PSU ranked #125 universities by Wall Street Journal report

[LurkerLazarus]

40% of freshmen last year were out of state kids, as I recall. We are balancing the budget on the backs of kids who pay full price. I would be willing to bet that because of this, our GPA and SAT numbers are suffering. Those are two values that enter into the metrics.

 

[Aardvark86]

40% of freshmen last year were out of state kids, as I recall. We are balancing the budget on the backs of kids who pay full price. I would be willing to bet that because of this, our GPA and SAT numbers are suffering. Those are two values that enter into the metrics.

Yeah because nonpennsyvanians are stupider. Better yet, it’s probable that the more selective applicant pool is stupider.

 

[Aardvark86]

Penn State is my #1. As for the rest, f*ck everyone.

Well that much is obvious. It’s a fine university. What’s ultimately most important is whether it’s the right one for a particular student.

 

[blion72]

Is that a ranking of worldwide universities or just in the USA? Niche.com rates PSU #17 among all public universities in the USA. US News and World Report has PSU as #14 nationally among public universities and 52nd among all universities.

U.S. College Rankings (Journal Report WSJ) - Fall 2017

this is not a link - an actual paper.

 

[blion72]

Good take. The belief that Penn State is some sort of elite university is misguided. And now more than ever.

I understand that view, but for me the shock was simply where we were put against some of the other schools in PA and BIG schools like tOSU and MSU. i have always thought of us #3 in PA (Penn and CMU are clearly above us), and certainly in the top 5 of BIG. very hard to suggest that you can get a better educational experience at Swarthmore vs PSU.

these ratings services matter because people use them to make decisions. WSJ certainly behind US News, but USN doesn't do the comprehensive rating system like this.

 

[Aardvark86]

I understand that view, but for me the shock was simply where we were put against some of the other schools in PA and BIG schools like tOSU and MSU. i have always thought of us #3 in PA (Penn and CMU are clearly above us), and certainly in the top 5 of BIG. very hard to suggest that you can get a better educational experience at Swarthmore vs PSU.

these ratings services matter because people use them to make decisions. WSJ certainly behind US News, but USN doesn't do the comprehensive rating system like this.

Not hard at all to suggest that, if you accept that a research university and a liberal arts college are different things.

 

[blion72]

Well that much is obvious. It’s a fine university. What’s ultimately most important is whether it’s the right one for a particular student.

when i was an undergrad, i would assume that a good student at say Upper St Clair who applied to PSU and didnt get in, would then move on and apply at Pitt as their backup school. hard to imagine that PSU is the "backup school" for people applying to Villanova, Pitt, Lehigh or Bucknell. seems like PSU has so much more for the $$$ + i thought there were articles about us being a favorite with employers.

 

[Nitwit]

Not hard at all to suggest that, if you accept that a research university and a liberal arts college are different things.

Pennsylvania has a number of great liberal arts colleges, but of course they don’t offer the range of majors of a university. Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell, Swarthmore, F&M, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Dickinson, and Gettysburg are all great colleges if the student is planning to go on to graduate school, med school, or law school as many of them do.

They also benefit by being convenient to N.J. students as N.J. has the largest out migration of college students of any state in the country. My brother, many years ago, was accepted into UPenn but not into Swarthmore just to indicate how selective these schools can be.

 

[Aardvark86]

Pennsylvania has a number of great liberal arts colleges, but of course they don’t offer the range of majors of a university. Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell, Swarthmore, F&M, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Dickinson, and Gettysburg are all great colleges if the student is planning to go on to graduate school, med school, or law school as many of them do.

Precisely though to be clear offering lots of majors is not necessarily what I would view as a key driver for a top schools list.

 

[Big Blue12]

A bit of contradiction to this report by the W$J...

https://www.collegeatlas.org/recruiters-college-picks.html

BTW, we were first in this study the past 5 out of the 6 years it has been done. Not sure why it was not done in 2016. Probably because the W$J got paid by some scUM alum to stop it. This is the only study that matters! Here is the one from 2010...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704554104575435563989873060

 

[PaFootbalGuy]

Pennsylvania has a number of great liberal arts colleges, but of course they don’t offer the range of majors of a university. Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell, Swarthmore, F&M, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Dickinson, and Gettysburg are all great colleges if the student is planning to go on to graduate school, med school, or law school as many of them do.

Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell and Swarthmore have tremendous undergrad engineering programs and some specific business majors. They also offer all of the normal hard science programs. Yes, they won’t have nursing or other majors that can be considered vocational by some, but not all of these kids go to grad school either.

Really the best thing to do is pick your school based on the intended major. No need to go to Haverford if you want to teach 1st grade, unless the economics are doable ( whether through financial aid or just being loaded)

 

[blion72]

Lehigh, Lafayette, Bucknell and Swarthmore have tremendous undergrad engineering programs and some specific business majors. They also offer all of the normal hard science programs. Yes, they won’t have nursing or other majors that can be considered vocational by some, but not all of these kids go to grad school either.

Really the best thing to do is pick your school based on the intended major. No need to go to Haverford if you want to teach 1st grade, unless the economics are doable ( whether through financial aid or just being loaded)

PSU faces alot more in state competition compared to other BIG schools - if you look at the top schools by state:

Ohio - Case Western, tOSU then Miami, OU and UC follow
Indy - ND, Purdue and Indiana
Illinois - IU and NW
Mich - scUM and MSU - rounding errors after that
Wisconsin - UW and then everyone else
Minnesota - Minny and alot of second rate schools
Iowa - Hawks have big lead over Iowa State
Nebraska - only one school
NJ - Princeton and State Univ NJ (aka Rutgers) next
MD - Terps follow Hopkins but who else

bet the residents in most of these states point to their flagship. my brother works around tOSU and he says they dominate the state discussion except Case which is private. this makes the legislature and people of the state proud and pointing to their flagship.

is PSU the PA flagship?

 

[BobPSU92]

PSU faces alot more in state competition compared to other BIG schools - if you look at the top schools by state:

Ohio - Case Western, tOSU then Miami, OU and UC follow
Indy - ND, Purdue and Indiana
Illinois - IU and NW
Mich - scUM and MSU - rounding errors after that
Wisconsin - UW and then everyone else
Minnesota - Minny and alot of second rate schools
Iowa - Hawks have big lead over Iowa State
Nebraska - only one school
NJ - Princeton and State Univ NJ (aka Rutgers) next
MD - Terps follow Hopkins but who else

bet the residents in most of these states point to their flagship. my brother works around tOSU and he says they dominate the state discussion except Case which is private. this makes the legislature and people of the state proud and pointing to their flagship.

is PSU the PA flagship?

Good point. Extending to the rest of the northeast, you have the Ivy League schools (with Penn obviously in-state) and many quality private schools. Penn State isn’t the only show in town, so to speak, and therefore isn’t the default for students and faculty.

 

[PaFootbalGuy]

PSU faces alot more in state competition compared to other BIG schools - if you look at the top schools by state:

Ohio - Case Western, tOSU then Miami, OU and UC follow
Indy - ND, Purdue and Indiana
Illinois - IU and NW
Mich - scUM and MSU - rounding errors after that
Wisconsin - UW and then everyone else
Minnesota - Minny and alot of second rate schools
Iowa - Hawks have big lead over Iowa State
Nebraska - only one school
NJ - Princeton and State Univ NJ (aka Rutgers) next
MD - Terps follow Hopkins but who else

bet the residents in most of these states point to their flagship. my brother works around tOSU and he says they dominate the state discussion except Case which is private. this makes the legislature and people of the state proud and pointing to their flagship.

is PSU the PA flagship?

Ohio has a lot of great liberal arts schools as well with places like Kenyon, Denison and Oberlin.. although OSU is probably not competing very often with those schools.

You’re right though in that many of those Midwest states do not have the plethora of excellent schools that we have in PA, but I will add a few.

Indy- Butler is pretty good. Rose-Hulman is an excellent engineering school.

Illinois- U of Chicago, but agree that is probably the only elite non big 10.

Michigan - a few decent liberal arts colleges but nothing special

Minnesota- Carleton and one or two other elite liberal arts schools, but these places are very small.

Iowa- Grinell is a great school, but also very small. Drake is pretty solid.


Overall I do agree very much. PA has all the schools already mentioned plus places like CMU and Jefferson which haven’t even been discuss. CMU is a good as anybody, and Jefferson is great for healthcare careers. PSU really does have the fiercest in state competition