re: Why are the Dumbest SEC schools all in the West?

That list is even worse than US News and World Report. Just look at all the schools they have even with or ahead of Notre Dame

I found that odd too

eta: However, price is one of the biggest fallacies in higher education. Many people assume a higher price tag means a better education. Not true

Apparently the firms doing these rankings believe so.

And to think, Mizzu wanted to go to the Big 10 for academic prestige

US News just sends a survey to all university administrators and asks them to rank the schools.

UF's president ranked UF top in all categories (undeservedly). This is what the rankings are made of

I love this.

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The University of Miami is ranked 47 over UF, Ut-Austin, UMaryland, Etc.. which is basically a joke.

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Shhhh.... don't be mad.

I'm just going to say this once and for all, and, yes, I'm speaking as a Vandy grad:

For the most part, educational rankings are pointless. While I don't dispute the assertion that some schools are (semi-)objectively better than others, the quality of education you will get at your average major university differs from that of any random peer university only to a degree that most people never actually have to worry about unless and until they enter into much more specialized areas of study than most people ever reach. Any core education that doesn't require specialized resources, for instance, is going to be fairly uniform. The essentials of probability density functions, Byronic poetry, endocrinology, Restoration-era polemics, and Pig Latin 202 are not going to be dramatically different when taught at Vanderbilt than when taught at Mississippi State.

Granted, when you start looking at more specialized disciplines, the separation becomes more marked, which is why lots of schools are known for certain specialties. Even so, a considerable percentage of this reputation rests as much on image and preconceptions as on verifiable qualitative differences. As I said, the differences do exist...just not to the degree that the pundits and media analysts would have people believe. Frequently, they're essentially financial -- if a given school has more money, it can afford better resources and pay for more experienced/qualified faculty (a distinction that means a lot more in research/practical application than in teaching, so your average undergrad won't be exposed to the distinction nearly as often as your average PhD candidate. And there are a helluva lot more undergrads than PhD candidates.)

Admission standards obviously play a part in most of these rankings. To the extent that being surrounded by more intelligent or accomplished people tends to foster an environment more conducive to learning (or application of the same), this is a reasonably valid criterion. But it says absolutely nothing about the actual quality of the education you do receive. If I take Rocks for Jocks at school A and learn how to identify pyrite by touch, smell, and sexual function, I'm not actually getting a better education than I would learning the same thing at school B regardless of how high my classmates scored on their SAT/ACT/What-Twilight-Vampire-Are-You?-Internet-Quiz.

I know there are some who will disagree strenuously with me, and most of those some are going to be from universities that rank high in the various metrics. That's fine. Nothing wrong with being proud of graduating from a highly-regarded school. But I can honestly say that, while I'm proud of graduating from Vandy (and UNC, for that matter), I've never seen any valid rationale for anyone to look down on someone who graduated from any of the perfectly good SEC schools "ranked" lower than Vandy. If anything, your pride should begin the day you get your acceptance letter, because meeting the standards to get into [insert university name here] is difficult, and end the day you enroll in your first class, because now you're just another dumb-assed freshman being exposed to the college-level learning for the first time...like every other damned college freshman in the conference.

I see you using Aristotle's Appeals

In all seriousness,

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I see you using Aristotle's Appeals

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I was descending into a logical fallacy, I know, but I figured an SEC edumacation wouldn't teach y'all to know no different anyhow.


Besides, I'm a Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite man. Aristotle was just too obsessed with bad science and not obsessed enough with cool names like "Dionysius the Areopagite."