Forbes 2014 Best Colleges: SMU #101

[tristatecoog]

http://students.rice.edu/uploadedFiles/Students/Academic_Advising/Health%20Professions%20Advising%202012.pdf

Rice has an historical average 88% acceptance rate to med school. Of course Rice students are going to test very well on the MCAT. The national average was 43.7% in 2010, and I'd guess that Baylor is around 50%. It doesn't state its rate on its health professions advising site.

And then there's Tulane, where 10% of students go to med school. It's also in a more competitive athletic conference.

http://admission.tulane.edu/documents/AAC_documents/Templates/Post%20Grad%20Opportunities.pdf
"While the national admission rate to Medical Schools for all college students is 42%, Tulane students gain admission at a rate of 73% with a 95% admission rate for those students who earned a 3.70 GPA or above and a 33 or higher on the MCAT. Tulane students were admitted to extremely competitive medical schools in 2010, including Tulane, Harvard, Columbia, Georgetown, Emory..."

[imisstexas]

Laughing at the Williams comments. Not that I would EVER want my kids to go there. But it is widely known up East as one of the best schools in the Country. It is a NESCAC school. New England Small college Athletic Conference. Along with Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Colby, Connecticut College, Hamilton, Middlebury, Trinity (Conn), Tufts, Wesleyen and Williams. Many of these are considered mini Ivies and are very popular in New York and New England. They are D3 schools and many prep school kids matriculate there. Lots of kids play sports. However, most are in depressingly boring small towns with nothing going on. US News separates these schools under collages so you can see where they rank among their peer schools.

[smustatesman]

Williams is a great New England School. Think Trinity (San Antonio) with even more rich, prep school kids. A bunch of Wall St. types including Steinbrenner.

If you mean George (Hank)Steinbrenner, Jr. who is now co-CEO of the Yankees organization; he is a graduate of Central Missouri University. His brother Hal, the other co- CEO of the NYY was a Williams grad. Both went to Culver Academy like their father, and which many Mustangers also attended. That said, Williams is a great college, as is Davidson, Kenyon, or Ohio Wesleyan, all obviously in Ohio and closer to Dallas.

[Boston Pony]

On Steinbrenner, I was thinking the old man...many great grads from the NESCAC (New England Small College Athletic Conference) - Schools include Williams, Bowdoin, Bates, Amherst, Middlebury, Conn College, Tufts, & Wesleyan Colleges.

[Mexmustang]

Actually, while the Forbes list is not as well recognized around here, the US News does not include the so-called "Mini-Ivies" or other top ranked colleges in its ratings. If they did SMU would also drop below 100+on their list. Excluding these schools doesn't make us any better, just look better.

[ideal]

o lord pls let us be a nscac

[friarwolf]

Thanks for all the input. He is making it extremely difficult because he is adamant that he wants to run track. He's also adamant that he doesn't want to go to a huge university and wants to stay within about six hours from home. We're trying to get him to expand that distance, but mom wants him close.

As far as recruiting for track is concerned, it has not started because he just blew up this summer. He shaved two seconds off his 110m hurdles and added five feet to his triple jump. Six weeks ago he decided to "try" high jump and placed 11th at Junior Olympics last week. He would have finished 6th in triple jump. Track recruiting is also different from football and basketball. From what I've gathered it's all done through the club teams. For example, his high school failed to post any of his results to athletic.net, which is where the colleges go for results.

And someone commented that we needed to work on getting him into the top 10% of his class. He is in the top 12% now and refuses to turn in homework. I think that will change now that he has a plan and fell in love with RIce.

Do not let him go to Rice. My daughter went there and she was miserable. There is no social life there other than saying hello to your classmates going and coming to the library or class. Most of them will return the greeting with silence or an accent - and I don't mean a southern drawl. Never did understand the dorm as a "college" concept - which Lori White is trying to implement here. By the way, he will have to do homework and self study - tons of it...........And he will hate Houston. You have to be born in Houston to even like it..........

[gostangs]

dorm as college can work, you just have to have people at your school that you would want to hang with. That doesn't happen at Rice. i would not let me kid go to RIce either. social wasteland, and social skills are as important as what you learn, if not more so.

[tristatecoog]

If you're on a sports team, you'll have plenty of automatic friends at Rice. It's a competitive place and doesn't seem to have the social culture that a rural school like Dartmouth has. There are plenty of people in Fondren Library with "accents." Hopefully the college system will further expose SMU students to people different than themselves.

[gostangs]

You can be be different and still be fun. Rice students are not fun. They are overly serious and self important. They tend to under achieve due to no social skills.

[SMU2007]

But let's not make any sweeping generalizations, right?

[SMU2007]

Rice is also about 50x better of a school than SMU, academically speaking of course

[Mustangs_Maroons]

Academically speaking Rice is still a few levels above us. To say 50x it's clear you don't have a grasp on the strengths and weaknesses of each. It's also about what you want to study and where you want to live. For instance rice doesn't have an UG business school. There are many students, right or wrong, that want to study business and wouldn't consider Rice. Count me as one that never gave Rice any consideration.

That being said, I think Rice is definitely a top 25 national university and we need to work to even get to be a top 50 national university.

With regards to the forbes ranking, as with any other ranking, there are many flaws. But certainly have Williams no 1 is a big stretch. It's a great LAC, likely a top 10 overall school but it simply doesn't have the metrics to compete against the best national universities when comparing all the metrics or job opportunities. I'm glad they combine national universities and lacs but they are very different.

[ideal]

You guys sure are [deleted] yourselves. Did you go to the same school as I?
Rankings are for the rubes. SMU has some of the top rated programs in the world, by those who know their fields. The profs are the best, the students bright and well-rounded. Some students are geniuses.
One receives personal attention, and can achieve all their goals with a flexible support structure.
It is a small school, but there are those of us whom it inspires.

[PSCA]

You might consider looking just a few hours west of the Metro-plex (3hrs) to Abilene Christian University (ACU)

1) Great academics with an Med School acceptance rate hovering around 88% for the last 10 years or so, with the national average around 45%.
2) Small private school ... about 5k undergrads and around $850 per credit hour. It is a Christian based school, so religious classes and chapel attendance is required. Attracts a lot of kids internationally and from the Dallas area. Pretty girls, students come from solid family backgrounds and roots.
3) Abilene is a good community of about 115,000 ... not the night life of Bid "D", but plenty to do.
4) ACU is one the top track programs in the country ... men/women at any level. They have won so many NCAA indoor/outdoor titles, it is news when they don't win one. I can't recall when the US Olympic Track team did not have a least one former/current track athlete from ACU, and usually multiple. D1 programs no longer invite them to dual meets or relays ... they grew tired of having a then D2 now D1AA program run them ragged.

It might be worth the look ... it is a good school and community, with a top track program and pre-med program.