<p>i was curious to what the difference was between a “good” college and a “bad” college. I live in virginia and the “top” schools in my state are UVA, Virginia tech, and JMU (i think) and the “bad” schools are radford, UVA wise etc. these are all state colleges and the only difference that i can see between them is that it’s harder to get accepted into the good schools. but what makes the school good or bad? how do people rate it aside from seeing the name and knowing the history?</p>
<p>up …someone answer?</p>
<ol>
<li>Us News rankings</li>
<li>Selectivity: which means acceptance rate, average SAT, average GPA and percent of kids in top 10% or average rank.</li>
</ol>
<p>Usually the higher the better but there are shades of gray. For example nobody can really say that Dart > Brown or Brown > Dart based on small changes in rankings or small differences in avg SAT so there are “tiers” of schools rather than just black and white.</p>
<p>bad= poor academics, poor retention rate, unsuccessful alumni</p>