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The Decade's 15 Hottest Colleges
Kathleen Kingsbury covers education for The Daily Beast. She also contributes to Time magazine, where she has covered business, health and education since 2005.
The past 10 years transformed the collegiate landscape, creating a whole new class of first-choice schools. Kathleen Kingsbury on 15 colleges that soared in the rankings.
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Kathleen Kingsbury covers education for The Daily Beast. She also contributes to Time magazine, where she has covered business, health and education since 2005.
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filipb
Finally! A university OUTSIDE the US made the list.
johnstafford
Interesting list. The problem is they've already been discovered--that's why they're "hot" (e.g., Elon ain't no "safe
school" anymore!)
=The trick is to get ahead of the curve and find good schools that are still flying under the radar so they aren't impossible to get into for high school applicants with less-than-perfect transcripts.
=My nominees would include: McGill (Canada) , Northeastern (MA), St. Michael's (VT) and The College of Wooster (OH).
jst4horses
I wonder how come Pasadena, with Cal Tech did not make it on one of the lists. Their grant income far outreaches many of those listed, the students often work on research that is funded directly from their ongoing school work, and they get those good jobs, and also Pasadena has Pasadena City College which educates thousands and thousands, and Art Center, and the Music College, as well as the Cordon Bleu school. The student population is high and many are global from wealthy families who guarantee their young people great jobs when they graduate.
JPL and NASA often hire right out of CalTech as well. Art Center is one of the design colleges that has a high ratio of students hired right out of their school as well.
And, as a college town for sports, Pasadena has the Rose Bowl game for two colleges every single year that is televised worldwide.
Just wondered why it was not on the list?
akryan
Caltech isn't on the list because it's been hard to get into forever. It's on par with MIT. It's only mentioned at the end of the blurb, but the real reason USC is number one on this list is because of Pete Carroll. If the Trogans weren't the Trogans then USC would just be another college in California. It's the same reason that OU has had literally hundreds of millions of dollars of donations and endowments since Bob Stoops started winning Big XII championships.
chicago123
I'm really confused as to what this list is supposed to represent? Are there any discernible criteria here? Schools that have changed a lot? It seems that RISD has been at the peak of art education for a while... and Tufts has been an exceptional choice for decades. Also... Ohio Wesleyan and USC on the same list? Is this based roughly on how much these schools are spending on marketing campaigns? (Do you have any financial connections to any of these schools?)
sophia5
Sounds like another self important subjective " WHO'S HOT " list that
seems to come out once or twice a year,
motivated by the need to " stir the pot " and create interest in
a particular columnist or magazine.
The lists always change,
and the criteria for who's " the HOTTEST " can be challenged.
SDMichael
My alma mater is Denison University, not Dennison College.
laurieowu77
My alma mater is Ohio Wesleyan University, not College. Go Bishops!
jscot4
As another alum of Ohio Wesleyan, I'd like to point out that we tend to include the "University" part of the title in abreviating our school's name. This choice makes it OWU as to OW (which, admittedly, sounds like you've just sat upon a thumb tack).
jus1drun
i walk with a bunch of guys every week throughout socal (as far north as santa monica and as far south as la jolla.) i never thought of our travels as a sort of accidental survey but it's hard not to notice that this is trojan country. ucla and a smattering of other university markers show up here and there but nothing compares to usc.
my3sons
We just love Bard. Great campus, fine professors and interesting students.
nickmagoo
As an alum of Colorado College, I can attest to its excellence as well as the efficacy of the block plan. Why more schools don't use it is beyond me. But with a snow capped Pikes Peak looming in the background and the lovely campus I'm a bit perplexed that you couldn't find at least ONE photo to use...
petey123
What a hoot re USC! USC is not even the hottest, much less the best, university in between the San Diego and Harbor Freeways....jeez. USC is a a leading institution only in the minds of its alumni and alumnae, and only then as a feeble attempt to make themselves feel better about continuing to throw good money after bad....Has USC ever produced a Nobel laureate? How many MacArthur genius grants have gone to its faculty and graduates over the last 10 years? Ever hear about a Pulitzer Prize-winning USC historian? Even its football team has proven to be a Potemkin village....
Me: Not even a UCLA grad.
blewbyu
USC does have a Nobel laureate and a MacArthur genius grant awarded just this year. Not to mention is typically in the top 5 of national merit scholars, top 20 in total federal research dollars awarded, ranked 26 in US News rankings (and rising every year), a freshman class that has higher test scores and gpa than Berkeley and coming close to matching Stanfords...and on and on...
The list acknowledges USC's dramatic improvement, not its reputation from 20 years ago. Time to update your old, and uninformed perceptions.
johnstafford
Good point. The old joke:
Q. What do you get for driving slowly across the USC campus in a convertible?
A. A diploma
...is no longer valid!
uclapt
usc has made dramatic improvement, by manipulating the numbers:
1) GPAs/SATs are only noted for FALL admits. USC cleverly admits their fine football players with the low scores in the spring of their hs senior years. The legacies and underrepresented minorities enter in the second semester to manage their lower scores.
2) USC has 'freshman forgiveness' You can erase the grades of up to three freshman classes and (for a fee ) re-take the class and up your GPA and your transcript. other major universities may allow you to re-take a class, but the old grade remains on the transcript
3) The most disgusting of all the USC alums are from before 1991---when Stephen Sample took over as University President. Before 1991, the admit rate for USC was 70%...stupid, white rich kids, who couldn't get into Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA or the Ivies.
calsc1
Regarding uclapt's comment:
Before 1990, the admit rate for UC Berkeley (or Cal) and UCLA was almost 40%. I (I'm not even a rich White kid) went to UC Berkeley (the flagship school of the University of California system) undergrad and SC professional grad before the 1990's. At Cal, there were some students who could not do simple math (which made my eyeballs roll up). There were others at Cal who would make me wonder how they got in. Also, back then as long as you had a good GPA, you can get into Cal/UCLA even with a low SAT score. You can easily achieve a high GPA in high school by going to a low performing high school. Some kids I knew, who had high GPAs and low SAT scores, even got into the next tier of Ivy League Colleges (next tier after Harvard, Yale, Princeton). My point is that even at Cal Berkeley or UCLA, before the 1990's, there were some very dumb kids there who should not be going to college at all. Based on my pre 1990 experience, Cal Berkeley and UCLA admitted some very dumb kids (non athletes). The truly smart students I know got into Harvard, Yale, Princeton (the top tier Ivies), MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford or Chicago (top tier Ivy League like schools). These top tier college were the only colleges which did not accept any dumb kids back then.
calsc1
a 2nd point to earlier comment in response to Uclapt:
The %tage of whites at SC during the late 1970's and the 1980's was around 65 to 70%. Nonwhites were about 30 to 35%. Of the total enrollment, Asian made up about 20%. I suspect Uclapt is non-white.
aimeedee2
Wow --- it looks like we have some bruins that are upset that, in addition to being owned on the football field, USC is overtaking them academically.
This comparison from college board says nothing about "fall applicants" -- it just states score for for 1st year students:
http://collegesearch.collegeboard.com/search/compare_schools.jsp?
nickmagoo
an old joke in LA: USC - University of Spoiled Children
aimeedee2
Old, indeed. Now it means University of Superior Candidates
dowjones
OWU deserves inclusion on this list. Glad someone got it right!
MaryWC
I'm pleased that OWU has received this deserved recognition. However, as a 1974 graduate, I can assure you that it has probaly been nearly 100 years (rather than 14) since the school was a draw mainly for future missionaries!
Thank you.
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