Comparing the US Naval Academy To Columbia !

[megimoo]

This is a very silly line of attack. If one wishes to take academic credentials as a measure of intelligence, the comparison between McCain and Obama is a "no contest."

The author blows a lot of smoke about the rigors of military school life in his implication that those rigors somehow equate to intelligence. He tells us that military school students "wake up early," "march to class" etc., etc. And, he implies that because Ivy League students don't do this, that somehow that compensates for the differing scores in their classes. But I'm not sure what marching to class has to do with intelligence.

McCain finished at the bottom, bottom of his Naval Academy class. I think it would do a disservice to his fellow classmates, for example, to indicate that he was just as bright as them. They had to do the same physical exercises that McCain and somehow they managed to finish (way, way) ahead of him in their class. Similarly, it does a disservice to Obama, who went through Columbia and Harvard, was President of the Harvard Law Review, etc., to compare his academic achievements of those ofMcCain.

Bad argument, Megs. I think even McCain would shy away from this one.

" the comparison between McCain and Obama is a "no contest.""

Then why has your boy Obama sealed his academic records at Harvard and refuses to realease them.Every other candidate has been forthcoming with their records but not Obama,the man of mystery's,He can't even produce a valid birth certificate .
He has done nothing significant with his life after Harvard and was just a community organizer and a lawyer for several radical organisations like ACRON by his own admission .Could it be that he is nothing but a token and hides his shortcomings ?Even Kerry admits that he couldn't even get into Harvard and Obama is admitted under a special program for deserving blacks .

[Cold Warrior]

" the comparison between McCain and Obama is a "no contest.""

Then why has your boy Obama sealed his academic records at Harvard and refuses to realease them.Every other candidate has been forthcoming with their records but not Obama,the man of mystery's,He can't even produce a valid birth certificate .
He has done nothing significant with his life after Harvard and was just a community organizer and a lawyer for several radical organisations like ACRON by his own admission .Could it be that he is nothing but a token and hides his shortcomings ?Even Kerry admits that he couldn't even get into Harvard and Obama is admitted under a special program for deserving blacks .

Way to go, megs. You must have recently graduated from the MrsSmith's School of Biased Editing. Here's the original...

If one wishes to take academic credentials as a measure of intelligence, the comparison between McCain and Obama is a "no contest."

A statement that is factually correct. And, btw, he ain't my boy. But neither is the pandering McCain nor the idiot Palin.

[megimoo]

Way to go, megs. You must have recently graduated from the MrsSmith's School of Biased Editing. Here's the original...



A statement that is factually correct. And, btw, he ain't my boy. But neither is the pandering McCain nor the idiot Palin.

And here is where I found my quote,brutis !

"This is a very silly line of attack. If one wishes to take academic credentials as a measure of intelligence, the comparison between McCain and Obama is a "no contest." "

The venom flows thick from your keyboard .If you work yourself up you should be able to produce a facsimile of full blown BDS !

[Cold Warrior]

And here is where I found my quote,brutis !

"This is a very silly line of attack. If one wishes to take academic credentials as a measure of intelligence, the comparison between McCain and Obama is a "no contest." "

Uh, yeeaahhh. We all realize that. It's exactly the quote I provided and was in my post cited in your previous post. I think everyone realizes where you got it. The point I was making was that by only including the last phrase in your post, you were taking it out of context. BTW, I always wanted to Antony, not Brutis. A much more intersting character, plus he got all the good looking women.

[megimoo]

Uh, yeeaahhh. We all realize that. It's exactly the quote I provided and was in my post cited in your previous post. I think everyone realizes where you got it. The point I was making was that by only including the last phrase in your post, you were taking it out of context. BTW, I always wanted to Antony, not Brutis. A much more intersting character, plus he got all the good looking women.

You are stuck with Brutis as it describes you well .Back to your hero .When will he release his Harvard records so your claims of his excellance are available for examination ?

[LibraryLady]

The Naval Academy has very high rankings

U.S. News & World Report.

The Naval Academy was ranked sixth for Best Undergraduate Engineering program. The Academy was also ranked fourth best Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering program; fifth best Electrical Engineering program; and ranked 22nd in the category of small public undergraduate/liberal arts schools.

The Point

The academic program consists of a core of 31 courses balanced in the arts and sciences. All cadets are required to take at least three engineering courses and three calculus courses. Cadets choose their majors in the fall of their second year. Up until their third year, all cadets take the same classes (with the exception of those who are able to "validate" out of lower level classes and take advanced or accelerated courses). Regardless of major (there are currently 43), all cadets graduate with a Bachelor of Science Degree because of the engineering requirements. The school ranks near the top of all undergraduate programs in the winning of prestigious scholarships and fellowships (e.g., Rhodes Scholarship (#4), Hertz fellowship (#4), Truman Scholarship (#3), Marshall Scholarship (#6), and East-West).

Academic quality

In the 2009 "National Liberal Arts College" category in the US News & World Report rankings, West Point ranks #14 overall, and #1 of the public institutions on the list. The 2008 Forbes Magazine report on America's Best Colleges, which puts more weight "on the quality of the education they provide, and how much their students achieve" ranks West Point as the #6 college in the country and #1 among the public institutions. According to the Office of the Dean, "West Point is 4th on the list of total winners for Rhodes Scholarships, 7th for Marshall and 4th on the list of Hertz Fellows.

from Liberal Wiki

Forbes - America's Best colleges

1 Princeton University NJ 47,975 1,242
2 California Institute of Technology CA 46,560 231
3 Harvard University MA 48,550 1,668
4 Swarthmore College PA 48,215 365
5 Williams College MA 47,140 540
6 United States Military Academy NY NA 1,272
7 Amherst College MA 48,352 NA
8 Wellesley College MA 47,870 590
9 Yale University CT 50,350 1,318
10 Columbia University NY 49,260 1,333

[LibraryLady]

By the way:

Jimmy Carter, the only Naval Academy graduate to serve as president to date, graduated 59th out of a class of 820, so draw your own conclusions.

Anchormen
The legends of Annapolis.

[Phillygirl]

I am sure that the academies attempt to keep control of the nomination process as much as possible, as it would be prone to deteriorate into pure political patronage. Moreover, private universities, and particularly Ivy League universities, have their own problem with legacy admissions (how else could have GWB gotten into the Harvard MBA program after his record at Yale? For that matter, how else could he have gotten into Yale?).

Although I don't have your personal experience, I have to suspect that there are many admissions based on patronage. I wonder, for example, how qualified McCain was in his admission. He went to a fine high school, but from the articles I've seen didn't seem particularly distinquished, at least academically (that's an inference, only btw).

And yes, Columbia is a particularly liberal institution, as is Harvard. I watched that fairly closely over a period of four years. However, the academic standards and offerings are also extremely high. Columbia's dental school, for example, is the highest ranked in the nation, with extremely modern facilities and equipment. Additionally, up until his death recently, they had one Nobel winner on staff.

Every high end school will have their legacies. Not all legacies are necessarily unqualified (similar to AA), but certainly there will be the appearance of not cutting the mustard when it comes to legacies.

An interesting issue with regards to Univ. of Penn law school (which is on the lowest end of the ivies). While grades are certainly required to get in, once you get there, it's easy peasy. No letter grades are given. Most Penn grads I know weren't worth a damn as lawyers. I refuse to hire them again. I hesitate to hire anyone from the ivies because the admission process nowadays is so skewed towards legacy and AA that I don't find the pedigree worth much. I prefer to hire someone from a more "working class" school such as Temple or Villanova. I'd rather someone who played varsity athletics at some point in their past; someone who held down at least a part-time job while attending school; and someone whose parents were not attorneys; or someone who was in the service.

[Cold Warrior]

The Naval Academy has very high rankings

U.S. News & World Report.

The Point

Academic quality

from Liberal Wiki

Forbes - America's Best colleges

Ah, LL, ever since your stunt with Palin's favorability ratings after the debate, I've learned to check your citations, since what you don't convey, what you purposely chose to leave out, is typically more important than what you chose to actually cite. So it is with your rankings. Yes, the Naval Academy is ranked 22nd and, what (surprisingly) you failed to cite, West Point is ranked 14th among Liberal Arts Colleges. This category is described as...

Liberal Arts Rankings
Among the liberal arts colleges are schools like Oberlin and Harvey Mudd, which emphasize undergraduate education and award at least half of their degrees in the liberal arts fields of study

BTW, Number 1 in this category is Amherst. The ranking does not compare against national universities, such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale, or Columbia, defined as...

National Universities
Schools in the National Universities category, such as Yale and UCLA, offer a full range of undergraduate majors, master's, and doctoral degrees. These colleges also are committed to producing groundbreaking research

The publication's categorization itself says all that needs to be said about any academic comparison of the two schools. In terms of academic merit, they are in two different categories.

Now, let's proceed to dissect your Forbes reference. Is there something hidden in it? You know it! First, let's look at the article's opening paragraphs...

Choosing a four-year undergraduate college is one of the biggest decisions a typical American family can make. And for too many years, information about the quality of American higher education has been monopolized by one publication, U.S. News & World Report.

We offer an alternative

An alternative? What sort of alternative, one wonders? Well, let's look at the methodology...

CCAP's methodology attempts to put itself in a student's shoes. How good will my professors be? Will the school help me achieve notable career success? If I have to borrow to pay for college, how deeply will I go into debt? What are the chances I will graduate in four years? Are students and faculty recognized nationally, or even globally?

To answer these questions, the staff at CCAP (mostly college students themselves) gathered data from a variety of sources. They based 25% of the rankings on 7 million student evaluations of courses and instructors, as recorded on the Web site RateMyProfessors.com. Another 25% depends on how many of the school's alumni, adjusted for enrollment, are listed among the notable people in Who's Who in America.

The other half of the ranking is based equally on three factors: the average amount of student debt at graduation held by those who borrowed; the percentage of students graduating in four years; and the number of students or faculty, adjusted for enrollment, who have won nationally competitive awards like Rhodes Scholarships or Nobel Prizes. (Click here for complete methodology.)

So, 25% of the ranking comes from student surveys, another 17$ comes from the costs, while another 17$ comes from the percentage of the students graduating in 4 years. Hardly measures of the academic merit of the college or university. Moreover, one would not be surprised to see the military academies do quite well, particularly given that 17$ of the ranking comes from the cost!

No try! But not overly clever.

[Cold Warrior]

By the way:


Anchormen
The legends of Annapolis.

I referenced the Peanut Prez in a previous post as the last POTUS who graduated from one of the academies. I assume by citing his ranking in class, you're implying that McCain, given his significantly lower ranking, would be significantly worst that Jimmy. I'm not sure I'd agree, although you could be right.