<p>Just because it’s other undergraduate professors and administrators doing the ranking, that doesn’t mean that NDs weaker graduate programs can’t influence them - all professors across the country are a part of academia, be it graduate or undergraduate. Just sayin’</p>
<p>Also, ND suffers for being a Catholic institution with excellent athletics in a secular-driven academic society. Many are of the opinion that religion, sports and open-minded intellectual pursuit are mutually exclusive.</p>
<p>Shellzie and I usually agree, and today is no exception.</p>
<p>Also, “we lose?” We’re 5 foot nothin’, 100 and nothin’, and we have barely a speck of athletic ability. And we hung in there with the best college football players in the land for 2 years. And we’re gonna walk outta here with a degree from the University of Notre Dame. In this life, you don’t have to prove nothin’ to nobody but yourself. And after what you’ve gone through, if you haven’t done that by now, it ain’t gonna never happen. Now go on back. (Paraphrased from some movie I saw once)</p>
<p>Well, maybe then I should frame my responses differently: Notre Dame doesn’t have enough in the other areas to get over the deficit of its peer assessment. </p>
<p>I’ve seen a lot of arguments about people being biased because of Notre Dame’s religious affiliation, but your argument falls apart when you look at Duke…either administrators at universities just hate Catholic people (which I highly doubt would be influential considering the wide range of people who complete the survey) or there are other factors which influence Notre Dame’s low peer rankings (ie. the lack of excellence in other areas - which you EXPLICITLY concede aren’t sufficient to boost up Notre Dame higher in the rankings in light of its peer assessment.) Sounds to me that these two factors go hand in hand, and ultimately impede ND ability to move up. </p>
<p>Additionally, you talk about “open-mindedness.” First, in a world where Cornell excels in academia, I’m not going to say that our inclusive ideology doesn’t hurt us, it does, but at the same time we are still among the best universities in the world, despite our open mindedness (We have some of the most diverse programs in the world). Our peer assessment suggests that being open minded in intellectual pursuits isn’t really a bad thing. </p>
<p>Now if you have the “Brown Interpretation” of open minded, of doing whatever you want, your argument still falls apart because Brown is still considered a top notch school (suggested by its peer assessment). I don’t see how anything you say doesn’t crumble with even a cursory look at the top universities on the US News Rankings. </p>
<p>Finally, both of you missed my point about the grad program rankings. I’m saying that the grad programs COULD influence peer assessment, BUT looking at Dartmouth, Brown and Princeton you will quickly realize that they obviously aren’t as significant in peer assessment. This leads to one of two conlcusions, either grad program rankings don’t influence peer assessment - which you conclude is untrue - or the aformentioned schools have so much more going for them, that their grad programs don’t matter. This is the crux of my argument, NOTRE DAME doesn’t have enough goign for it in the undergraduate education to mitigate the impact of poor grad programs - which warrants all of my arguments about why Notre Dame isn’t up to par with the other institutions. </p>
<p>Additionally, I don’t think Notre Dame sits on par with any of the ivies because the Ivies in themselves don’t have clear rankings because each of them have their own strengths and weaknesses, but in general the ivies as overall institutions of higher education surpass Notre Dame by a HUGE margin because of massive endowments, extensive research expenditure, attraction of best faculty, and a history of excellence which promotes great alumni networks. I believe in the post above, someone said that Notre Dame was a VERY DIFFERENT school 20 years ago, which means its new found “greatness” can never compare to the history of excellence that the Ivy League is about. However, I’m not going to harp too much on this, because this is not a relative assessment of ND vs. Ivy League, but rather an absolute evaluation of ND as an institution of higher education.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, you appear to have misunderstood the point about open-minded intellectual pursuit completely. Nowhere was the assertion that being open minded in intellectual pursuits a bad thing. Rather, I believe the point kevdude was making is that when many people look at ND and see the religious affiliation and big-time sports program, they tend to conclude that these are a detriment to open-minded intellectual pursuit and dismiss ND as a top-tier academic university.</p>
<p>If the peer assessment score is made up of the opinions of those who teach at other universities, then I vote ND highly, and you should care because I teach at a major research university.</p>
<p>If this seems crazy to you, think about why. I could vote Cornell low, but I know very little about Cornell, never been there. Seems kind of arbitrary doesn’t it?</p>
<p>Again, ND has some of the best opportunities in the country for undergraduates, and the focus is on undergraduate education. Additionally, undergraduates are able to easily play a major role in research, which is huge for those going into academics. I got into a PhD program on average 7 years earlier than my peers because of the opportunities ND presented me with research. I had as much experience with my BA as many other applicants did after working a research job for 2 years. However, you just don’t have that kind of access at a lot of schools.</p>
<p>Back to my original point, who do you trust more to know about the quality of ND…the students and alumni on this board, or those academics who know very little about the school other than what they have heard and the research they have seen coming out of the institution. If it is the latter, again, I teach at a major university, ask me about any school you want and I will give you an assessment that means very little because I don’t know much about them.</p>
<p>$6.54 billion isn’t a big enough endowment for you? While its not on par with Harvard’s $34.9 billion endowment or Princeton’s $15.8 billion, I would say it certainly compares to Cornell’s $5.425 billion endowment… In addition, while the per student endowment is dwarfed by HYP, it actually exceeds that of Cornell, Columbia, Brown, Duke, and many other highly ranked universities. </p>
<p>And granted, Notre Dame is not a research-focused institution. However, Fr. Jenkins is working to change that with a new $80 million initiative. In addition, since we don’t have non-teaching professors and a ton of grad students taking up the bulk of this funding, much of it will go towards undergraduate research. Extensive research expenditure definitely adds merit to an institution, but it doesn’t matter how much fantastic, world-changing research is going on at an institution if the undergrads will never get to be involved- that won’t change the quality of their education at all.</p>
<p>Also, no one can complain about the quality of Notre Dame’s alumni base! Domers are a fiercely loyal group.</p>
<p>Notre Dame may not have the same sort of history of excellence that the Ivies have, but in terms of the quality of education- what does it matter? What matters is the quality of the courses, the professors, and the resources that Notre Dame has to offer now.</p>
<p>Duke has no religious affiliation. They were once affiliated with the Methodist Church but are now a secular institution, though they retain religious traditions. Only three schools in the USNWR top 50 have affiliations with any type of Christianity (Notre Dame, Georgetown, BC).</p>
<p>Ok, first thing is first, Notre Dame doesn’t even begin to compare to Cornell in terms of the quality of its academic programs, so please don’t insult yourself there. But I would like to say, that I misread the comments about the open-mindedness my bad. Additionally, Duke is methodist according to US News and Collegeboard, I’m not sure where you’re getting your information regarding Duke’s religious affiliation.</p>
<p>Additionally, any alumni and student base talking about Notre Dame will be intrinsically bias. However, if peer assessment is averaged across a multitude of qualified faculty at respected university, we get a good understanding of the perceived value of the ND. </p>
<p>I know what you guys are getting at when you talk about research access, and let me tell you right now, there are probably more undergrads involved in research at Cornell than you will ever hope to see at Notre Dame. Additionally, the ground-breaking research that is taking place at Cornell dwarfs whatever is happening at Notre Dame.</p>
<p>Finally, you guys can’t be serious, putting Notre Dame on par with the ivies, I’m sorry, it seems that you all are desperate for anything to justify your low peer assessment by discounting it entirely without good reasoning. Why should I prefer the opinions of students of ND to judge teh quality of the school, versus seasoned professionals across the realm of academia who probably have more experience in academics than any one of you. </p>
<p>One last thing…you never responded to the obvious logic in my argument that Notre Dame is lacking something in its undergrad programs which is preventing it to mitigate the poor quality of its grad schools. Additionally, talking about endowments doens’t really matter because that doesn’t answer the other underlying factors of ND inferiority. </p>
<p>sorry guys, stop trying to promote your school…its not working.</p>
<p>As a Notre Dame physics major who is just completing a ten week research project at Cornell University, I feel I can speak to this topic. </p>
<p>Cornell and Notre Dame are very different places that are actually quite difficult to compare. It is my experience that the faculty of Cornell are, on average, more distinguished than those of Notre Dame. I work in the same building in which Carl Sagan worked. The PI for Spirit and Opportunity is right below me. My advisor is the director of the Arecibo Observatory (as seen in the movies Goldeneye and Contact). This talent which surrounds me is very inspiring; at Notre Dame, we don’t have faculty of this calibre. </p>
<p>However, that is all they do—surround. I spend a total of maybe half an hour a week speaking with my advisor, and I am his only undergraduate. In general, the faculty here are interested in their research and the graduate students who fuel it, not the undergraduate peons who waste their time with education. The general attitude which I perceive here is that, to many (but by no means all) professors, undergraduate education is a necessary burden attached to the work which they carry out. And awe-inspiring work it is too…but graduate students are the focus here, not undergraduates.</p>
<p>The atmosphere at Notre Dame is very different. We do have a few very distinguished faculty, but by and large our faculty pride themselves on how they teach, not what they publish. I have a professor who worked until the wee hours of the morning on something I needed the next day. I have another professor who invited to his home anyone who lacked the ability to go home for Thanksgiving. My professors are genuinely interested in who I am and what I do. </p>
<p>This has interesting implications for how research is done. At Cornell, research is grad-centric. At Notre Dame, research is undergrad-centric. I was asked to participate in the research of four different professors this last semester. I ultimately chose the project I found to be most fascinating, and I will be carrying out research with a tremendous degree of autonomy culminating in two published papers, one of which will feature me as first author and another of which will feature me as second author. Never in my time working for this professor will I need to deal with a graduate student intermediary (as I have done throughout the summer at Cornell). This is because my Notre Dame advisor has only one graduate student, and he is working in a different area. </p>
<p>As far as the undergraduate student body goes, I would suggest that they are most certainly comparable. The student body of Cornell is not head and shoulders above Notre Dame academically, nor is the opposite situation true. What is true is that demographically the two schools are night and day. Notre Dame students are relatively conservative, have a ton of school spirit, are religious, and love sports. Cornell students are generally a lot more liberal, but they are a lot more diverse than Notre Dame students are in their interests. </p>
<p>I have a tremendous respect for this university after spending my summer here. However, I would not say that it is better than Notre Dame, just different.</p>
<p>Don’t get too into this, there has always been someone who has come over here and said that their school is better than ND. They usually aren’t worth your time once you lay the facts out there. You can get a great education at either school, period. Those who try to prove that their school is better than others are either, in my opinion, excessively proud or are very insecure.</p>
r you kidding me? cornell has a school of hotel administration and agriculture (or something like that), an embarrassment to real ivy league education. the only respectable program at cornell is engineering.</p>
<p>also the whole crux of your argument is based on usnews pa scores. take a look at the uc berkeley vs duke thread in the “college search and selection forum” where people pretty much proved that these pa scores are erroneous. you’re basing your entire argument on the publication of a news magazine that happens to publish one issue with college rankings when you should be listening to people like the poster above who have actual real world experience with the universities in question.</p>
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maybe because it’s physically impossible because cornell has many more undergraduates…i don’t know that might have something to do with it.</p>
<p>another thing, you mentioned endowments. notre dame’s endowment of 6.54 billion exceeds cornell’s meager 5.5 billion. i don’t know if they teach you basic math at cornell, but 6.54>5.5</p>
<p>Per student it looks like this:
Cornell=$277,777
Notre Dame=$563,647</p>
<p>“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”- Woodrow Wilson</p>
<p>I think this quote explains the difference between ND and Cornell, Harvard etc. While the Ivies do prepare you well for “making a living”-(yes you’ll be successful, you’ll be taught by a published author or whoever our society says is impressive), only a school like ND prepares you to really make a difference in this world. I guess it’s that inexplicable quality that everyone is talking about.
Doing research to really help the world is one thing; doing research to make oneself look good is quite another. The quality of the individual is what is important- for both students and teachers. If a teacher is devoted and cherishes his/her work, then that is impressive. If a student is committed, he will be a success. I guess it’s just a different view of the world. You can either choose to be part of the machine or you can aspire to be something greater and deeper.</p>
<p>Haha, there are so many problems with your post that its going to take a while but i’m going to do it anyways.</p>
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<p>I love how this just shows your ignorance of Cornell and higher education in general. Cornell has elite programs in all of the liberal arts, among the top 10 - 15 in virtually every field. Additionally, our so “Ag School” has some of the best programs in the nation in Business, Biology, Bioengineering, Communications etc, better than anything offerred at Notre Dame, aside from maybe, I don’t know, divinity. As far as your statements about the Hotel Administration school, they just exemplify your ignorance. Our Hotel school is a school of fuc**** business with an emphasis of Hotel Administartion and these kids go on to run some of the most respected Hotel Schools in the world. In a world where Conrad Hilton regarded Cornell as “THE BEST” hotel school in the world, your comments don’t hold any weight. Additionally, Arts and Sciences at Cornell has acceptance rates rivaling the rest of the Ivy League and the programs follow suit, with top programs in English, Chemistry, Math, Econ, CS etc. Cornell AAP: Ignoring this just shows me how ignorant you really are, as this program has been ranked #1 for so many years running. Cornell Engineering: yea, that speaks for itself…Now, my question, what is Notre Dame known for?..just wondering.</p>
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<p>Haha, I’m not going to dig through that thread, and judging by the content of your post, I don’t think you would know if an argument has been proven if it hit you in your freaking face. Additionally, I don’t think PA can be proven erroneous if the facts stand as they are. All of my posts assumed that these people were faculty at other elite universities who are judging the quality of Notre Dame. Additionally, the argument here is about a ranking of Notre Dame as an institution, as a lot of people on here believe that Notre Dame is ranked lower because of bias in the peer assessment. But here’s the thing, if the same people are ranking all of the schools, then the “bias” doesn’t matter. This means, that Notre Dame still lacks in the objective factors that would propel it to the top, past the other universities in the US News rankings. Next, if you want to claim a bias against Notre Dame, then your UC Berkeley vs. Duke thread isn’t really going to accomplish that goal. Either you concede that there is no bias, or that the bias is reflected in all the schools which means that it doesn’t matter. Other than that you have no persuasive reasoning behind why ONLY Notre Dame is affected, as historically, Duke has been ranked among the top univerisities in the Nation, with or without its religious affiliation. </p>
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<p>That was a response to the notion that Cornell doesn’t give access to research, and even a percentage comparison would yield the same results, I guarantee it. </p>
<p>I never once contested endowments, just that they don’t matter, because the US News ranking takes that into account, meaning that Notre Dame lacks in other factors, ie. faculty quality, student quality etc, which is the CRUX of my argument, not your stupid statment about PA. PA was necessary to highlight the constant and then expose the weakness of Notre Dame. </p>
<p>Additionally, I don’t care what publication we use, as long as the objective standards are the same for every school, it doesn’t matter. Because in a relative ranking Notre Dame still comes lower with the evaluations constant. </p>
<p>Finally, I’d just like to point out, that you are like…not smart.</p>
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<p>You’re dumb if you think such is the case, because ND is a joke among universities. Additionally, Cornell garners respect both globally and domestically…more than I can say for Notre Dame.</p>
<p>Cornell, you can’t be serious. How insecure does someone have to be to commit so much energy into an online **** measuring contest ? Why do you even bother arguing using facts and figures when your posts are also riddled with “you’re stupid, you’re dumb, you’re school is a joke” ? For someone who does not go to Notre Dame, you seem to be overly invested in this argument, taking this to a personal level for no apparent reason, and conducting yourself like a child. Who are you trying to persuade, because you aren’t trying to win anyone here over.</p>
<p>“Finally, I’d just like to point out, that you are like…not smart.” </p>
<p>What an intelligent, tactful, debate worthy response, remind us again, is common practice for all adults to like… insult each other like… we’re still in high school ? This isn’t the breakfast club and if you can’t carry yourself with a bit of maturity and perspective then you run the risk of people not taking your posts seriously and you’re really just wasting your own time at that point.</p>
<p>This argument was made personal the second MITpwns… insulted Cornell. I have said nothing more than what is obvious from the posts that I’ve been getting as “responses” to what I’ve been saying. Its laced with ignorance and worse yet, insults motivated by that ignorance. I’m backing up my arguments with facts, hardly true for the other posts. </p>
<p>I am ususally very helpful in my posts, but I dislike when people try to articially prop up institutions and likewise put down schools without any real reasons as to why aside from hearsay. </p>
<p>I’m not trying to be child-like, because I think I’ve been posting at a much higher level than most of the people on this thread.</p>
<p>You wrotre - “I am ususally very helpful in my posts”.</p>
<p>Please go back to doing this - As it stands right now, you are on a Notre Dame board basically criticizing everything about ND academics. Just as you felt the need to defend Cornell, people on this board will continue to defend Notre Dame regardless of what you present as facts on this issue. You will not persuade anyone to change their minds especially with your aggressive and insulting manner. Students will continue to apply to ND because that is where they want to go - regardless of the peer assessments or anything else that is said about the school. Just let it go and return to being “helpful” in your posts.</p>
<p>With regard to facts, I’d like to point out that according to CollegeBoard, the 75th percentile SAT score (combined M+CR) for Notre Dame students is a 1510 and a 1500 at Cornell. Also, ND’s 75th percentile ACT score is a 34, whereas Cornell’s is a 32.</p>
<p>While Cornell’s admit rate is 21% and ND’s is 24%, I believe this illustrates that ND is, in fact, equally if not more difficult to gain acceptance to because of the more self-selecting nature of its applicant pool (generally white/Catholic students) compared to Cornell, which has a school or department for essentially any field of study and attracts all sorts of motivated students with its Ivy League status.</p>
<p>I hope that makes sense to you, because student quality is one aspect of Notre Dame that is definitely not lacking compared to other top schools. The purpose of this thread is to discuss the quality of academic programs at Notre Dame (i.e. faculty and rigor), not to take baseless cheap shots against the school. I would appreciate if you would not make statements like this in the future if you want the integrity of your posts to be respected.</p>