US News 2017 rankings

IzzoOne
Sun, 27 Nov 2016 13:01:13 +0000

Trying to rank all universities by the same criteria makes about as much sense as evaluating all vehicles (trucks, motorcycles, sports cars, SUV, etc. and trucks) by the same set of criteria. (I think Malcolm Gladwell made this point.) For the person who said Berkeley and Michigan are the best, I might agree if the criteria was strength across the board for undergraduate, graduate, professional (although Berkeley lacks a directly controllled medical school [UCSF is nearby]), and research. But we don’t go to a university to do all of these things. We can go as an undergraduate with no clear idea of what we want to do. We can go with a clear idea that we want to do engineering. There are many possibilities.

If you think you would be interested in an undergraduate experience that that is similar to a private LAC, William and Mary may certainly be a much, much better match than Berkeley or Michigan. If you are from Georgia and are interesting in engineering, Georgia Tech is spectacular. If you are a good student from Texas and you are admitted to the business school or honors program at the University of Texas, would it really make sense to go to Berkeley or Michigan out of state unless there was another really compelling reason?