Do MN really suck that bad?

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Well... I think Minnesota is not what it could be. As a whole, it is a just-above-mediocre flagship public school that is situated in a somewhat high end metropolis.

But we've not turned into the sort of top-notch place we could be. We're not Berkeley or Michigan or UCLA or UVA or Texas or UNC, etc. We've just not had the institutional focus on being a good university. Which is a pity. Because we could be.
 


touchdownvikings said:
Well... I think Minnesota is not what it could be. As a whole, it is a just-above-mediocre flagship public school that is situated in a somewhat high end metropolis.

But we've not turned into the sort of top-notch place we could be. We're not Berkeley or Michigan or UCLA or UVA or Texas or UNC, etc. We've just not had the institutional focus on being a good university. Which is a pity. Because we could be.
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#23 for public universities is not mediocre... I think it's a university with a perception and PR/advertising problem.
 




goldengophers said:
#23 for public universities is not mediocre... I think it's a university with a perception and PR/advertising problem.
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One of the downsides to being associated with great peers is that you can look average or below average compared to them.

Someone is the worst Ivy.



Do you want to be the 7th best house in the best neighborhood or the best house in a terrible neighborhood?
 

Some guy said:
Do you want to be the 7th best house in the best neighborhood or the best house in a terrible neighborhood?
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For sure you want to be the cheapest house in the expensive block!
 



Highly ranked business, engineering, medical, dental schools.
 

From that graphic it really looks like Oregon and Rutgers are the two who don’t belong
 


I saw this graphic posted on the Husky forum and they used it to show that Washington was a much better fit for the B1G than Oregon.
 



PMWinSTP said:
Highly ranked business, engineering, medical, dental schools.
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I mean we’re not looking at the fine details here.
We all know what UMN has to offer but I just didn’t realize we ranked so low in bigger picture in comparison to other original B1G schools aside from the new comer schools!

Man, I hate Michigan football and I knew UMich is a solid University but looking at this source, they’re near the top in all categories!

On a brighter note, Iowa is lower than us in 3 out of 4 categories 😆
 


Yah-E said:
I mean we’re not looking at the fine details here.
We all know what UMN has to offer but I just didn’t realize we ranked so low in bigger picture in comparison to other original B1G schools aside from the new comer schools!

Man, I hate Michigan football and I knew UMich is a solid University but looking at this source, they’re near the top in all categories!

On a brighter note, Iowa is lower than us in 3 out of 4 categories 😆
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The point is the U doesn't "suck bad". It is a great school that has a rich academic and research history with breakthrough accomplishments. Next time you are on campus, take maybe an hour to go down the Scholars Walk.

Part of the rankings looks at acceptance rates. The U chooses to have a higher acceptance rate.
 


PMWinSTP said:
The point is the U doesn't "suck bad". It is a great school that has a rich academic and research history with breakthrough accomplishments. Next time you are on campus, take maybe an hour to go down the Scholars Walk.

Part of the rankings looks at acceptance rates. The U chooses to have a higher acceptance rate.
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I feel that MN is forced to have a higher acceptance rate with the declining student enrollment in the state and stagnant population size. They've done a great job of maintaining enrollment the past decade while most state schools have been hit.
 

goldengophers said:
#23 for public universities is not mediocre... I think it's a university with a perception and PR/advertising problem.
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If there are 50 state flagships, and you are ranked #23.... You're just above mediocre.

I don't agree that "we suck." It's just that we're not Michigan or Berkeley or UCLA or UVA or UNC or Texas. We could be. But we don't have the institutional mandate of being elite. Which is a pity.
 


touchdownvikings said:
If there are 50 state flagships, and you are ranked #23.... You're just above mediocre.

I don't agree that "we suck." It's just that we're not Michigan or Berkeley or UCLA or UVA or UNC or Texas. We could be. But we don't have the institutional mandate of being elite. Which is a pity.
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California has 6 in the top 10, this thread has me concerned about Gopherholers.
 


touchdownvikings said:
But we don't have the institutional mandate of being elite. Which is a pity.
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I always have mixed feelings about those things. Certainly there should be opportunities for folks who are excelling academically to have a place to continue to do so.

At the same time we need an educated workforce and just focusing on educating a small group who excel just academically (sometimes not really applicable to the rest of life) ... I don't know if that really is doing a huge amount of good.

There's also the issue where institutions filter out all the best students and they do well and the institution is praised. But doing well with the best is no surprise and I wonder how your really quantify "we made them better" vs "this was probably the outcome for these people anyway...".

Now would i go to such a place and reap all the benefits, you bet, even if just to be surrounded by folks willing to try and work hard ... but ... I just don't know if the institution itself is doing that much for everyone, or if it does everyone good to have a whole university chasing those kinds of academic metrics ... and academic metrics and all the BS that surrounds them is something else too.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I don’t see any “suck bad” in that infographic.
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Agreed, I see the U as mid level in those 4 chosen metrics among a list of the most prestigious major universities in the USA.

If they had picked something like conference championships or national championships instead of weeks AP ranked to measure football history, the Gophers would be mid or upper tier at everything.

Oregon, Nebraska, and Iowa are all a little iffy
 

fmlizard said:
Agreed, I see the U as mid level in those 4 chosen metrics among a list of the most prestigious major universities in the USA.
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I'd still have to look at the criteria the USN, SR and WSJ use to rank universities. That one seems like it it more geared to undergraduate education and the research spending applies to graduate school IMO. I know that people like to see rankings, but I don't think that as presented they mean all that much, the schools listed are all good ones. History shows that those lists do not change much from year to year for at least the last 40 years.
 


denguegopher said:
I'd still have to look at the criteria the USN, SR and WSJ use to rank universities. That one seems like it it more geared to undergraduate education and the research spending applies to graduate school IMO. I know that people like to see rankings, but I don't think that as presented they mean all that much, the schools listed are all good ones. History shows that those lists do not change much from year to year for at least the last 40 years.
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Whichever school charges in-state tuition should get a massive bump in anyone's personal rankings of universities.

Unless you can get into and pay for one of those ~10 prestige private schools that can open doors and create connections throughout life, the very next best school is paying in-state tuition to attend your state's flagship public university.

All of the schools on this list are quality and you will get out of them what you put in.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
I always have mixed feelings about those things. Certainly there should be opportunities for folks who are excelling academically to have a place to continue to do so.

At the same time we need an educated workforce and just focusing on educating a small group who excel just academically (sometimes not really applicable to the rest of life) ... I don't know if that really is doing a huge amount of good.

There's also the issue where institutions filter out all the best students and they do well and the institution is praised. But doing well with the best is no surprise and I wonder how your really quantify "we made them better" vs "this was probably the outcome for these people anyway...".

Now would i go to such a place and reap all the benefits, you bet, even if just to be surrounded by folks willing to try and work hard ... but ... I just don't know if the institution itself is doing that much for everyone, or if it does everyone good to have a whole university chasing those kinds of academic metrics ... and academic metrics and all the BS that surrounds them is something else too.
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Agree.

But, this goes to my point: the mandate for the U of MN has never been to be top-notch. So it's not. if you have a kid that wants to break into the top echelons, you send him/her elsewhere. (Not saying it's impossible from UMN, but saying it's swimming upstream.). That's what I did with my kid. I sent him to UMich. Even though I love UMN. They're just in different stratospheres. Which is horrible, because we could be in UMich's stratosphere, if that were the mandate. But it's never been the mandate, and so we're not.
 

touchdownvikings said:
Agree.

But, this goes to my point: the mandate for the U of MN has never been to be top-notch. So it's not. if you have a kid that wants to break into the top echelons, you send him/her elsewhere. (Not saying it's impossible from UMN, but saying it's swimming upstream.). That's what I did with my kid. I sent him to UMich. Even though I love UMN. They're just in different stratospheres. Which is horrible, because we could be in UMich's stratosphere, if that were the mandate. But it's never been the mandate, and so we're not.
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Depends on the college and what you are doing too.

Carlson seems highly thought of.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Depends on the college and what you are doing too.

Carlson seems highly thought of.
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Not really.

Try using that pedigree to go to the top Wall Street firms or the top management consulting firms (MBB), and so on. The reality is, Carlson is not Ross, for example. Not even close. Carlson is good, but far from great. And the kids who go to Ross would never go to Carlson. And the terrible part of all of this is that we created this situation. We could be top-notch. But we chose not to be. And there's almost nothing where we're truly top-notch. We're just not UMich or Berkeley, and WE COULD HAVE BEEN. That's on us. And now we pay to send our kids elsewhere. ...Hell, I had to pay to send myself to a law school that was good. No fun on that front!
 

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