OU academics “abysmal” Per Wall Street Journal

[Midtowner]

The methodology in these rankings is always a little wonky and has little to do with actual education quality. It's more research focused, which has nothing to do with the vast majority of undergraduates.

[dcsooner]

Quit making excuses,.OU needs to improve its academic credentials from a number 101 ranked national university to at least match Kansas, Iowa State, and others in double digits. This snub is exactly what OU needed. Oklahoma needs to move away from the concept of a great State built by football to a great State built by academics that also competes at a very high level in athletics

[Just the facts]

The methodology in these rankings is always a little wonky and has little to do with actual education quality. It's more research focused, which has nothing to do with the vast majority of undergraduates.

If you look at the schools at the top the list most have more graduate students than undergrad students.

[Just the facts]

Quit making excuses,.OU needs to improve its academic credentials from a number 101 ranked national university to at least match Kansas, Iowa State, and others in double digits. This snub is exactly what OU needed. Oklahoma needs to move away from the concept of a great State built by football to a great State built by academics that also competes at a very high level in athletics

I think the point was made earlier that just a little improvement is need to go from #101 to #30. It is like a NASCAR race at Talladega, the first 4 or 5 cars cross the finish line in single file, and the next 38 cars cross in a big blurry pack (four cars wide) separated by thousandths of a second. Of course, the coming education bubble collapse means the entire field is going to crash and burn on the backstretch, but that is a different thread.

[HewenttoJared]

I would pit an undergrad bio student from UCO against any other school in the state. I've attended three different universities here and have a pretty solid knowledge of what is required to pass through. OU has some issues with graduating people who don't really have a grasp on unifying concepts.

I can't really say much about their other programs, as other subjects are boring and lame

[Midtowner]

I would pit an undergrad bio student from UCO against any other school in the state.

That's what I've heard too. Liberal arts would be the same. Would you rather be in a class of 400 taught by some superstar who is there sometimes, with your only interaction being with Gradasses or would you rather be taught by a reasonably well distinguished PhD in a class of 40?

That's the trouble with these academic rankings. They don't even test actual classroom instruction quality as it is difficult to measure.

[Just the facts]

Doesn't that undergrad UCO bio student sell cell phones?

[Midtowner]

Kerry, as for the bubble, it's much more likely to involve for profit schools and private universities than public universities. The costs at public schools are much, much lower, and so are the default rates.

[HewenttoJared]

Doesn't that undergrad UCO bio student sell cell phones?

I assume some of them do, and I used to. But like I said the program is excellent. The one at OU was not so excellent. The one at East Central was abysmal. Straight-up textbook 1970's creationism was being taught in their intro bio courses. OU was a mild improvement over that, but they still didn't drive concept education very hard. Memorizing anatomy and processes is great and all, but it isn't the whole picture. They might do a better job today, but I have not been in a number of years.

[betts]

As far as individuals go, there are excellent students at every major institution in the country, and probably most minor institutions. I always told my children, in terms of success in obtaining graduate education: "Better a 4.0 from OU than a 2.0 from Harvard, and better an education from OU where you made an effort than one from Harvard where you didn't." And, when you compare students as a group, obviously the small, elite private schools are going to have a class of students who score higher on academic tests and who, as a group, generally perform at a higher level. That's because the school was able to pick and choose a small pool from a large pool, and that selectivity obviously allowed them to choose a better group of students. The same actually holds true for the California public universities. I haven't done the math, but I bet if you look at Cal, UCLA or some of the "better" California public institutions, they have a lot more applicants per spot than OU does. That's not only because they're already ranked higher, which creates a "vicious cycle" type of situation, but also because they have a larger state population pool from which to draw and they're in a desirable location. OU doesn't have geographic advantage. Just like OKC, it doesn't bring a lot of people in from outside the state because we're not in a particularly desirable location, so the number of applicants per spot is lower and therefore the average qualifications of the students accepted are lower. By giving National Merit and other scholars the funding that it does, it lifts itself higher in the applicant mix than the state ordinarily would, and I applaud the University for doing that. But, we cannot completely overcome geography and the population size of our state. OU will likely never be a top tier institution for those reasons. However, that doesn't mean you cannot get an excellent education if you're motivated.

[Midtowner]

Doesn't that undergrad UCO bio student sell cell phones?

So you're looking down on folks who work their way through college, pay their own bills, and maybe don't rack up enormous student loans, yet you decry the system of student loans which is leading to a burst bubble? Do you even understand what you're railing about?

[NickFiggins]

I would say as a recent graduate of OU, the top students do compare favorably with many students at top universities. I am in a graduate program at a top 30 school, and the main difference between its undergrad program and OU's is that its undergrad program would just be OU's Scholar program- those with a 28+ ACT score. When you just look at OU's Honor's program its quite an elite program with students getting into top Medical and Law schools on a regular basis. If fact I would go as far to say many of my classmates from the Ivies got a worse education in the classroom, while I suffered outside the classroom. The academic environment is better at the higher ranked schools, but the undergraduate teaching is excellent especially in the Honors program. Boren chose basically to focus less on the graduate programs and focus more on undergraduate teaching, I benefited from that decision.
One of the major problems is that OU draws from Oklahoma, thinking in a football sense its hard to fill up a roster of 23,000 people when there are not many 4 or 5 star recruits.