More Texas Recruitement Info

[breathesgelatin]

Interesting about the Forbes list! I would have probably put UTSA as the top UT system school, not UTEP. But I don't really know a whole lot about all that - just basing it on what others have told me about the prestige of various schools. I'm not a Texas native so I don't know it from a college application perspective like I do NC schools.

209 University of Dallas
215 University of Texas, Austin
243 Austin College
260 Texas A&M University
326 St. Mary's University
352 Baylor University
365 University of Texas, El Paso
385 Texas Tech University
431 Texas State University
442 University of Texas, Arlington
444 Abilene Christian University
467 St. Edward's University
502 University of Houston
508 University of North Texas
509 University of Texas, San Antonio
512 Sam Houston State University
513 Texas Christian University
521 University of Texas, Dallas

I gotta say that it looks like something is off with this list. I don't know what their metric is or what the list claims to demonstrate, but if it's prestige/competitiveness, something is off. First off, where is Rice? Did they opt out of Forbes' list? Rice should be on there and it should be the highest ranked school in Texas more than likely. SMU is also missing. And the idea that a University of Dallas degree is more competitive than a UT-Austin degree, or that UD is harder to get into than UT, or even that UD is a "better school" is nonsense to me. And Abilene Christian being ABOVE TCU and UH? That's total crap. I know a thing or two about Abilene Christian and what I know is not good - it's not a good school. Or at least NOT better than TCU or UH and for that matter UNT and UT-D. Some of the other things I could believe depending on what metric they're choosing - like UTEP at #7 for example, but Abilene Christian from what I know of it is pretty flat out crappy. And I still want to know where Rice and SMU are...

It's interesting stuff, though. Although in terms of the legislature, I think what they're interested in is another "research university" and this is definitely not a measure of that.

FWIW, Virginia was on this page too and W&L was the top-ranked school in Virginia. I love W&L and think it's an AWESOME school, but in some contexts at least (definitely in the research u. one) there is an argument to be made that UVA is better. So I dunno. I think Forbes' list might be kind of crappy.

ETA: I just looked at NC's list out of curiosity. UNC and Wake are above Duke - surprising but possibly plausible. Salem being ranked above Davidson though? That's a pile of crap.

What exactly is Forbes' metric???