Why I'm proud to be a BYU grad.

[Solon]

BYU's one great failing is the whole religion thing.

Funny troll, Sooner. If you want to include "Academic Freedom" in the religion category, I'm on board with this assessment (although there are religious schools with academic freedom out there. Just not Mormon religious schools).

[SeattleUte]

BYU leads Utah because the legislature requires Utah to relax its standards for instate applicants. If Utah were even like UW in terms of ability to set numerical admissions standards, it would be ahead of BYU. You can't compare private and public schools, and in fact no. 71 for a private school is not so hot. I'd still like to know how BYU moved up 35+ places in one year. Everyone knows this ranking is dubious. The other thing is this only addresses undergraduate part of a university, the "colleges," not overall academic reputation including research, or reputation in any individual graduate school, etc.

[ERCougar]

Having taken undergrad classes at both, I'll say there is a huge difference between the two. That's not to say you can't get a good education at Utah, but the lowest common denominator at BYU is much more competitive than the LCD at Utah, and I'm a firm believer that half of your education comes from those around you. I don't have the statistics on grad school and job market possibilities but I would suspect that BYU would outperform Utah here as well. My biggest problem with Utah is that it's a commuter school. All loyalties aside, I would honestly rather have my kids go to USU than Utah for this reason.

I do think there are problems with a university that won't display Rodin and where academic freedom is so limited. If this doesn't change, I'm not sure I'll encourage my kids to go to BYU. But I sure won't steer them to Utah.

[ERCougar]

BYU leads Utah because the legislature requires Utah to relax its standards for instate applicants. If Utah were even like UW in terms of ability to set numerical admissions standards, it would be ahead of BYU. You can't compare private and public schools, and in fact no. 71 for a private school is not so hot. I'd still like to know how BYU moved up 35+ places in one year. Everyone knows this ranking is dubious. The other thing is this only addresses undergraduate part of a university, the "colleges," not overall academic reputation including research, etc.

I'm not sure why there was such a move this year, but I know that in the past, BYU has really been hurt by 4 yr graduation percentages on these rankings. Maybe they're starting to take that into account.

[Solon]

I'd still like to know how BYU moved up 35+ places in one year. Everyone knows this ranking is dubious.

the same way Wynn gained 55 pounds in 8 months. Steroids and other forms of cheating.

[Pheidippides]

I'm a firm believer that half of your education comes from those around you.

I agree with this - and it points to the one issue that I have with BYU: it's not diverse enough.

<Donut and falafel turn away>

And it is most obvious in the law school. I have quite a few connections at BYU law and have sat in some of the first year courses for fun. I was utterly shocked at how one-sided the debates were. People spewing out ideas with little backing because there was nobody to challenge them (even though they thought there was). I brought this up with the professor after class and he not only admitted as much, but said it was his major knock on the school as well.

Disclaimer: I do not intend for this to read as though I am sad I went to BYU undergrad (I am not) or that I think BYU law school is crap (I applied there too).

[Mormon Red Death]

Having taken undergrad classes at both, I'll say there is a huge difference between the two. That's not to say you can't get a good education at Utah, but the lowest common denominator at BYU is much more competitive than the LCD at Utah, and I'm a firm believer that half of your education comes from those around you. I don't have the statistics on grad school and job market possibilities but I would suspect that BYU would outperform Utah here as well. My biggest problem with Utah is that it's a commuter school. All loyalties aside, I would honestly rather have my kids go to USU than Utah for this reason.

I do think there are problems with a university that won't display Rodin and where academic freedom is so limited. If this doesn't change, I'm not sure I'll encourage my kids to go to BYU. But I sure won't steer them to Utah.

Souther Utah University will be there... So will UNLV

[SoonerCoug]

Link? last I checked BYU was 100+ on that list. Did somebody get bought off?

I think it might have something to do with the fact that BYU has decided to give USNews details about the endowment: $868,059,038

[ERCougar]

I agree with this - and it points to the one issue that I have with BYU: it's not diverse enough.

<Donut and falafel turn away>

And it is most obvious in the law school. I have quite a few connections at BYU law and have sat in some of the first year courses for fun. I was utterly shocked at how one-sided the debates were. People spewing out ideas with little backing because there was nobody to challenge them (even though they thought there was). I brought this up with the professor after class and he not only admitted as much, but said it was his major knock on the school as well.

Disclaimer: I do not intend for this to read as though I am sad I went to BYU undergrad (I am not) or that I think BYU law school is crap (I applied there too).

I can mostly agree with this concern, although BYU, being a school of 30K, is more diverse than most give it credit for. I'm not sure Utah can pile up high points for diversity in comparison. I wonder if the lack of diversity of ideas stems from the academic freedom concerns--students don't discuss different ideas because professors don't bring them up. Point still stands though.

[ERCougar]

Souther Utah University will be there... So will UNLV

I'm not sure I understand your point, but SUU is less of a commuter school than Utah is, if that's what you're trying to say. Cedar City's not big enough to fill SUU with students.

[DU Ute]

I think it might have something to do with the fact that BYU has decided to give USNews details about the endowment: $868,059,038

I'd like to think that if I gave details about my endowment my ranking would rise as well.

[Mormon Red Death]

I'm not sure I understand your point, but SUU is less of a commuter school than Utah is, if that's what you're trying to say. Cedar City's not big enough to fill SUU with students.

I'm just busting your chops.

[SeattleUte]

I think it might have something to do with the fact that BYU has decided to give USNews details about the endowment: $868,059,038

That is not a big endowment for a school BYU's size.

[Mormon Red Death]

I don't have the statistics on grad school and job market possibilities but I would suspect that BYU would outperform Utah here as well.

Where can we get this info? I tried google and there was nothing Any ideas? My bet would that the difference would not be negligible.

[Pheidippides]

I can mostly agree with this concern, although BYU, being a school of 30K, is more diverse than most give it credit for. I'm not sure Utah can pile up high points for diversity in comparison. I wonder if the lack of diversity of ideas stems from the academic freedom concerns--students don't discuss different ideas because professors don't bring them up. Point still stands though.

I'm not sure Utah can either, frankly, and I suspect it's a problem at more than just BYU and Utah. To be sure, though, BYU is overwhelmingly white, middle-class (or more) and Republican (the religious stuff goes without saying, of course). And I had some serious learning to do when I had to discuss ideas, debate, and generally associate with people who did not share my background. While I would not say that my ideas changed all that much (although some did, to be sure), the exercise of debating and trying to understand - and becoming friends with a bisexual African-American originally from a severely underprivileged neighborhood riddled with drugs and from a single-parent home (to use a very extreme example) made me a more considerate human being, and contributed to my education greatly.