Which public university enjoys the best reputation for academics in the United States? For this include both undergraduate and graduate programs. I am thinking that it is UC - Berkeley. The only schools that I think really compete with Berkeley are Michigan and Virginia. Which school do you think it is?
General academics or specific?
For example, University of Kentucky has one of the best linguistics programs in the world.
Illinois, Michigan and Berkley are top three public schools that come to mind when recalling the frequent lists published by various magazines.
I would vote for Wisconsin to be considered in the top ten. IMHO.
In religion, UCSB (my undergraduate alma mater) and Florida State (where I taught for a year) are both considered extremely strong schools.
You expect this not to turn in to a “My school is better than your school” thread?
Fact is, most large institutions have a department or two that can be considered world-class. I went to West Virginia…we had highly-esteemed journalism school, and a few other bright spots. But most of the rest of the university was nothing special, like the College of Engineering (my home for four years). I think you’ll find the same thing at a lot of universities. When you start comparing whole institutions, averaging out their bright sopts, I bet they start looking much more similar.
Also, there’s a big difference between quality and value. WVU, for example rates very highly every year for “best bang for the buck” in those Princeton Review-style surveys. That’s because it’s an average-or-better education at a ridiculously affordable price.
I’m not claiming my alma mater to be in the top academic ranks. (We just have the best football team ever ;)) I just think you have to define your metric a little better. What’s important? One program of interest? The average of all programs? Or value?
SnoopyFan writes:
> For example, University of Kentucky has one of the best
> linguistics programs in the world.
Excuse me for picking on this particular post, since a lot of what has been written in this thread is exaggerated. This is simply wrong. The University of Kentucky doesn’t even have a graduate program in linguistics. It doesn’t even an actual department of linguistics, just an “interdisciplinary program” in it, which means that none of the professors has a permanent position in linguistics. They are based in other departments and occasionally teach a linguistics department. Yes, you can do a bachelor’s degree in linguistics at Kentucky, but there are dozens of better departments at other universities in the U.S.
Sheesh, I made two careless mistakes: I wrote “It doesn’t even an actual department of linguistics”, when I meant “It doesn’t even have an actual department of linguistics”. I also wrote “and occasionally teach a linguistics department”, when I meant “and occasionally teach a linguistics course”.
In addition to Berkeley, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Virginia, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is consistently ranked as one of the nations top public research universities.
Just use the BCS rankings as your guide and toss out USC.
Here’s a website, seems to be fairly accurate:
http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/rankings/rankingCategory.asp?categoryID=1
If you’re really serious about your university career, wouldn’t you need to cross correlate the Princeton Review’s list with Playboy’s party school rankings? All work and no play and all that.
The Princeton site identifies several different aspects of party schools too 
And not a single college on any of the Princeton Review lists on the website given by ccwaterback is a public institution (unless you count the military academies, and is that really where you want to go?). Note that the Princeton Review lists are only about undergraduate education. The quality of grad school education is often quite different from the quality of the undergrad education at many colleges. Hydrocortisone, your question is too vague to be easily answered. Do you want to know about undergraduate or graduate education? Do you want to know about particular departments or all of them? Do you want to know about the best education regardless of the amount of tuition, or about the best value for the money? There’s no point in even trying to answer a question as vague as the one in the OP.
I’d put in a vote for my own alma mater, the College of William and Mary, for a first-rate undergrad program. (Having attended a much larger state college for grad school, I’m a strong believer in small-to-medium size liberal arts colleges over large universities; unfortunately, most of the publications that rate colleges seem to be biased in the opposite direction.)
Web surfing 101 for those in need of assistance (Princeton Review Grad Schools):
http://www.princetonreview.com/grad/
For full listings you have to subscribe to the site.
Some public schools:
http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/profiles/academics.asp?listing=1023436<ID=1
http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/profiles/academics.asp?listing=1023092<ID=1
http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/profiles/academics.asp?listing=1023370<ID=1
http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/profiles/academics.asp?listing=1022826<ID=1
As a current student of said institution, allow me to agree with Wendell Wagner in saying this is flat wrong.
In no order here are my top choices:
University of Virginia at Charlottesville
University of California at Berkeley
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of New York at Binghamton (or Stony Brook for science)
FSU, while once among the academic heavyweights of the southeast, has now settled into third place in Florida alone behind UF and the University of Central Florida (based on undergraduate programmes, though- FSU is still a research-1 university and is still arguably tops for postgrad programmes).
I really think it’s necessary for you to identify which aspects of college you need to have present in an institution for it to be considered “the best.” It’s kinda like asking “what’s the best car” or “what’s the best computer” in that it really depends on what your requirements are.
When I was looking at colleges, I wanted to go into music. Indiana University, which is only a few hours’ drive, has one of the best music schools in the world. So that’s where I went.
Similarly, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is noted for its engineering programs and the University of Missouri-Columbia (Mizzou) is noted for its journalism school.
Most public schools will give you an education and ultimately a diploma in any program they have available that will be accepted by employers nationwide. Only a few schools in each academic discipline are revered for their programs. In other words, a music degree from Indiana would probably be regarded by knowledgable employers as a greater accomplishment than one from UIUC or Mizzou, but having one from either of those fine institutions doesn’t mean that you won’t get hired.
Be specific.