rjkofnovi

Binghampton, i've never seen Alexandre state that only HYP are internationally regarded from this country.

hawkette

rjko,
Not sure how you define HUGE, but the entering class at U Michigan had the following numbers in its entering 2006 class:

395 NY
164 NJ
71 MA
48 CT
91 PA
Total of 769 students or under 14% of the class

The in-state numbers were 3720 from the state of Michigan, or about 66% of the entering class.

binghamtonrocks

Alexandre said that: "With the exception of Harvard and maybe Princeton and Yale, all universities are, to an extant, regional." Which I took to mean that Harvard, and possibly Yale and Princeton, is the only school to have a national reputation.

keefer

hawkette, you use a subtle anti-michigan trolling technique, that is:

you try to downplay michigan's reputation by saying no offense, that it's still a good school, just not in Notre Dame, and Vanderbilt's league and by comparing it to NYU and Boston College. If I remembered correctly, NYU has a PA score of 3.2-3.4?(and it also happens to have a pretty good medical school, law school, and business school, why isn't NYU's PA score as good as Michigan's? )

rjkofnovi

First of all, Michigan has many more students from the NE than that. You are completely forgetting about the graduate schools. Michigan has more grad students then there are students in most of the ivy league schools individually. I'd say 14% of the ug student body from 5 states is a pretty significant number. Especially considering Michigan isn't contiguous with any of them.

Alexandre

binghamptonrocks, when I said universities are regional, I meant among the uneducated masses. In highly educated circles and in elite corporate corners, there are dozens of highly regarded universities from every corner of the US. But the average person living in New Jersey is probably not going to know much about Carleton College in Minnesota or the University of Chicago or Northwestern or Michigan or Rice or Catech etc...

Alexandre

Hawkette, I am not going to start a debate on which schools are, in fact, best, but the OP asked how do people "view" Michigan. He asked about "prestige", not about reported data. He made that very clear.

This said, I agree that in many pockets of the East coast, Michigan would be viewed on par with schools like NYU, Lehigh and BC. In some circles, it would be viewed as even weaker than those schools. However, on a national (and international) level, Michigan has a stronger reputation.

binghamtonrocks

oh ok, Alexandre, then I guess I misunderstood. But I would still maintain that there are a lot more universities that would be known to the average masses anywhere in the country, but that's a pointless argument.

rjkofnovi

I aree with your comments keefer. I would venture to say that on an international level the University of Michigan has a better reputation and prestige than Notre Dame and Vanderbilt. Of course i know someone here who would completely disagree with me. ;-)

beefs

Had I not gotten into UChicago, Michigan would be my home next fall. The school is absolutely unique in that it offers 1)An outstanding student body, 2)Amazing academics,3)An awesome sports scene, and 4)top of the line departments.

Many people don't agree, but I'd place Michigan tied with Berkeley as the best two publics in the nation.

UCBChemEGrad

^ Tied? Hmmm...

I will say U Mich is better than UVA and UCLA...but not Berkeley.

*Based on my totally unbiased opinion.*

Alexandre

Hawkette, Michighan has a HUGE Northeastern/Mid Atlantic student population, both in the absolute and in the relative sense. There are currently over 3,500 (out of 25,000) undergrads from the Northeast/Mid Altlantic. Three thousand five hundred undergrads is more than what many elite Northeastern/Mid Atlantic colleges enroll! I cannot overstate how massive 3,500 is. Even in relative terms, that's 14% of Michigan's undergraduate population. The most diverse private universities outside of the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic don't have more than 25% of their undergrads hail from the Northeast.

New York: 1,355
New Jersey: 664
Pennsylvania: 386
Maryland: 361
Massachusetts: 250
Connecticut: 205
New Hampshire: 27
Vermont: 18
Maine: 16
Rhode Island: 11
TOTAL: 3,508

http://www.umich.edu/~regoff/report/07fa115.pdf

I don't think you will find a single university outside of the Northeast/Mid Atlnatic that has a larger NE/Mid-Atlantic undergraduate population.

vc08

UCBChemE: I'd agree. And I don't go to either one.

In fact, among the top-5, publics, I'd say:

Berkeley
(small but significant gap)
Michigan/Virginia
UCLA
UNC

Haha and I go to UCLA...soo that shows you my unbiased opinion! Though obviously all 5 are very highly-regarded schools, with excellent programs.

To the OP: Michigan is quite prestigious in CA, and from friends in other regions, all around the US it seems.

GoBlue81

Michigan enrolls around 35% OOS in its freshman class, out of which 40% is from the NE. I'd say that's "hugh".

Pizzagirl

I'd put Michigan and Berkeley as the two top public universities in the nation.
In terms of reputation, I just have to say that in the Chicago area, the Michigan name opens a lot of doors and is extremely well-regarded. I can't speak for the coasts, of course.