How hard is it to get into UT@Austin from California from a top HS in California?

ahsie · May 14, 2008, 10:25pm

No, my rank is not randomly “pluggin in #s”. Those #s are based of the Academic Ranking of World Universities and the list I gave UT included Academic Ranking of World Universities, Newsweek International, G-Factors (Web prescence or its importance), and the last one I believe was webometrics.

I’m rather surprised that you used THES over the 2 more prominent ranks (ACWU and Newsweek) because there are too many heavy flaw with THES is that it looks too much at peer review and other factors such as the “peer” and the unknown questions given out. One flaw is the so called “peer” include UK, Australia, New Zealand and therefore is HEAVILY European biased. THES is the only ranking I’ve read where Australian schools OVERALL are superior to schools in Canada, Japan, Germany, which if we have some logic knows it’s false. It’s also the only ranking I’ve read where there are so many London schools in the top 30. A second flaw is that the system as a whole is flawed. The results are too volatile and small changes in metrics mess up the whole entire graph. I seriously doubt that Emory one year is 173 (which is messed up that it was that bad in the first place) and jumped to 55 the next year. If you go into production of universities, it’s a whole seperate game. A third flaw is “peer review” is flawed because it has no standard for its questions. You want to know how it is done? It simply gives an european expert a sheet and tell them to write down the top 30 universities in the world. That’s it. Now if you think that’s a good peer review, then you might be on crack. A forth flaw is one mentioned by Alex Usher, Vice President of the Educational Policy Institute in USA. He said that the results are so random at times with the messed up peer review that some colleges just don’t belong to the name they’re next to. For example, while Duke is good, but I have NEVER seen Duke rated higher than Stanford. Or the China schools. I have never ever seen China schools in the top 35 because they really do suck. Their resources, faculty are all inferior.
Overall, yes, all rankings have their own flaw, but I found it strange to choose THES for 2 reasons. 1. THES is far less prominent ranking (and for good reason) with a flawed system. and 2. UT is ranked 51, not the top 15 rank you claimed. So far, I believe I’m at least justifying my words with ranks from one of the more prominent ranks while you’re claiming UT is within so and so, but only end up about 30-40 places out of where you claim.

FYI, you’re arguing about UW so and so, you’re still using THES, which is about the 6th or 7th most credible ranking system you could have used.
However, about faculty research output, you confuse me a bit. You said, “The research ranks are something entirely different and are much more grad-focused. UT does very well here, as does UWashington, but UW’s undergraduate school is simply not that impressive, whereas UT’s is a notch above. US News doesn’t even measure faculty research output, which is what THES does, and is more of a measure of a schools “undergraduate strength,” or really more “how like the Ivies is your school.” UT has a very strong though not exceptional undergraduate offering, but it’s graduate schools are in the very top of the school.” You talk about research ranks as grad focused, which I’m not 100% sure why that’s true, because when I mentioned research ranks, I meant the PRODUCTITY of it’s FACULTY, which is ironically what you’re now claiming. Higher research=more productivty from its faculty and in almost all the ranking I’ve read, UW almost always comes out in the shade about UT.

You futher claim, “All I can see is you are throwing out random numbers to justify a ranking that you’ve completely made up. And you’ve had no rationale whatever: you justify raisng UCLA on your scale “because it’s closer to those schools” yet place Texas down a tier on your own scale.” First of all, these are no random #s as I’ve given you the source and apparently I was correct in those #s. Second, tell me what you would do if you were in my situation. Would you have placed UCLA closer to the 2nd tier or the 1st tier. UCLA is clearly a shade below UM, UC Berk, but also 2 steps ahead of UW-Madison, UW-Seattle, UIUC, UCSD. In this scenario, unless I created a 1.5 tier, UCLA would probably more closely correlate with the 1st tier. UT Austin’s placement is a bit harder because it’s almost stuck in the middle where it’s 1 step behind 2nd tier (justified by my #s that are not so “random”) and 1 step ahead of the U of F, Penn State group.

FYI, FSPI is certainly not the only rank I’ve looked at, but it is one that I reccomend as it is certainly far more fact oriented and it is one that is worth looking into. Again, your attacks (which I find it weird why you’re defending a school like it’s your life) assume that I only looked at FSPI when I in reality looked at mutiple ranks like Ulink, Webometrics, Newsweek Internationals, ARWU, G-Factor, FSPI, USN, Washington Monthly.

Now, this statement is a bit unfair. You claimed, “But I don’t see why you’ve completely let us hijack this thread to demean a school. UT is an outstanding institution, and simply it’s faculty’s productiveness or it’s academic rank by a newsmagazine that has no particular expertiese in tertiary eudcation.” Why the hell would I hijack this thread and demean this school? I’m wasting enough time as I am typing on the computer while I should be studying for the Eco AP tommorow. “Demean”? I don’t have anything against UT and honestly do believe that it is overrated on its on board (as you conceded yourself because it’s on its own board). While I’ll agree that my tier system may be slightly harsh for UT lovers, but I just don’t see UT in the 2nd tier in my international rankings. I can’t really fit UT as a school consistently in the 25-40 range into the 15-25 range. If UT improves (which it is), then maybe it’ll get in there. As it is right now, UT is defitnitely closer to the level UM-College Park is(ALWAYS ranked within 3 spots of each other internationally) and I certainly won’t consider UM-College Park on par with the 2 UW, UIUC, etc, but I’ll admit UT is closer.
Newsmagazine? I thought I already agreed with you that USN has its own flaws. I wasn’t using USN.
Then you mention, " One of UT’s main draws are the non-academic factors, such as the weather, the social atmosphere, and the people, which really are unmatched at any top-tier institution."
I get the point that UT is a great school and I agree with it. I reccomend it if you think Texas is your place.

“The fact is that even by combining ranks, you can’t get an accurate picture of the worth of a university.” While I agree if you specifically pick out ranks (as you just did), you’ll might find great disparity. For example, I’ve seen UT ranked in the 10s but also as high as the 60s. If you want to show the extremes, I guess point proven, but that is a flawed way to look at things. While yes, there may be one or two ranks that go off the charts, but if you look at ranks in a general sense, there is usually some general consensus of where a university belongs. The general consensus I’ve sensed for UT is 25-40. The general consensus I’ve sensed for the 2 UW, UIUC, and UCSD is 15-25. Yes, there may be that one rank that ranks UW at 53 (on the polar opposite, there was one that ranked it at 7) or another rank that ranks UIUC at 47(on the polar opposite, there was one that ranked it at 8), but out of 5 or 6 ranks, the general consensus is 15-25.

Yes, yes, yes. OK, I GET IT. I know UT can become as good as UC Berkeley and has every bit of potential to become one. I’ve already conceded that, but again, we’re looking at the present and not the future (which is no doubt bright for UT).

Yes, UT’s Honors college is good, but there is a reason why it isn’t factored in. I’ve always thought of honors college as an “elite” group of a universities’ students. If you look at the elites, then the general mass’ representation would be heavily skewed. For an idea of what I’m saying, think of an army of ~100,000. 3000-5000 are the elite units. If we’ve evaluated the army off elite units, then the whole skill of the general army is heavily skewed and overrated. The same case applies for UT. And even if peers do factor in Honors college, another dilemna arises- how much should Honors college be factored? Ultimately, I can see why UT’s Honors college is not factored in, but it unfortunetly is the best way to get things done in a scholarly way.

theloneranger · May 14, 2008, 11:25pm

Newsweek and AWRU are essentialy identical. Newsweek hasn’t been updated since 2006 and the basis for its rankings were the Shanghai numbers. I have a major problem with both, as well as the FSPI, simply tries to evaluate universities on the basis of the volume of research they produce. It doesn’t even evaluate the quality of the research, either, just whether it’s coming.

While I feel that research is an important part of a school’s reputation, I don’t think that it can be used to classify the school as a whole. Nor do I think that it’s relevant to a HS senior’s decision process. Peer rankings, on the other hand, measure what academics think of a school. Generally, these academics are those who will be admitting you to grad school. They are not just European, but are truly global (which is why there are so many non-American schools on the list). Yes, London really does have that many outstanding schools–Imperial, University College, LSE, King’s, and LBS would all be top universities in the US. I personally think that a peer review would be much more relevant to the person viewing this site than a “who lives by publish or perish” ranking. Which is why I think that if you look at the peer ratings of US News, you get a much better picture. You’re really just comparing similar ranks and using them to justify that schools deserve to be where those ranks place them. Those rankings are going to be biased against any school that does not have a med school by a tremendous deal, which is why you see UT so low. They really have absolutely nothing to do with undergraduate education whatsoever.

Simply put, if you compare Berkeley’s grad students to UT’s I think you will find them very even. Berkeley’s faculty may be more distinguished, but not by much. If you compare the top 60% of UT’s undergrad population to Berkeley’s undergrad population as a whole, I think you will find them very even. The only real difference I see is that UT is more egalitarian and has around 10,000 more students than Berkeley.

But to answer the original question…it is incredibly hard.

ahsie · May 15, 2008, 12:23am

ARWU and Newsweek actually differ quite a bit. Their standards differ even though the results are usually within 10 places of each other. Those 2 rankings actually just so happened to agree with each other on a lot.
No, it’s basis is not completely off of Shanghai. Newsweek compared its rank to ARWU because ARWU is generally speaking the most prominent ranking (Cited by the Economist mutiple times. 2 days ago, I saw the Economist again cite ARWU in one of the articles about the America we’re entering and the increasingly global world.); however, their standards are still different. Obviously, both ranks have their own flaws, but so do others. At this time, we have to look at the more credible ones such as ARWU or Newsweek. Of course, we can look at others, but we should probably weigh in a bit more on ARWU or the more prominent ones. THES or Zhejiang for one of the less credible ones.
As a side note, I’m not sure whether you understand how professional publication system goes. My parents (with Phd) once explained it to me. Usually, you research in something unknown and work toward that direction. After hard work, you might find something “new” and give it to the PRO publishers(professionals only. Articles in Newsweek, Economist, or even Business Week for business doesn’t count). Once it’s turned in, a board of professionals will look at the material to make sure that it really is something and new and useful. Once the material passes the examination, the article is published. In other words, if something is published, the quality has to be up to the standard or else it wouldn’t even pass the examination process.

Yes, I agree peer evaluation and research are both important, but the one that you’re in particular citing is THES(referring to the UK colleges), which has about one of the most flawed peer review system you can find.
With that said, I agree that peer review is important, but not the only factor. These universities are called research universities for a reason- because they research! Furthermore, since the rankings specifically mentioned “staff and alumni” research, that includes quality work (refer to explanation) from people graduating from the school. In other words, the standards still evaluate the quality of the student graduating from that university and therefore we actually see what the person is like after coming out of school because let’s face it, a few elite professors can’t publish every article there is for their department and raise its rank. This criteria to me is more credible than peer review because peer review in its own nature is subjective and can’t be fairly evalauted because its more off feelings and “I think”'s.
Even though USN has a better peer review system, you should still notice that the peer review system is still recieving TONS of complaints and many people are deciding to not participate in it because USN has not changed the system after many years of protest. To give you an idea why I think the peer review shouldn’t be weighed as high (at least as high as you claim it should), think of our current world. We currently live in a mostly Eurocentric world where everything we learn and read is Western biased (even though some people don’t admit that). I’ve recently read an article that claims the world has not seen a power as dominant as America since the Pax Romana. That article itself and the general body of the world is Eurocentric where Western Empires dominate. Little do they know that there actually was a superior Han Dynasty in the Eastern world with a stronger military and economy than the Roman Empire during its period of prosperity. The Han Dynasty had calvaries over 100,000 and had superior technology such as the cross-bow (which is invented about EIGHT HUNDRED YEARS later in the Western world). These are all information that people wouldn’t know if they follow the Eurocentric world idea. Likewise, peer review has a similar flaw when the reviewers could be blindsided to another universities superiority in another area. Again, I believe peer review is important, but not the most important as the review itself likewise can’t tell you the quality of the people who graduate or how good the education is. In many ways, the peer review is a “I think”.
Some people suggest the best way to do the review is to tell the reviewers to personally look into detail of each university and then decide. Of course, while that method would produce superior results, it is far too difficult to carry out.

If you have a better idea at how to trully rank universities, tell me (peer review is clearly not the answer). By looking for a consensus among the more prominent rank compliers, we should at least be able to see a general idea of a how a university is truly ranked. If a university (random and not pointing at any particular university) given the following ranks- 2,17,29,34,37, 29, 39,38,43,42,40,39,73,67, I think it’s safe to guess that a university is ranked somewhere in between 30-45.

If a university doesn’t have a med school, there is nothing to be done. Sure, it might affect UT’s rank, but what do you want to do? Tell UT to build a med school? Not all universities are perfect with everything.
And nothing (including peer review) and tell us how the quality of the undergrad educ is like. The closest thing is probably looking at the quality of the student which is included in some of the more prominent international ranks.

Actually, UC Bekerkely’s student still has the edge. Our school has about 40 (2/3 of our top 10%) or so students going to UT Austin. Of the 60 who all qualified for UT Austin, only about 12 or so got into Berkeley and I’ll be the first one to tell you that the UC Berkeley kids are defitnitely a notch or two above UT Austin kids.

AMom2 · May 15, 2008, 12:51pm

ahsie,

So are you going to UT? I noticed you got waitlisted at A&M.

BTW, I don’t care how high or low UT is ranked, or if UT is a 1st, 2nd, or even a 3rd tier school by “your estimates”. I know many very successful and happy UT grads to them UT IS # 1!

AMom2 · May 15, 2008, 1:16pm

Back on topic:

One of my friends’ daughter just got in to UT. She is not in the top 10%, but she did make a 2100 on her SAT. She does have to start this summer but she’s thrilled to be going to UT!

If you are not in the top 10%, work to bring up your SAT score.

ag54 · May 15, 2008, 4:19pm

Give me a break! Do you really think all of those rankings mean a hill of beans when you go out to get a job? If you do, you need to grow up…

This thread was started by someone who wants to go to UT, and is interested in information pertaining to that topic. He did not want to read diatribes by disgruntled kids.

Thanks for getting it back on topic AMom2.

VectorWega · May 15, 2008, 6:21pm

It’s been several weeks since my last post in this thread and rankings are still pretty meaningless.

How hard is it to get into UT@Austin from California from a top HS in California?

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