Alexandre

I also agree with UCBChem. When it comes to overall national reputation, state schools go something like this:

University of California-Berkeley
University of Michigan-Ann arbor
University of Virgnia
University of California-Los Angeles
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill & University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign & University of Texas-Austin

BedHead

U. Michigan has nothing to be defensive about. It's a top school. Personally, I've never attended it or visited it even, but in my opinion it's perennially underranked and underrated. I've said it before on other threads and I'll say it again: rankings tend to focus on two things: undergrad selectivity and academic output. Graduate school rankings are a good proxy for the latter. CC is full of people who believe and argue that because certain schools are, on an overall basis, more selective they are ipso facto better schools. This form of prestige is extremely important to a CCer. But to me this overlooks the fact that U Mich has across a huge swath of fields top program after top program in terms of academic output and achievement and that the essential model of how U Mich delivers education is different. And by the way, the school has a huge number of top students, even if its averages don't come out as high as some other more prestigious schools. For these top students in particular, U. Michigan opens them up to tremendous quality every bit as rich as the top privates and in some cases significantly better, IMO.

And where I've spent a lot of time -- i.e. the West Coast -- U Mich vs. Lehigh or BC? What? Are you joking?

On the other hand, who gives a rat's a** about the question anyway? Personally I'd choose U Mich in a New York second over those and even over several other more highly ranked schools.

imaparasite

Hawkette - Michigan is ranked much higher than Lehigh, BC, and NYU no matter what criteria you use. Michigan is on par with Berkeley, UCLA, and private schools like Cornell and Northwestern.

It's ridiculous to put Michigan on the same level as NYU. USNews is not the be all end all but it ranks Michigan in the top 25 and NYU in the 50s. This along with the fact that Michigan is underranked.

beanieboo

well im from central jersey and michigan is VERY highly regarded around me. maybe thats just cause i went to an insanely competitive public school. you would actually get MORE "wow" factor in my HS if you said you were going to michigan than if it were nyu/lehigh because everyone smart applies to these schools. maybe because less people go there and its so hard to get into oos? my grad year 15 went to nyu, 7 to bc, 6 to lehigh and only 2 to mich. the kids right below the ivy kids go to michigan before they would go to bc/nyu/lehigh.

i go to BC and i seriously consdiered nyu and lehigh.. that said i think i would go to michigan if it was soley based on prestige anyday. but since its not, it would be hard to decide between BC and there for me conisdering the sizes and the distances from home.

go to mighigan

Tsukasa36

Wow. Thank you guys for your comments, I didn't know this thread would be on fire like this... anyways I guess because people in south jersey rarely see people go to Michigan they couldn't fully see the prestigiousness. Now I can reassure myself to go to Michigan.. Thanks.

hawkette

Just to clean my skirt a little….

On the numbers of northeasterners at U Michigan, if you want to count graduate students as part of your calculation, that’s fine. I don’t. If you think 14% is huge, that’s fine. I don’t. However, I do think that the size of the school could accurately be called huge (26,000+ undergraduates with 17,000+ from the state of Michigan).

As for the claim, “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,” you are probably correct if you are talking in absolute numbers as few colleges are as large (although you forgot Penn State). But if you are talking about percentages, you might want to look at Notre Dame which I believe has around 24%.

For U Michigan’s rep, I would agree that it is quite strong in the Chicago market and most of the Midwest and much more so than it would be in New Jersey.

For those protesting my comments about the relative quality of Lehigh, BC and NYU vs U Michigan, I think you are selling these schools and their student bodies and the quality of their academic experience short. These are terrific colleges and compare very, very well with U Michigan. Saying that they are the true private schools peers for U Michigan is an accurate statement.

For example, using a few of the colleges mentioned by imaparasite, consider the following and see if you can tell which college is which and which are closest peers:


STUDENT SELECTIVITY
-% ACCEPTANCE RATE
College A 47% College B 30% College C 39% College D 27%
-SAT/ACT RANGE (Middle 50%)
College A 1210-1420/ 27-31 College B 1320-1500/ 30-34 College C 1220-1400/ na College D 1250-1420/ 28-32
-% OF STUDENTS RANKING IN TOP 10% IN HS CLASS
College A 90% College B 83% College C 90% College D 80%


% OF STUDENTS SCORING 700+ ON SAT CRITICAL READING
College A 23% College B 53% College C 13% College D 26%
% OF STUDENTS SCORING 700+ ON SAT MATH
College A 43% College B 63% College C 39% College D 40%
% OF STUDENTS SCORING 30+ ON ACT
College A 43% College B 69% College C na College D na


FACULTY RESOURCES
-% OF CLASSES WITH <20 STUDENTS
College A 45% College B 74% College C 66% College D 39%
-% OF CLASSES WITH 50+ STUDENTS
College A 17% College B 8% College C 4% College D 9%
-FACULTY/STUDENT RATIO
College A 15/1 College B 7/1 College C 9/1 College D 13/1
USNWR FACULTY RESOURCES RANK
College A 69th College B 7th College C 19th College D 69th


GRADUATION RATES
-% OF STUDENTS EXPECTED TO GRADUATE IN 6 YEARS:
College A 83% College B 93% College C 82% College D 86%
-% OF STUDENTS WHO DO GRADUATE IN 6 YEARS:
College A 87% College B 93% College C 86% College D 91%
-% OF STUDENTS WHO GRADUATE IN 4 YEARS:
College A 70% College B 85% College C 75% College D 88%
FRESHMAN RETENTION RATE
College A 96% College B 97% College C 94% College D 95%
USNWR GRADUATION & RETENTION RANK:
College A 26th College B 13th College C 31st College D 20th

ALUMNI GIVING %
College A 17% College B 29% College C 36% College D 24%
USNWR ALUMNI GIVING RANK
College A 83rd College B 27th College C 13th College D 41st

% OF WHITE/NON-HISPANIC STUDENTS
College A 66% College B 59% College C 72% College D 76%

% FROM PUBLIC HIGH SCHOOLS
College A 80% College B 73% College C na College D na


tsukasa,
For your purposes, U Michigan is an excellent state university and you should have few qualms about placing it on your college search list. Good luck.

Alexandre

"But if you are talking about percentages, you might want to look at Notre Dame which I believe has around 24%"

Is there an echo here? Hawkette, that was my point. That is exactly what I said. Even small, private universities outside of the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic do not have more than 25% Northeast/Mid-Atlantic representation. The fact that 14% of Michigan's undergraduate student population come from the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic is very significant. It is to be commanded and admired. That is why Michigan's reputation in NYC and DC rivals that of the elite Eastern private universities. Their alums hold the highest positions both in the private and public sectors in those two major East Coast cities.

Which brings us back to this thread's purpose. Reputation. Your stats are interesting to be sure, but they do not give the OP much to go on. Those stats are not a reflection of academic reputation or academic quality.

keefer

again, whenever you mention Michigan or UC-Berkeley, you always say "excellent/good state University", you never recognize Michigan for the great University that it is, public or private status, you discount everything that Michigan is good at, including but not limited to the PA score. which clearly asked University deans and presidents to rank UNDERGRADUATE programs.

I don't feel Michigan needs defending in academie, or the professional world, but I must warn high school students on this site that you have a strong bias against Michigan, that I cannot explain, because you have never attended any of these schools, use a set of personal internalized rationalizations based on median SAT scores to judge undergraduate education quality.

For example, all the schools you listed as Michigan peers have almost the same SAT median scores, and that's pretty much the only similarity i find between Michigan and those schools.

westsidewolf1989

michigan is a great school. period. as far as well rounded schools, you really can't get a whole lot better, as umich is excellent in engineering, sciences, business, and the liberal arts. The idea of a private being more prestigious than a public is just based on the fact that most privates have smaller student body, thus more student/teacher interaction and that their student bodies (at the top privates) are more even (meaning that there is less disparity from smartest to "dumbest" kid). Michigan has tons of smart kids that could have gone to the "prestige" of a private school but mabe just wanted a big school atmosphere.
BTW, this is from a person that is going to attend a private college.

rjkofnovi

To hawkette exclusivity is everything. Why else would he/she mention only four less significant factors while comparing these schools. There is an elite private slant that is always on the agenda and it's more apparent with every post. I agree with keefer and hope young impressionable minds don't pay much attention the constant barrage of negativity that hawkette brings to these boards. You can gloat all you want about the IL and other top privates, Michigan is up there quality wise and prestige wise with all but a very select few. I mean i can count them on my two hands.

atnyu

Imaparasite wrote: "It's ridiculous to put Michigan on the same level as NYU. USNews is not the be all end all but it ranks Michigan in the top 25 and NYU in the 50s. This along with the fact that Michigan is underranked."

Is it really so ridiculous?! An very good measure of the academic and research strengths, excellence, and reputation of a university, in the natural sciences and mathematics at least, is the number of members of the National Academy of Sciences that it has among its faculty. To find that, go to the NAS web site National Academy of Sciences:
and enter the name of the institution.

NYU has 26 members of the NAS, while U. of Michigan has only 16. So, who is being ridiculous here?

In fact, U. of Michigan has remarkably FEW members of the NAS for a very large public research university. For comparison, here are the NAS membership numbers for several other leading public universities:

UC-Berkeley 127 (!), UC-San Diego 65, U. of Wisconsin-Madison 44, U. of Washington (Seattle) 42, UCLA 28, U. of Illinois at Urbana 27, UNC-Chapel Hill 11, U. of Virginia 4.

It helps to know relevant facts before making strong statements.

Alexandre

atnyu, the number of NAS faculty teaching at an institution is more a function of location than academic excellence. Even with relatively few NAS members, Michigan's departments are among the top ranked in academe. NUY and Michigan are tied in Math and Economics, but in most other traditional academic disciplines, Michigan is ranked significantly higher than NYU.

Biology:
#15 Michigan (tied with Columbia and Wisconsin)
#58 NYU

Chemistry:
#16 Michigan (tied with PSU, Princeton and UNC)
NYU not ranked among the top 50

Computer Science:
#13 Michigan (tied with UCLA and Maryland)
#31 NYU

Economics:
#11 Michigan (tied with Columbia, UCLA and Wisconsin)
#15 NYU

English:
#12 English (tied with Duke and UVa)
#23 NYU

Geology:
#5 Michigan (Columbia)
NYU not ranked among the top 25

History:
#7 Michigan (tied with Columbia)
#22 NYU

Mathematics:
#9 Michigan (tied with Columba...again and NYU)

Physics:
#13 Michigan (tied with Maryland and Penn)
#42 NYU

Political Science:
#3 Michigan
#18 NYU

Psychology
#2 Michigan (tied with Cal)
#36 NYU

Sociology
#3 Michigan
#22 NYU

At the end of the day, a university's faculty numbers in the thousands. Most universities have fewer than 100 members of the NAS. So, how many of those thousands are members of the NAS is an interesting statistic to be sure, but I would be more concerned with the quality of the faculty that aren't members members of the NAS!

madville

Boy, I love a great debate! However as a die hard Buckeye fan, it is IMPOSSIBLE to be objective about *ichgan! Thus, I shall refrain from posting either pro or con about the TSUN. OP, follow your heart. (And the good advice being presented here)

atnyu

In my previous post today, I gave the numbers of the members of the National Academy of Sciences for NYU (26) and U. of Michigan (19, not 16, sorry), as well as for the leading public research universities.

To put them in perspective, here are the NAS membership numbers for the leading private universities:

Harvard 162
Stanford 126
MIT 103
Caltech 74
Princeton 73
Yale 60
Columbia 43
U. of Chicago 41
Cornell 39
U. of Pennsylvania 33
Duke 18
Northwestern 17
USC 10
Vanderbilt 4
Dartmouth 2
Georgetown 0
Notre Dame 0

Everyone can draw their own conclusions.

hawkette

rjno,
I think you are mistaking a different opinion on U Michigan as a biased opinion.

In looking at any college, I try to use objective data to make judgments rather than relying on subjective assessments or passionate and/or anecdotal posts by current students/alumni of a college. My process for evaluating undergraduate colleges relates to four key factors that I see as determining the nature and quality of the undergraduate academic experience that a student will encounter. Those are:

1. Strength of student body-I prefer stronger students
2. Size and nature of the classroom-I prefer smaller class sizes with classes taught by professors, rather than TAs
3. Faculty-I prefer colleges known for their excellence in classroom instruction and see research reputations as mostly unrelated to the average undergraduate experience
4. Institutional resources and the willingness of the institution to use these resources to assist undergraduate education-I prefer colleges that have a lot of resources that are growing and which are being dedicated to improve the undergraduate experience.

I think that fit issues supersede these factors when the differences are relatively close.

Using this approach, I conclude that U Michigan is an excellent state university that can provide a very good undergraduate academic experience, but I don't believe that it is as strong as the top privates. And in the post-graduate real world, I definitely don't think it is nearly as strong as Michigan partisans regularly posit. I would describe U Michigan graduates as very good (similar on average to BC, Lehigh, NYU). Can some be received in some postgraduate circles at a higher level? Of course (and the same would be true for BC et al and any college), but I am looking at the institution as a whole and not taking the reputation of a subset of students, eg. engineering, business, etc. as automatically representative of the entire university.

If you want to call my approach biased, then I"m sure you will, but this is how I evaluate colleges. This has nothing to do with U Michigan as I apply similar metrics to all colleges. I would be interested to know your methodology in how you evaluate colleges.