Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, August 28, 1994 TAG: 9408300024
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Allison Blake
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
In a 1992 survey of 1989 graduates, 54 percent of Radford University graduates thought their degrees were of "average quality." Another 44 percent thought the degree was "high quality."
A similar poll of Radford seniors taken six weeks before graduation this spring showed that 51 percent thought their degrees were "average," and 45 percent thought they were "high quality."
Meantime, in a highly unscientific selection of comments accompanying the surveys, graduates and alumni offered their insights into the party-school reputation.
1992 undergraduate alumni
"The night life was great and not as debaucherous as the reputation."
"A degree is a degree unless one attends an Ivy League or similarly prestigious school."
"I would not attend Radford again, in all likelihood, because of the school's reputation. It is known as a 'party school' to most and is not given high praise in the academic community. Working in higher education, I realize that many people in academe view Radford as a mediocre educational institution. And although I received a fairly solid education at Radford, image does matter when you're trying to find a job or get into graduate school.
"It was a fun time in my life and I don't look at it negatively, but there's too much riding on one's future to attend an institution that isn't well-respected."
``I am very pleased to say, `I'm a graduate of Radford University.'''
``I feel fortunate I was able to get into Duke. ... My Duke degree greatly aided me in finding my current job, whereas my Radford degree did not help me at all.''
"I think Radford still has this stigma of being the school you go to only if you don't get into your first few choices. The quality of the programs negate any truth in that, but not the impressions people have of Radford."
"I will be an optometrist this May, and I have classmates with people from Ivy League schools and I was just as prepared for optometry school as they were - if not better."
1994 graduates
``I love Radford immensely. I only wish I didn't have to constantly defend our academic reputation to others outside.''
``Bad reputation! We need to work on this! I believe that I have gotten a much better education than my friends at Tech, UVa, William and Mary, [Virginia Commonwealth University], [Old Dominion University], etc. We have all talked candidly, and they agree. I have been able to be more involved and do more things at Radford because it is smaller. But every school parties - we don't any more than UVa!"
by CNB