Heidegger

I remember when USNWR first started ranking, Michigan was like #10 in the entire country. Now it's ranked below Wake Forest and USC. Meanwhile most of it's graduate, undergrad, and professional programs are in the top 10. Am I missing something here? I think it has more name recognition than USC, Wake Forest, Tufts, Emory, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, and Washington University.

mom2collegekids

Flagships have a mission to educate their residents. Therefore they are more likely going to accept students that the elite privates would reject.

Flagships schools are also usually much larger than privates, so they have to put a number of "average students" in their seats. Flagships also often include majors that often don't necessarily correlate with high stats.

Name recognition has little to do with rankings.

tk21769

If USNWR had continued to measure by Peer Assessment score alone, Michigan in recent years would have ranked about the same as Duke and Brown. Instead, the magazine added other measurements to the PA scores. These include measures for selectivity, average class sizes, faculty resources, financial resources, graduation rates, etc.

Methodology: Undergraduate Ranking Criteria and Weights - US News and World Report

For better or worse, these additional measurements have tended to lower the rankings of respected public universities, including Michigan, relative to the highest-ranking private schools. Compared to the Ivies (Chicago, Duke, WUSTL, Northwestern, etc.), Michigan has higher admit rates, lower average test scores, bigger classes, and lower 4-year graduation rates.

These measurements (and the formula to put them together) are controversial. Some people think USNWR applies the wrong criteria or assigns arbitrary weights. Others think the very idea of ranking colleges (or at least the idea of assigning precise integer ranks) is fundamentally wrong-headed. Still others think the approach is on the right track, but is corrupted by problems in the data-collection.

A major driver of graduate department rankings is research productivity (sometimes measured by the volume of articles published per faculty, or the number of times they are cited). Ten or so private universities do roughly as well as Michigan by such measures, but they and a few other schools also do better in the factors USNWR has added.

Michigan's ranking still is not "low" at 29, considering how many universities are out there.

Alexandre

It should also be noted that public universities report data differently from private universities. For example, Michigan includes graduate students in its student to faculty ratio while most schools ranked ahead of it do not. Private universities also have special freshman programs, such as seminars, that greatly increase the number of classes with 2-9 students. Those classes are definitely interesting, but they do not enhance the quality of undergraduate education. Those "initiatives" truly boost the faculty rankings at private universities but not in any real or meaningful ways. I also have yet to figure out how financial resources rankings are determined, but I think financial aid contributions put public universities at a major disadvantage as they are already heavily subsidized. Don't get me started on alumni donation rates. When you add all of those factors, it makes a significant difference in the the final outcome.

Like the posters above have said, the USNWR is not a ranking of academic quality or reputation, it is a ranking of a specific methodology. If you agree with the methodology, then the ranking is valid, albeit not perfect since it is statistical, and unless the data is properly audited for accuracy and consistency, the outcome will not be accurate.

intparent

Mom2collegekids, Michigan is in a different position than most other state flagship universities. Michigan State is also a large state university, so Michigan has always had the opportunity to take the students with better GPAs and test scores, and those who did not get in could still go to a large state university (MSU). Out of my Michigan high school class (30 years ago), 11 of the top 12 students went to Michigan. My nephew applied and did not get in (so went to MSU); my best friend from Michigan's kids have all applied to both -- 1 got into Michigan and went, 1 did not so went to MSU, and 1 is applying this year (and will be crushed if he does not get to be a Wolverine). While there are a few exceptions (sometimes for money, sometimes for specific majors like hospitality or ag related), generally Michigan has been able to take the top students and not have to educate all comers.

SgtDonut

What Alexandre said. Public universities are at a disadvantage based on USNWR's criteria. Not that rankings matter.

tk21769

I think small classes with a high level of engagement (discussions, writing assignments, essay-based exams) do enhance the quality of undergraduate education, as long as students arrive well-prepared and highly motivated to participate. On the flip side, some students may prefer to listen to professors lecture rather than hear other students talk.

Presumably the "financial resources per student" category refers to endowment per student. I think it's fair to say that this number can have a very real impact on the quality of educational resources (faculty, facilities, aid). For example, the set of top 50 schools by EPS is very similar to the set of 50 or so need-blind, full-need schools.
Thoughts on Education Policy: Top 50 Endowments Per Pupil
Need-blind admission - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Note that the University of Michigan is one of the few state schools on the latter list.)

Of course, other factors besides endowment (such as state aid, research funding, and local operating costs) also affect annual budgets. UofM has one of the highest levels of research expenditures in the country. This should be a good thing for students and faculty alike, but it may not be captured by the USNWR "financial resources" category.

beyphy

I'm more interested in Michigan's rank relative to its elite public peers. Michigan being ranked lower than Berkeley isn't really a surprise. But why are UCLA and UVa ranked higher than Michigan?

Heidegger

Michigan academic rankings
#10 medicine #7 pharmacy #12 social work #8 engineering #10 law #12 education #13 business
Notre Dame Academic rankings
#24 business #22 law #15 philosophy

Advantage Michigan

par72

ND13 michigan 6. Go Irish!

rjkofnovi

Michigan is ranked number one in Social Work.

mom2collegekids

Michigan is in a different position than most other state flagship universities. Michigan State is also a large state university, so Michigan has always had the opportunity to take the students with better GPAs and test scores, and those who did not get in could still go to a large state university (MSU)

UMich isn't in a "different position" than other states' flagships. Many states have a flagship plus another big univ (often the ag/state/a&m school). UT/TAMU, IU/Purdue, Cal/UCLA, UNC/NCSU, PSU/UPitt, UAz/ASU, USC/Clemson, UGa,GT, Iowa/Iowa St, UFlorida/FSU, and so forth.....

UMich gets about 40,000 apps...it admits about 16,000 and puts about 15,000 on the waitlist, so not many are actually rejected. It has to fill about 6200 seats in its frosh class....that's typically a LOT more than other top privates.

46% of the frosh class has an ACT between 18 - 29. You won't see that at a top private. That is a strong indication that as a public, it does feel that its mission is to educate "the masses". (80% of its frosh submit ACT scores).

Very Important

Academic GPA
Rigor of secondary school record


Important

Application Essay
Character/Personal Qualities
First generation college student
Recommendations
Standardized Test Scores


Like many state schools, GPA is considered more heavily than test scores. That is done so that their schools aren't mostly filled with upper-middle class/privileged students. Giving more weight to GPA allows them to accept the student with a 3.8 GPA and a 24 ACT from a school in a disadvantaged area.

Private schools can use any criteria they want for admittance. Publics tend to have to set up something objective otherwise they can be taken to court....so they give more weight to GPA.

beyphy

I'm not sure about what public universities tend to do, but the UC system, in particular, has 'holistic admissions.' They can (and do) deny applicants for 'not being holistic enough' even if those applicants have great GPAs and high SAT scores. Holistic admissions are greatly a benefit to public universities because it gives them a ton of flexibility. UCLA, for example, has 39% pell grant recipients; Berkeley has 38% Virginia on the other hand only has 13%

Many universities have been sued for 'discrimination' based on their admissions policies, including private universities. Harvard and Princeton are currently being investigated by the US Department of Education for alleged discrimination among Asians; And currently UTexas is being taken to the supreme court to see if its admission policies, which are used to promote 'diversity,' constitute discrimination.

I think UCLA and Berkeley are well defended against lawsuits however. If anyone tried to sue them, they could defend themselves based on competitiveness. They'd also probably be able to defend holistic admissions as in the interest or the larger public good. (which it's in their interest to promote as public universities.)

mom2collegekids

You're overestimating the UCs' holistic admissions policies. The reason they have a lot of Pell students is because they use GPA primarily, not primarily holistic methods.

If the UCs truly used holistic methods, they wouldn't have such high ORM numbers.

URMs make up nearly half of California's graduating seniors, yet the UCs only have about 24% URMs.

beyphy

Columbia has nearly 30% PGRs; USC has nearly 25%. Those are high numbers for any elite school. ("elite" being defined as in top 25 [that's US NEWS' definition, not mine.]) By itself, that doesn't show an overevaluation of GPA over SAT scores.

Again, i don't know what 'truly holistic' means. But holistic admissions means that they take the whole applicant into consideration when deciding whether to admit them or not. So they don't just look at GPA/SAT scores or whether the applicant is an ORM, but other factors. Was the applicant born in a poor neighborhood with lack of access to educational resources? Were they battling cancer or some other disease while trying to complete their studies within high school? Are their bad grades the result of a drug addiction they strugled with and have since overcome? Things like that are considered within holistic admissions. ORMs may less frequently fall into the first category, but i've met several that have fallen into the second and third.

That could be blamed on a number of things, including Proposition 209.

Either way, the UCs mission isn't to educate URMs, it's to provide some of California's most scholastic students access to high quality, low cost education. It enrolls high amounts of URMs in an effort to promote 'diversity.' I'm in agreement with them that there's much more diversity out there than merely racial diversity. And, imo, they do a good job of seeking a balance between the both of them.