You can access all the lists here.
But our favorite lists Presto's school...wheeeee...and it's not even the "Schools With the Most Gratuitous Nudity."
- SUNY at Binghamton
- University of Florida
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
- University of Maryland-College Park
- University of California-San Diego
- Northeastern University
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
- The College of New Jersey
Well, it doesn't look like stealing Princeton's old name has done the College of New Jersey (aka Trenton State College) much good. Princeton is on the "most rigorous" list; the College of New Jersey on the "least rigorous" one.
ReplyDeleteBut the methodology is definitely questionable. 25% of the rigorous/not rigorous judgment is based on data from The Site That Shall Not Be Named, with analysis by the folks at the Center for College Affordability and Productivity (who, if I'm remembering correctly, had a hand in some of the recent efforts to measure professor "productivity" that favored research grants and large classes, and seemed to ignore TA labor entirely). And another 10% is based on a comparison of SAT scores and the first-year retention rate, which to my mind may be as likely to measure degree of student privilege (or, in the case of a few elite schools with need-blind aid, generosity of financial aid) as rigor.
Neither Drinker's College nor Northeastern Ghetto Tech are on the list....the whole thing skews toward the Ivys and the private universities.
ReplyDeleteAlso, UCSD is not a grind factory? Fuck them.
My schools did not make the list. I don't know if this is a good thing or a sad thing--sad for my bookish, wasted (and now distant) youth, that is.
ReplyDeleteYeah, UC San Diego made the list but not UC Santa Barbara?
ReplyDeleteLet alone UC Santa Cruz, a leader in courses like "Dialectics in Punk Cinema".
ReplyDeleteNumbers 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 are all solid-to-good state universities with good reputations, right? Did they just do R1s? I'll put my money on Chico State, Western State ("Wasted State") in Colorado, and any number of other R2s or non-selective SLACs.
ReplyDeleteMy school's among the top ten most rigorous, according to the Newsweek list. It's been the major topic of discussion on campus lately, with the points of view being split between students and faculty feeling validated by finding out that we really are that difficult and students wondering how much of the list is a result of how much we whine about being that difficult. That said, grade inflation here is outright discouraged- we've been told by our professors that the administration actually threatens them if they use it. I've taken classes at a state school back home and handed in papers of similar qualities to the ones I've handed in here. Here, the papers will get Bs or Cs, but at the state school, they get As.
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