Rice is a top tier school and not only the best school in Texas, but probably the best school in the whole South. Their baseball program is phenomenal and a great statement for such a small school. All Houstonians should be proud of this institution
link please. UT isn't better than Rice than anything other than three general categories; sluts, jocks or volume.
I think Duke, William & Mary and UVA are competitors for that crown; but best school in second biggest state certainly puts it in the running.
William & Mary?! by that other guy's standards, I think they'd be like 5th tier For southern schools, I'd probably put Duke first, then Rice 2nd (not that I'm biased or anything ), but like I alluded to in my other post, on the whole, there's really nothing that makes one of the schools mentioned better than the others (unless you're looking at a particular program).
Who are these people that don't consider all ivies in the top tier? Brown University, Columbia University, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Harvard University, Princeton University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Yale University - Which one isn't top tier? Cornell? UPenn? Brown? How many tiers does YOUR system have? You listed 9 schools in your top tier! 9! Apparently top tier doesn't even mean top 10 for you! How many tiers of universities do you think there are? 50? 100? At that point your distinctions really become ridiculous. Strangely, in your list of 1a schools you list UVA (which is ranked 7 spots lower than Rice in US News), Berkley (which is ranked 4 spots lower the Rice in US News), Emory (which is tied with Rice in US News), and Brown (which is one rank above Rice in US News). Yet, somehow Rice doesn't even make your 1a list. I'm not sure what the hammer test is, but yes I stick by my statement. But, I'll clarify it more for you. In every ranking of undergraduate institutions (when judging a school academically) as a whole, Rice is always in the top 20. I'm not parsing it out to individual programs, but as a whole, it is in the top 20. Which is most definitely top tier.
I imagine when you're trying to get a great internship or a well-paying or interesting entry-level job without any experience, Ivies are probably the way to go. But I never hear anything special about Cornell or, outside of their business programs, Pennsylvania. As someone who went to an orientation at Lamar University, I can tell you sir, without question, there are in fact at least 50 tiers of schools in this country.
but aren't there like 2500-3000 colleges and universities in the US? I only went to Rice, so I can't really figure out how many schools that would be per tier, but I'm guessing it's more than 9. Maybe one of you tier 1 or UT business/engineering grads can do the calculations for me. but seriously, I don't think the poster that made the original "tier" comment was speaking in technical terms. I agree that when people think of the top schools in the country, Rice isn't in the conversation, but to say Rice wasn't in the same class as his "1a" schools was wrong, imo.
Practically, it is a proxy for: would you swear over your mother's grave that you are absolutely right? Over in wall st, the hammer test quite literally means that for every mistake we find with your work/argument, we get to strike you once with your hammer. I can tell you right now that your statement wouldn't pass the test. Quite frankly, your statement is a sweeping generalization in which all I have to do is find one contradictory example to disprove it. If you phrased your statement instead like: most rankings have Rice in the top twenty...etc., it would be a much easier position to defend. I do believe we are arguing about different matters. It seems you are arguing about the "quality" of education, which is in itself a very difficult term to define. I am talking about something much more easily measured, namely how easy it is to successfully land positions in extremely prestigious jobs, research positions, and graduate studies from those schools. There are actually only 3 tiers in this system: The top tier, 2nd tier, and all the rest. This is quite literally how most companies and graduate schools rank students when they apply. Students from the top tier schools automatically have a much higher chance of landing the more presitgious positions initially. I have had classmates who went into bulge bracket wall street banks that were art history and english majors, physics and econ majors go on to Harvard med, as well as math majors who are currently in Yale Law. To put it simply, true top tier schools are ones where students can easilty be placed into positions they want afterwards and their choice of studies are not that important. Tier 1a schools are close, but the choice of majors becomes very important. As an example, an art history major from a tier1a school will have a much harder time placing into Wall St, than from a tier 1 school, but the econ or business major will basically have the same chances as their peers in the top schools. All tier 1 schools have precedence over tier 2 and lower schools...etc. *As a side note, this does not reflect how I think these choices should or should not be made. Instead, I am just stating an observation of what actually goes on and giving yall a perspective from the other side of the fence.
The irony of this statement is that you find it difficult to define "quality of education", yet you find it easy to define "extremely prestigious jobs, research positions, and graduate studies." You are tying to come off as someone with a very set and clearly defined set of tiers, but in actuality you are using a very subjective measure. As another poster said, US News may not be the end all be all but at least it has a formula (and it also happens to be the most commonly used ranking). You are relying on your own definition of extremely prestigious and apparently anecdotal evidence. Sorry, but you don't seem to pass the "hammer test."
Did. Didn't see it. In the link I PROVIDED, Rice specifies subsets of Engineering programs like bioengineering, chemical engineering, computer engineering and environmental engineering. There's gotta be like 8,000 types of engineers. To say UT is better at engineering is ....vague. Not unlike your definition of "Very Prestigious jobs". lol Until proven otherwise, I'm gonna stick with Rice has a better engineering program.
Speaking of quality of education... http://www.dailytexanonline.com/opinion/law-students-need-a-practical-education-1.2180980
