<p>Why? (blah)</p>
<p>AcceptedToCollegeAlready, say what you’re saying is true (and I think that it largely is). Its consequences are broad, but not all encompasing. How about quality of professors? Does the students school’s accept affect professorial quality? Resources available? Are the best schools the best because they attract and start with the best students?</p>
<p>I just think that there isn’t enough research being conducted at those schools to put them in the other classification. I mean, is there anything “quasi-Lac” or “LAC-LIKE” about BMC or Wesleyan? They are LACs, through and through!</p>
<p>The non-LAC like thing would be the granting of PhDs. Other than that (and the consequences of it), I guess not so much- but I wouldn’t know, as I’ve never been or read that much about the various schools.</p>
<p>How about quality of professors? Does the students school’s accept affect professorial quality? Resources available? Are the best schools the best because they attract and start with the best students?</p>
<p>Nobody can deny that a powerful student body is the MOST important part of a college. Why do top recruiters recruit at Harvard? Because Harvard HAS the best students. </p>
<p>If you replaced Harvard’s students with a community college’s students, do you think Goldman Sachs will still hire there? No, they will move on to Princeton/Yale, etc. </p>
<p>Top professors count, but have you been a tutor? Not even the best SAT tutor can guarantee a 2000+ to some students. Is it the tutor’s fault? No. </p>
<p>Best faculty usually correlates with best students. You can have the best faculty but if you are not admitting the best students (publics) then you have some problems (inefficiency). </p>
<p>The “invisible” hand is perhaps the most powerful force in contemporary free markets and it applies to colleges and other corporations. </p>
<p>Simply put, any economist can tell you that a free market system (Private school) that looks out for solely for its own interests are more efficient and do better than say, communist-socialist like systems that give special preferences over some “unqualified” students (Public school).</p>
<p>That is why MOST TIMES Private > Public.</p>
<p>Accepted, I have some problems with your post. Have you seen the poll thread on this site? Many people didn’t vote for “strength of student body” as most important factor. I’m not so sure if the best Harvard students are any more capable as the best Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, U Mich, ect students at doing whatever Goldman Sachs wants. One thing that comes along with hiring Harvard grads is the ability to say “we have many Harvard graduates working for us.” What does this do? Well, ask Sakky, he’ll tell you about branding and information. What do you mean by “best” faculty? Teachers, reserachers, both? “Best” students? Those most able to accomplish tasks set by the profs? I wonder how quickly ranking systems would adjust if Harvard’s student body were replaced with poor students. Would the teaching or resources change, though?</p>
<p>I’m talking about what makes a top university a top university. Not a poll about why kids want to go to college.</p>
<p>Big difference there.</p>
<p>You get my point you are just picking hairs. When I say Harvard I mean Harvard caliber. That is why I picked a community college as a comparison. </p>
<p>Though you can artifically inflate Harvard for a while, you can’t deny how fast recruiters and top students alike would “boycott” Harvard if its student body was all Community College students. </p>
<p>Money matters and so do professors but these things are strongly correlated with a high caliber student body and a high caliber school.</p>
<p>If you want to be a trillionaire and start your own college and admit idiots while hiring the best faculty, you can be nobody will be thinking highly of your college. Olin does well because they hire good faculty AS WELL as take top students. </p>
<p>Nothing comes second to good students in colleges.</p>
<p>So, what makes a top university a top university is a poll of kids who have grown up and have already been to college. Fine, then, I agree with that. </p>
<p>I agree with your assesment that private universities tend to have stronger students on average when compared to the average public school student. And I guess if you think that student body is the most important factor, based on that private is nearly always better than public.</p>
<p>I nominate acceptedtocollegealready for best (most) use of quotation marks and parenthesis. A regular david foster wallace jr.</p>
<p>Hahaha. I really hate the fact that if we were discussing this in real life, I could probably be 2 to 3 times more effective and pursuasive. My overuse is just a way of rectifying this online flaw in being as clear and succinct as possible :)</p>
<p>I know what you mean. I’m just kidding around and I’m certainly not talking “crap” (really):)</p>
<p>ACA, the quality of the student body is certainly important, but it is not the determining quality of a great university. The foundation of any great university (not LAC mind you…LACs have different charters and as such, different criteria of excellence) is made up of the same components. </p>
<p>1) A world-class faculty
2) Amazing course-offerings/curriculae
3) An affluent, influential and loyal alumni base
4) Serious academic expectations/good preparation of students for the workplace/graduate school
5) A wealth of resources availlable to the faculty and students</p>
<p>To be sure, a great university MUST have great students. However, whether 90% of a university’s students are brilliant or merely 50% doesn’t alter the foundation…it merely embelishes the edifice.</p>
<p>LOL Gentleman. Not quite…he doesn’t have the lengthy footnotes. :p</p>
<p>Saying the students make the college is like saying the patients make the hospital.<br>
To put a different spin on one example, what if all the Harvard admits decided to go to Bellevue Community College. Does that automatically make BCC a great college?</p>
<p>Not a fair example. Also, its not just the students, its what having such strong students creates over time. the contacts these people have made in life, the quality of the network, the ability of the school to connect with its students. Not to mention the size of the top schools. They allow a much stronger tighter network. Today, I got a call from the alumni office because my mail bounced back since I forgot to tell them my change of address. Sounds awful, but Maserati and Bentley are the most advertised cars in the Dartmouth alumni magazine, and its for a reason. And the students who go into less lucrative fields also have top networks in those areas. Not to mention the more focused learning that goes on at the top schools. My brother goes to a top 5 state school that is better than Wisconsin, and he has no problem admitting the troubles he has getting the classes he wants or the number of T/As. Finally, the educated general public does know the Ivies, but Wisconsin is just another school with a basketball team. No one ever says “wow, you went to wisconsin,” except people from Madison who have never been on an airplane.</p>
<p>If you represent the educated public we are in deep trouble.
Wisconsin ties Harvard for most CEO’s
Wisconsin leads the world in stem cell research
Wisconsin picked in the top 5 universities by INC magazine for technology development.
Wisconsin 80 National Academies members (Dartmouth-??)
Wisconsin leads all state schools in major faculty awards (Guggenheims etc) and second overall after Harvard and tied with Stanford (Dartmouth??)
Wisconsin #2 in total research funding in the US.
Wisconsin #2 in total fundraising–all schools</p>
<p>Obviously some smart people think UW has some pretty good people and resources.</p>
<p>Yeah, its a great grad school. As for CEOs, its largely due to the sheer number of companies in the midwest and a recent trend for Ivy grads in the last 20-30 years to go into consulting/ banking as opposed to entering direct industry.</p>
<p>With all due respect barrons, you’re comparing a MASSIVE research uni like Wisconsin to Harvard and Dartmouth. On a per capita basis, there is no comparison.</p>
<p>“Saying the students make the college is like saying the patients make the hospital”</p>
<p>I seriously lost all respect and hope for an intelligent conversation with you with that erroneous and laughable analogy.</p>
<p>That analogy came from one of the leading writers on colleges. </p>
<p>Compared to other state schools UW is still on top. I was not really saying that it is the same as Harvard–but it does compete well with any state school in most measurable ways. That was really my point.</p>
<p>Slipper “forgot” that I totally disproved his little theory that most of the UW CEO’s were in the midwest. He should be embarrassed.</p>