Interesting opinion piece in the Daily Cougar. You may have seen UH congratulating itself as a Tier One university on billboards around town. But what does that really mean? http://thedailycougar.com/2011/09/20/tier-what/ In summary, while there is no official standard for Tier One, the most popular is US News where UH is unranked.
I would argue that popularity shouldn't be the measure we use to judge whether a university is Tier 1. The claim that UH makes is that it is in the top echelon of research universities recognized by the Carnegie Institute. In fact, the suggested line for email signatures is "A Carnegie-designated Tier One public research university," so I don't see how the institution is distorting anything. In fact, in high level planning meetings, the areas where UH is not a Tier 1 university are focused on far more than the Carnegie designation. Everyone who works in E. Cullen recognizes that Carnegie was a nice first step, but there is a long way to go until UH is truly "Tier 1." The one real statistic that the author of this piece put out there is the 46% 6 year graduation rate, which has been trending upwards. In addition, one of the leading indicators of this number, student retention rate, has been steadily going up during Dr. Khator's tenure. IOW, there hasn't been any distortion at all. UH has been touting its successes, as any organization would, while working to address its shortcomings, also common practice in organizations that seek to improve.
I like that article, I further like the UH alumni and students getting on there to chastise the guy's article. I'm sorry, but UH is simply not a school you can go up to New York and name drop it and think anyone will take your application over someone else. Sam Houston State is also a Carnegie Research institution.
I'm not even being sarcastic or typical alumnus detractor here; but, just like John Jenkins' comeuppance, the fact that U of H students exposed this is exactly what makes this school work.
It sounds like this guy is pissed off that some people aren't able to comprehend what the University says about itself. I've not seen anything publicized from UH from a PR standpoint that isn't true.
Sam Houston State is not in the top tier of public research schools according to Carnegie. There are only three public schools (UH, UT, and A&M) and one private school (Rice) in Texas with that ranking.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sam-Houston-State-University/112339012115068 facts would say you're wrong there sweetheart.
http://www.google.com/#q=sam+housto...gc.r_pw.&fp=94458c7d4a23e13a&biw=1024&bih=653 Even their own website headline says they are. I hate spoon feeding people information readily available with a 10 second search.
Do you live in NY? Have you ever? You seem to not know what tier 1 means. Also, in some sciences and in writing, UH does have a good national reputation. As far as "name dropping" in NY, using your criteria only Rice in the state of Texas can do that.
I'm not r****ded, that's pretty much the only answer to that question that should suffice. UH is not a school anyone outside of south Texas gives a **** about. That's reality, you can argue that, but it's a losing battle.
UH is ranked by Carnegie as a school with "very high research activity," which is what is colloquially referred to as "Tier 1." You pointed out that SHS is on the Carnegie list as a research university, not that it is Tier 1. I hate spoon feeding information that is accessible by searching Google for 10 seconds and then actually reading the information researched. Find SHS on this list, sport.
Don't know if you bothered reading what you linked, but you are wrong... http://www.uh.edu/about/tier-one/ http://www.provost.msstate.edu/pdfs/peer_research_universities.pdf List of all Very High Research Universities (highest ranking) SHSU's classification (look under Basic Classification) U of H's classification tl;dr UT, A&M, UH and Rice are the ONLY Texas institutions with the top research ranking. SHSU only qualifies as doing Doctoral Research.
UH is obsessed with gaining Tier one status, as long as they keep improving their university who cares what they market themselves as. Additionally, I highly doubt that any prospective student who decides where to go to school decides based on what tier the school belongs to. There are three main types of students 1. Prestige/high achievers, they care about rank, but we're talking top 25 or so schools here, anything after that they are not interested in attending. 2. Above average intellectuals who attend schools in the 25-75 range, usually those people look at major specific rankings and make their decision. 3. The others. Basically, if you fall in category 3, you don't make decisions based on tier one or tier two status. I mean if you are attending schools that are ranked 75 and higher, do you really care about rank at all? You are most likely making your decision based on other factors anyway. The only thing UH branding itself as tier one does is make those students already attending feel better, which is fine.
If you don't go to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, etc does it really matter where you go to. Even rice is not considered a top tier school to most people.
