I agree with that. But my agreement with that has nothing to do with where your school is ranked.
Of course, NC publics report weighted GPAs…
But that’s not the point, partly because the ranking doesn’t consider selectivity and partly because it’s impossible to actually measure value of a school. Can’t really measure selectivity either, except in rough tiers.
@blossom I don’t believe I need to tell anyone on this site how thrilled I am to be a Seahawk. I just felt compelled to point out the many inconsistencies and inaccuracies of Forbes’ ranking.
Where was Ohio State ranked? You have to keep in mind they don’t hold as many classes in the football stadium now as they did when I went there in the 80s (though the stadium seats a lot more people today than it did when I was there for those “large” lectures). Few people know this but when they built the new basketball arena in the 90s, they were not actually looking for a new place to play basketball/hockey. They needed another classroom. Which is why they kept St John (the old arena). Doubled the number of “small” classes they could offer. 
The whole honors college pitch is interesting. In some ways, it’s not very complimentary to those not in the honors college of said Titanic U. Basically the pitch is, “we offer something better to the best of our best that’s not available to the folks in steerage.”
And that something sounds an awful lot like a strong LAC.
If I were in the general pop, I’d wonder what I’m missing.
Ohio State - place should have its own zip code for God’s sake.
70+k? Right?
@MiddleburyDad2 - OSU does indeed have its own zip code but it spills out into 4 or so more. I doubt the PO wants to change zip borders every time that school expands 
OSU is a school many of my kids’ friends, and my friends’ kids attend. And indeed lecturers can be TAs. One complaint I often hear is that many in STEM especially are not native English speakers and can be difficult to understand. The official word:
“Many have both” seems a bit dodgy…do we think the classes not covered by “many on the Columbus campus have both a faculty instructor and a teaching assistant” have only a professor? I doubt it. I think the-not-many-without-both have only a TA/lecturer.
In any case, recitation is where the action is, IMO: “homework is reviewed, and questions from the lectures and readings can be addressed”. If you had a question during the lecture you need to hold that thought until you can talk to a TA in the class where you are able to actually ask it.
Hence the complaints from kids about non-fluent English speaking TAs - the only time you can actually ask a question and get it answered is with that person, unless you go to office hours for the full prof (and there are lines, I am told…)
http://campuschange.osu.edu/expect.html
Forbes has it at 160, 35 in publics. http://www.forbes.com/colleges/ohio-state-university-columbus/
No, it is neither complimentary nor derogatory to those not in the Honors Program. It is not “better,” just different. It is intended to serve students who are “looking for an interdisciplinary educational experience.” As others have noted, many students (even among the “best of the best”) at a large research university like Washington are not looking for such an experience.
@UWfromCA , the description you shared seems to say more. And, frankly, as a parent of a kid who was offered admission to two such programs (one being at UW), I think you’re underestimating how much more selective the honors programs are.
I was with you until that post, which officially jumped the shark.
I did have a chuckle though. Your " it’s not better … just different" reminded me of a funny line from a Will Ferrell movie (kicking and screaming) that we often through around our house when one of us is waffling about something.
“I don’t know anyone who hasn’t heard of Wellesley.”
Go to your local Walgreens, diner, post office, dry cleaner, gas station and ask the workers there if they’ve heard of Wellesley. Ask them to name the Ivy League schools while you are at it and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee if any of them can name 3 of the 8.
@MiddleburyDad2 , has someone hacked your CC account?
Maybe you can tell the difference between an LAC person and a public research university person by the movie quotes they remember.
LAC person: “It’s not better…just different”
Public Research U person: “Give it to the Italians!”
Name recognition and knowledge of colleges are in relative terms. Some colleges have more international or national fame than others. Many are only known to the local people. And there are all shades in between. So let’s drop the argument that ALL colleges are “local”. It’s just not true. On the other hand, no college is known to every individual on this planet, but why should it? If you are not going to find employment in the chemical industry, how many chemical companies in the world would you know? Even if you do want to work for a chemical company but if all you are interested in is a company that is 10 minutes away from your house, there’s no need for you to know anything more than that. So, to judge if a college is better known than another by checking if it’s known to average shoppers in your local Walmart is misguided. It says nothing about the colleges in question. You are just surveying the wrong group of people.
@youcee HA! So we’re not the only ones. 
That would be the other go to line. But Ferrell going back and forth with those parents, “better! in a different better way!” was hilarious. You have to admit.
Huh?
@Pizzagirl don’t disagree. naming the Ivy League schools is something many can’t do. A lot of people I’ve run into think Rutgers is in the Ivy League. But naming all 8 and having heard of Wellesley is different.
Probably does fail the Walgreens test.
But they’re more local than you think. Only the tiniest handful are widely known across the U.S. The data are a bit dated, but Gallup did a survey in 2003 asking people the open-ended qwuestion, “What’s the best college or university in the U.S.?” Most frequently mentioned were Harvard (24% named it best or second-best), Yale (11%), and Stanford (11%), followed by MIT (6%), UC Berkeley (4%), Notre Dame (4%), Princeton (4%), Michigan (3%), Duke (3%), and UCLA (3%). But there was also striking regional variation in responses after Harvard, Yale, and Stanford which were among the top vote-getters everywhere.
East
Harvard 36
Yale 16
Princeton 7
Stanford 5
MIT 5
Penn State 5
Penn 5
Midwest
Harvard 21
Yale 11
Stanford 10
Michigan 9
Notre Dame 8
South
Harvard 18
Yale 10
Stanford 9
Duke 7
Texas A&M 7
West
Harvard 24
Stanford 19
UC Berkeley 11
Yale 9
MIT 7
UCLA 7
I think it’s fair to say that only Harvard, Yale, and Stanford have truly national reputations for academic strength. Even Princeton which regularly holds or contends for the top spot in US News has more of a regional following; and for that matter, even mighty Harvard got half as many mentions in the South as in the East. If you track where they draw their student bodies from, as Pizzagirl and I did some time ago, you’ll see that even the most elite “national” schools draw disproportionately from their home regions, e.g., most Ivies draw half or more of their student bodies from the Northeast, a region that comprises 18% of the nation’s population. You’re right that it’s not “all local,” but it’s all heavily regionally inflected.
I wonder if Harvard’s weaker numbers in the South is more out of spite for the war of northern aggression. ?
Bclintonk and I crunched the numbers a few years back. Every single one of the top 20 research u’s and LACs disproportionately skewed to its home region, and the Ivies just as much so. The LACs were even more so. There were only 2 exceptions - Duke and Oberlin.
The difference is, when Harvard skews to the Northeast it’s considered a national skew but if (say) U of Chicago skews to the Midwest it’s considered a regional school because apparently skewing the northeast is “different” somehow.
Anyone who has ever lived in more than one region knows this. Look at Notre Dame in bclintonk’s list. It hardly gets mentioned on CC but in Chicago, it’s got brand power and loyalty far exceeding most of the Ivies. But for some reason the people in the NE think their perceptions are “national.” Go figure.
@bclintonk Can a college’s name recognition be explained by the diversity of its undergraduate student body as the ONLY evidence? I do agree that only dozens of colleges can be qualified as having a name/fame nationally and even fewer internationally even among those who have vested interest in higher educational institutions, but the percentages of “out of region” undergraduate enrollment cannot be the one and only indication if ever.