What are some universities that have a notable disparity in being much stronger academically at the graduate level than the undergraduate level, and what are some universities that have a stronger/more prestigious undergrad than their grad programs? Strong in both (ex: Harvard, Michigan, UCLA, MIT) or weak in both need not be mentioned, and obviously most LACs are not applicable. I also realize that grad schools tend to be program specific, but let’s try to evaluate the school holistically.
Overall I would say that Notre Dame, Georgetown, Brown, Dartmouth, Tufts, Wake Forest, William and Mary, and Pepperdine are much stronger in their undergrad portions of the university than their graduate side. While considered top undergraduate schools, outside of a few select programs such as GULC or Dartmouth business, the overall strength of these universities’ graduate programs are not among the same peers as their undergraduate counterparts.
On the other end, I would say that NYU, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana and University of Washington, while all solid colleges, are much stronger graduate wise than their undergrad counterparts.
You can’t totalize the postgrad programs at many research universities. Among professional schools at a university you might find an exceptional med school and a weak law school. Among grad schools it really depends on departments, where, again, a given school may have a very strong Romance Language dept. but a relatively undistinguished History dept. Etc.
Like @snarlatron said, there are no good graduate schools or graduate “sides”, only good graduate departments.
Even within departments, it can be very specific. A school can be mediocre for physics in general but have the best program for condensed matter physics in the world.
A particular one that comes to mind, though: Northeastern is a good school, but its research and graduate program in networks is one of if not the top in the country.
How is it possible to make that distinction? In general, many of those same profs at NYU grad teach the undergrads, no? Ditto the publics on your list?
Aren’t you really just separating Unis with top grad programs? Or, in Dartmouth’s case, the fact that it doesn’t have many grad programs to begin with. Ditto Pepperdine. It’s hard to compare with a large school like H that has 40-50 doctoral granting departments.
For example, H is not known for its undergrad teaching, nor is UCLA. Yet, you consider them to be ‘strong’ in undergrad? Under what basis?
fwiw: schools like Columbia and Stanford have grad programs that are 2x the size of their undergrads.