UW Madison: The most elite non-elite school?

[skieurope]

To quite Dr. Leonard McCoy in Star Trek: The Original Series, “He’s dead, Jim.”

Repetitive threads are not allowed; this is the OP’s 4th:

Academic Reputation of UW Madison

Hello Everyone! I have a question about the reputation of UW Madison. My basic concern is as to whether is it a good public university or not. I am a new student at UW Madison and I chose it over another good public university, Umich, largely because Umich was more expensive. I also thought that UW Madison was very comparable academically and especially for my major (economics). However, I’ve always been concerned about UW Madison’s reputation as a party school and how that will affect my job prospects/graduate school choices (I want to get an Econ PhD). When I ask people on the street and people on reddit, they hold Umich in much higher esteem than Madison. Everyone I met automatically assumes that everyone who goes to Umich must be necessarily smarter than Madison. This makes me feel tremendous regret for choosing UW Madison over Umich, despite the massive difference in price. After all, if everyone I know thinks that way, won’t hiring managers think that way too? It’s all just so co…

UW Madison Acceptance Rate

Hello Everyone! Some of you might remember me as the guy who felt bad about not choosing Michigan over Wisconsin for my high school college decision. However, after looking through the responses and doing my own research, I can confidently say that I no longer have such anxiety, at least in regards to academic quality. UW seems and even more stellar state school than I thought, and its Econ department specifically is a power house (something I wished I realized earlier). This seems to hold for almost any major I can think of/am interested in. I know somebody replied to my thread saying an Econ PHD hopeful should major in math (which I am aware of) and I feel very lucky that UW had a stellar math department, with professors like Jordan Ellenberg. But, if I am so happy, why am I posting? Well, my last and final gripe/question about the institution is its acceptance rate, which I believe “holds down” the prestige of the institution and made me initially think that UW is not a peer of sch…

Why is UW Madison not considered a Public Ivy?

On the original list of public ivies, UW Madison was not included, while schools like UVermont and Miami University were. No offense to those schools, but doesn’t that seem a bit illogical, given UW Madison’s department rankings and graduation rate (especially at the time). Additionally, schools like Texas and UNC were on the list, which were considered Wisconsin’s peer at the time but somehow Wisc didn’t make the cut. Does anyone know why? This seems to adversely affect the school’s reputation, I’ve seen students frown about saying they to UW Madison, saying “yeah, it’s almost a public ivy, but not really”. I think this really hurts the school’s ability to attract student. It doesn’t matter how good your academic strengths are, if you don’t have the reputation to match it. And since this"public ivy list" has come out, most students and employers (not academics) consider schools like UNC and Texas a tier higher than UW Madison. This is evident in the low yield for UW, and the poor job …

There’s nothing new to add, and apparently nothing that will change the OP’s mind. Closing. No new threads by the OP on the topic are allowed