North Carolina State University (Raleigh)
**7. University of California San Diego (La Jolla - UCSD) **
City University of New York – Hunter College (New York, N.Y.)
University of Georgia (Athens)
The College of New Jersey (Ewing)</p>
<p>The Princeton Review’s 100 “Best Value Colleges” list for 2009 is based on data compiled and analyzed by The Princeton Review, the education services and test-prep company known for its annual college listings.</p>
<p>The analysis uses the most recently reported data from each institution for its 2008-09 academic year. The top 10 public and private “Best Values” are ranked; the rest are listed alphabetically.</p>
<p>FULL STORY: Getting the most bang for your college buck</p>
<p>The Princeton Review selected the schools based on surveys of administrators and students at more than 650 public and private college and university campuses.</p>
<p>Overall selection criteria included more than 30 factors in three areas: academics, costs and financial aid. Academic ratings were based on student surveys about such issues as professors’ accessibility and class sizes, as well as institutional reports about student-faculty ratios and percent of classes taught by teaching assistants.</p>
<p>The financial aid rating is based on a combination of school-reported data and student surveys. Tuition, room and board, and required fees, as well as book costs and other factors, are included in the financial measurement.</p>
<p>OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS: Financial doors open to applicants that plan ahead</p>
<p>How’d that work out? These are the same people who gave UCSD “professors get low marks” and “class discussions rare” rankings on the website. What does it mean to be “best value” anyways? What’s the criteria?</p>
<p>discussions usually don’t involve class discussions - has your experience been different?</p>
<p>my summary of discussion sections:
college writing classes: participation is graded, thus lots of talking + overinflated egos ensue.
non-college literature classes: participation is sometimes graded, the opinionated ones talk and the rest of us keep our mouths shut and daydream.
science discussion sections: bad TAs read to you from the solutions manual. good TAs go over the main and more-challenging portions of the week’s lectures and provide example problems to help you prepare for exams. students don’t “discuss” unless they have a question, this is precious time!</p>
<ul>
<li>CSE discussion sections: Almost no one shows up. The few people that do are looking for someone to tell them how to write their programs. The TAs, out of pure desperation knowing it’s the only way they can possibly be helpful to these students and feeling an obligation to do <em>something</em> during their discussion section, mostly oblige.</li>
</ul>
<p>I agree, not much discussion goes on at UCSD unless you grab a beer with a professor or go to office hours. (With some their office hours are at the pub, so you can hit two birds with one stone.)</p>
<p>Most econ sections are optional and no one shows up</p>
<p>I gave the incentive that I would reveal what exactly to study for a midterm every week; I also said sections would be short and that I would only cover questions that I got during office hours and emails</p>