Are some Argentinian universities far more prestigious than others?

[bdk1]

I also studied at University of Belgrano and it is a joke.

Well, I went to Belgrano for undergrad and to Harvard for grad school, so I would say perhaps it's not that bad.

I did also go to UBA, and in my experience many of the professors (at least in my field) taught at both UBA and private universities, and the exact same curriculum in fact. The only difference I saw between UBA and private universities was the student-faculty ratio. At UBA, you'll be taught by a leading scholar in a class with 100 other people. At a private university, you'll have the same class taught by the same scholar but the class size will be 20.

Of course, not everyone can afford a private university (even if they are affordable by US standards, or at least they were 15 years ago), so I think it is amazing that we have something like UBA where literally anyone regardless of their background or current circumstances can have direct access to quality higher education. The UBA model is far from perfect, but the social benefits created by the fact that anyone who wishes to e.g. be a doctor can just sign up, go to class, and become a doctor (and not worry about student loans or any of that sh*t) are so great that it is a model worth supporting.

That said, and this is just my personal opinion, from an international perspective although I think the level of Argentinean professionals is very high, the level of Argentinean universities (be it UBA, San Andrés, Di Tella, or any other) is average-to-low. The curricula are antiquated, methodology is nonexistent or lecture-style at best, and teaching is very test-oriented. So we have below-average schools but above-average professionals, which probably means much of the learning occurs in non-instructional environments.

This may stem from the fact that most students in Argentina tend to work while going to school, since professional experience is highly valued here (perhaps even more so than the actual degree). In this sense, I think Argentinean students have a much more holistic learning experience and people are wrongly associating the outcome with the school they went to, when their learning extends far beyond the classroom.

 

[elhombresinnombre]

The 2015 edition of the International Handbook of Universities[1] lists over 18,000 universities worldwide and even the University of Belgrano, rated in one table[2] at 384th in the world is still amongst the world's top 2.5%. That same table[3], in which Oxford, Stamford, Harvard and MIT are right at the top has UBA at 73 ahead of Durham, St Andrews and the Sorbonne. Nevertheless all these other institutions appear in the top 100 or the top 0.6% of the world's universities if you prefer to look at it like that. The above is a general all-round assessment and the figures will change when you narrow your interest down to specific subjects or the volume of original research, etc

The broad message is that all the institutions being discussed here are pretty damn good.

[1]https://www.amazon.com/Internationa...ext=International+Association+of+Universities
[2]https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2019 - used by The Times Higher Education Supplement
[3]Other data are available

 

[sergio]

You are right. Only Nacional Buenos Aires and Carlos Pellegrini (both belongs to UBA) are the best two high schools in the country and money has nothing to do with getting accepted.

The difference is that at UBA Law School you have 30.000 students and only 1000 per year finish it because competition is very hard and the professors very exigent. For example, while at UB I had to study about 400 pages, at UBA at Maier´s Cathedra with Rusconi I had to study 40.000. At Civil Law I while at private universities they study from 500 pages manual, I had to study from 3 different treaties of no less 3 books each of 1000 pages.

En Argentina, se recibe apenas el 20% de los alumnos de Derecho

La cifra es muy baja si se compara con países como Chile o Brasil, donde se gradúan más de sesenta de cada cien alumnos ingresantes. Los datos fueron extraídos de un reciente informe realizado por la Coordinación de Investigaciones e Información Estadística dependiente de la Secretaría de...

www.diariojudicial.com

And the University is so big that you have many professors with his own cathedra which means that is like 30 different law schools under the same roof. I belong to Maier´s Cathedra where I has professor´s assistant for 9 years where for becoming a professor he demanded to do a Master abroad and he does not accepts 2 from the same University because his Cathedra is a think tank and he demand new aproaches. So, for example, Bovino made his Master at Columbia, Beloff at Harvard, Naddeo at Standford, Rusconi went to Cornell (I guess that is why it is not at his CV) and Pastor, who is now in charge of Maier´s cathedra has many studies of interchange abroad, mainly in Germany, including with Klaus Roxin. While Julio Maier is the most important Professor of Criminal Procedure alive in the world, Roxin is his parallel in Criminal Law.

Maier: http://www.derecho.uba.ar/multimedia/curriculum/cv_maier_01.pdf
Naddeo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cnaddeo
Bovino CV: http://www.campusapp.com.ar/presentacion/bovino.html
Beloff: http://www.derecho.uba.ar/investigacion/investigadores/cv/mary-beloff.php
Pastor: http://www.estudio.name/staff/daniel-r-pastor/

Maximiliano Rusconi — Justiciapedia

Bienvenidos al sitio que te permite conocer las relaciones entre quienes administran la Justicia: jueces, fiscales y abogados.

chequeado.com

You do not have a dream team like this in any other University and the only reason they adopt me was merit.
And this is only one dream team among hundreds of them.

Cornell is a very well respected university. Were you joking?

 

[toongeorges]

Historically, UBA was very prestigious; but for political reasons has had a steep and steady decline (plummet?) since the 70s — ..., it is controversial with Peronists insisting that it is still the greatest university on the planet...

I have been told that not only Peronists sympathise with UBA, but also that many teachers at UBA sympathise with Peronism.

 

[toongeorges]

Many of them take forever to finish their degree! 8+ years to finish what is a 5 year program is not uncommon. One reason is because you can fail courses/exams multiple times and retake them... or even put off taking an exam for a future date which is sometimes YEARS in the future!

So what? In my experience no one cares how long it took you to get a degree. If on the other hand people did not have the freedom to spread their degrees over multiple years, if people saw education as an investment rather than a right and if only the rich could afford to study, that I would call a broken education system.

 

[toongeorges]

When I approved Comercial Law, I was the only one in a class of 60.

In English, people do not approve exams, but pass them . You made the same translation mistake in another post.

En inglés "to approve" significa aceptar en vez de aprobar.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Cornell is a very well respected university. Were you joking?

I do not. But you should ask him. I guess it was not good enough for a direct disciple of Julio Maier.
Cecilia Naddeo whose CV I quoted was accepted right away there too, but she declined it on Maier’s advice. She was accepted at Columbia but she declined too (she was previously there on an exchange program with UBA) and she finally did her Phd at Stanford.
I also was offered for a full scholarship for a Master in the Us but Maier told me it is useless, that it is just a bussisness, and he suggested me to decline it, and I did. He called Roxin and recomended me for a Doctor degree with him and he accepted. But wen I travel to Munich to meet him, his family was victim of the tsunami and he lost 2 grandchildren. So, he retired for some years.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

I have been told that not only Peronists sympathise with UBA, but also that many teachers at UBA sympathise with Peronism.

It sounds like political police.
However, you are wrong. UBA is a radical (UCR) bastion. All peronist professors were expelled after the Revolution of 1956.

 

[Bajo_cero2]

Well, I went to Belgrano for undergrad and to Harvard for grad school, so I would say perhaps it's not that bad.

I did also go to UBA, and in my experience many of the professors (at least in my field) taught at both UBA and private universities, and the exact same curriculum in fact. The only difference I saw between UBA and private universities was the student-faculty ratio. At UBA, you'll be taught by a leading scholar in a class with 100 other people. At a private university, you'll have the same class taught by the same scholar but the class size will be 20.

Of course, not everyone can afford a private university (even if they are affordable by US standards, or at least they were 15 years ago), so I think it is amazing that we have something like UBA where literally anyone regardless of their background or current circumstances can have direct access to quality higher education. The UBA model is far from perfect, but the social benefits created by the fact that anyone who wishes to e.g. be a doctor can just sign up, go to class, and become a doctor (and not worry about student loans or any of that sh*t) are so great that it is a model worth supporting.

That said, and this is just my personal opinion, from an international perspective although I think the level of Argentinean professionals is very high, the level of Argentinean universities (be it UBA, San Andrés, Di Tella, or any other) is average-to-low. The curricula are antiquated, methodology is nonexistent or lecture-style at best, and teaching is very test-oriented. So we have below-average schools but above-average professionals, which probably means much of the learning occurs in non-instructional environments.

This may stem from the fact that most students in Argentina tend to work while going to school, since professional experience is highly valued here (perhaps even more so than the actual degree). In this sense, I think Argentinean students have a much more holistic learning experience and people are wrongly associating the outcome with the school they went to, when their learning extends far beyond the classroom.

My experience was that if you pay you pass the exams that are super easy and what you have to study is very little.

 

[nikad]

I'll just keep it short: if you can make it at UBA, you can make it anywhere for an endless list of reasons that includes tuition quality, bureaucracy, diversified vision, political diversity, social, cultural and economical diversity, among others.