknesses among departments.</p>
<p>You can check out a college’s “Peer Assessment” score in the USNWR rankings for the academic community’s opinion on quality. However, it’s just one score and many here argue that it’s flawed.</p>
<p>You can also list the schools you are considering and get opinions from fellow CC’ers.</p>
<p>Wow. Thanks for the fast reply. I’m looking to study business if that helps. USNWR sounds like the next stop. My list is still far too long (around 60 schools) to post here. Right now I’m using Princeton Review’s Conselor-o’-Matic and College Board’s search engine to come up with this list.</p>
<p>There is no completely objective way to determine the quality of curriculum at a given school. Contacting alumni will help, of course, but please understand that most of these are bound to be high on their schools because, after all, they matriculated there. They will also know nothing (or, at best, very little) about how their schools compare to others. After all, most will have attended only one college.</p>
<p>While you will never find the absolute measurement of quality everyone wants to have, you do have one advantage: you’re going to study business. There are more ranking available on undergraduate business schools than there are on most other courses of study. Please understand that no ranking is definitive. Relative ranking always depends on the methodology employed, so be sure to read the methodology to fully understand what the rankings mean. You may find that certain criteria in one or more of the ranking systems is of little value to you, personally.</p>
<p>If I were you, this is how I’d proceed.</p>
<p>I’d find every ranking of undergrad business schools I could find. Google will help. Then, I’d make a chart that averaged the rankings to give me a sort of consensus number. I would figure that any school that consistently makes it into the top 10 or top 20 is a high-probability choice as a place to learn business.</p>
<p>After that, I’d look at the admittance/transfer stats for the business schools/colleges to see if they’re a reasonable match for my stats. That should narrow things down quite a bit. If you’re a match for a number of those schools, then make a list and do some research on the culture, curriculum, etc. of each one to get a sense of how well you think you would fit in. You can find guides that go into a fair amount of detail about student life, culture, etc. One place to start might be princetonreview.com.</p>
<p>By that time, your list should be manageable.</p>
<p>I have only lived in the states for two years, which I barely remember. Currently, I have no state residency. I would prefer a smaller school with more personalized attention during classes. As for location, I’m looking in the east, west and heavily in the southeast.</p>
<p>There’s no empirical ranking of academics. However, you should always look at how much the departments publish and how many PhDs are produced by the school. For example, Reed college is very strong academically, and this is evinced by the high % of undergraduates who go on to get PhDs.</p>
<p>You have already cleared out a lot of the ‘big’ classes at a big school, but here are the schools in the southeast and the west that come to mind:</p>
<p>UC-Berkeley
Pomona College
Claremont McKenna College
University of Washington
Duke
UNC
UVa
Rice
Stanford</p>
<p>I don’t know how hard transfering in these schools is though.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies everyone. I got a hold of USNWR’s college service. It has a lot of helpful statistics. I’ll have to keep crossing schools off of my list, but I hope to have a list of schools to apply to by the end of December. I’ll post here again when I get that list. I can say that money will be a bit of an issue, but I’m sure that some schools will offer scholarships.</p>