Talk:University of Texas at Austin

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Good article University of Texas at Austin was one of the Social sciences and society good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
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[edit] Rankings section overhaul

The Rankings section has been a mess for a long time, with facts about the same programs scattered throughout the article, a lot of uncited claims, and a lot of "wordiness". I've significantly modified the section for (what I think is) the better—the section starting with overall rankings and then working down to individual programs. I've included the original text below for your convenience. Go Longhorns! --Eustress (talk) 02:30, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

U.S. News & World Report consistently ranks The University of Texas at Austin as the best public university in the state of Texas. In its 2008 rankings, Texas places forty-fourth among all national universities and twelfth among public universities in the U.S.[1] U.S. News & World Report also lists Cockrell School of Engineering among the top ten in six different fields, with an overall rank of eleven.[2] A 2005 report by USA Today ranked the university "the number one source of new Fortune 1000 CEOs". A Bloomberg survey also ranked the McCombs School of Business fifth among all business schools and first among public business schools with the most number of alumni among the S&P 500 CEOs.[3] The "Top Research Universities" list in the 2005 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index of The Chronicle of Higher Education lists the university among the top ten in sixteen of the 104 individual disciplines that were evaluated as part of the study. [4] In a 2005 report on the innovativeness of universities worldwide conducted by the Research Center for Innovation and Development of Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, The University of Texas at Austin ranked fourth among 200 institutions around the world, behind Harvard University, Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.[5] In its first World University Ranking in 2004, The Times Higher Education Supplement listed The University of Texas at Austin as the fifteenth-best university worldwide. The same study ranked the university twenty-sixth worldwide in 2005 and thirty-second in 2006.[6][7] Additionally, the university was ranked as the thirtieth-best university in the country and 39th-best in the world by the Institute of Higher Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.[8] In 2007, The Washington Monthly, using a ranking system which stresses social factors the magazine considers important (such as how well it performs as an engine of social mobility, how well it does in fostering scientific and humanistic research, and how well it promotes an ethic of service to country) ranked UT Austin nineteenth among national American universities, higher than prestigious Ivy League universities such as Princeton and Harvard, and second in the state only to first-ranked Texas A&M University.[9] The University of Texas at Austin does not have a medical school, but has associated programs with other campuses and allied health professional programs on campus. The College of Pharmacy, for example, is ranked second in the United States.[10] Other overall rankings include:[11]

  • Number one law school in the nation for Hispanics. (September 2004 edition of Hispanic Business magazine).
  • Number two nationally for the School of Architecture. According to DesignIntelligence, the undergraduate architecture program was ranked second in the nation for 2006 (best in the state of Texas). The graduate architecture program was ranked sixth, and the interior design program was also ranked sixth.
  • Ranked eighth among U.S. public universities and twenty-seventh overall in 2006 by Newsweek magazine's August 2006 list of the top 100 global universities.
  • McCombs School of Business ranked thirteenth in the country on BusinessWeek magazine's list of the top undergraduate business schools.
  • Rated seventh in the world in the amount of cited research by faculty members, according to The Times of London, November 5, 2004, edition.
  • In the most recent survey by the National Research Council, seven UT doctoral programs ranked in the top ten in the nation and twenty-two departments ranked in the top twenty-five. Among Texas schools, the university ranked first in thirty of the 37 fields in which it was evaluated.[12]
  • The College of Education was ranked as the 10th best in the United States by U.S. News & World Report in 2008.
  • McCombs School of Business ranked eighteenth by The Wall Street Journal's annual ranking of the best business schools.
  • The College of Fine Arts' School of Music is ranked among the top twenty graduate schools in the arts granting a Master of Music degree in the United States in U.S. News & World Report
  • Designated as "one of the best overall bargains" by The Princeton Review in its "America's Best Value Colleges" 2007 edition.
  • Among top twenty "best buys" within public colleges and universities, according to the 2007 Fiske Guide to Colleges.
  • Ranked twenty-fourth in 2007 by Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine's listing for the "100 Best Values in Public Colleges".
  • Ranked ninth worldwide in the 2007 Webometrics rankings.[13]
Added back in the Washington Monthly ranking comparison between A&M and UT-Austin. Considering the number of Texas high school students choosing between the two schools, this comparison is valuable information. To remove the A&M reference while maintaining the mention of higher rankings by Harvard and Princeton appears to be a biased editorial decision. --Macae (talk) 02:35, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
The TAMU reference is irrelevant and potentially POV, so I have removed it again. However, in all fairness, I've removed the references to Harvard and Princeton as well. Thanks. --Eustress (talk) 12:37, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Potentially POV? It is a factual statistic. Removing it while maintaining the Harvard and Princeton references represented a POV edit. But if you would prefer to remove those as well, at least it then represents a consistent edit. Seemed like they all were valid comparisons to make and worthy of inclusion but I will not start an edit war over it. --Macae (talk) 15:44, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
It is not uncommon for school rankings to be compared to each other. That is, in fact, what a ranking is: a comparison of a current school's position against those of other schools. I see no POV problem with the inclusion of all three comparisons so long as they are supported by citations. will381796 (talk) 21:13, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Selecting which comparisons to make, even when they're "factual" and supported by references, is inherently POV. --ElKevbo (talk) 21:19, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
...but now that I take another look at this issue in context, I don't think including both the Ivy League institutions and TAMU is bad or objectionable. The phrase originally used to describe TAMU ("first-ranked") is redundant and a bit of a needle but if that's removed then I don't object to including both references. --ElKevbo (talk) 21:22, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Now, if someone opens up US News & World Report Rankings and picks 3 random schools to compare to school A, then yeah, that's pretty POV. But if an article in a magazine or journal or whatever reliable source you care to use makes the specific comparison within the body of the text, then I see no problem with its inclusion. The first example is POV as we the editor are choosing which school rankings to compare and present in the article. The second example is, in my opinion, not POV as we are not the one making the comparison. The editors would simply be adding a fact reported by another reliable source. We're not the one making the comparison and deciding what to compare to what. An independent, verifable, reliable source did. All we're doing is listing what has been published. will381796 (talk) 21:26, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, since the ranking in question (UT Austin #19; from source http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0709.natlrankings.pdf) doesn't directly make any comparisons between specific schools, it's probably best just to leave it as is, and readers can follow the link to the original file to make their own comparisons and conclusions. --Eustress (talk) 21:38, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Should we add Template:Infobox US university ranking? —Preceding unsigned comment added by NThomas76207 (talk • contribs) 02:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

I would be opposed to the addition for sake of room in the article and also because it mostly uses one (USNWR) ranking. --Eustress (talk) 03:11, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
As a note, some of those rankings are outdated. For example, UT Austin has dropped to 51 in the newest THES ranking. UT is now 26 instead of 16 in the ranking by Zhejiang. Whsie (talk) 03:13, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
The years are shown with the rankings...if you can update them, please do; if not, please provide a reference so we can update them. Thanks. --Eustress (talk) 12:36, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
The latest THES ranking is here-http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2007/overall_rankings/top_400_universities/ with UT at 51. Whsie (talk) 06:47, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Delisting GA

There are several problems with this article which don't satisfy good article criteria.

  • First, under "Student organizations" - take out external links.
Y Done --Eustress (talk) 20:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Citations needed in Varsity Sports, Student Media, Campus, History.
  • Prose: With strong academic programs in the sciences, arts, media, business, law, engineering, and public policy, as well as a successful athletics program, The University of Texas has seen many now notable persons pass through its halls. - doesn't make sense
  • Citations: Many of the citations aren't according to CITE. Some are dead.

Please fix these problems, and re-submit for GAR. miranda 19:41, 24 April 2008 (UTC)