atlhawks

If only Michigan were located in CA...acceptance rate would be sub-25% I guarantee


Don't believe me then look at the acceptance rate of UCLA, UCB, USC, etc. - all comparable schools to UM

You can't solely go by acceptance rates

anzacday

Hey MightyNick,

I know UM inside and out-- my grandfather taught there for decades. Over 25% of my graduating class went there. Many of the graduate programs are very fine, but the undergraduate education is trash.

Think of it this way: UM has a piddling $175,000 per student. My old school, which was not so hot, had about $350,000 per student. My new school has over $1.5 million per student. You simply cannot get a good education with such a small endowment.

A lecture class on Milton with 300 students... GSAs circulating around the auditorium with microphones, should one of the dumb in-staters have a question: NO THANKS!

The factory system of education is necessarily inferior.

It should also be mentioned that the architecture at UM is horrendous.

barrons

It should be mentioned that your post is useless and ridiculous. Have you heard of state funding? Research overhead? Net tuition? State funded buildings. All make it silly to compare a private and public based on endowment. UM has over 70 National Academy members. How many does your alleged school have?

LaxAttack09

In terms of pure academic factors I'd say only 7-8 schools are "better" than UM. When it comes to the overall college experience I'd put it top 5.

dilksy

"You simply cannot get a good education with such a small endowment."

I should tell that to all of my friends who are going to graduate programs that are top 5 in their field.

atnyu

Barrons:

Actually, UM has (only) 19 members of the National Academy of Sciences. See my post #44 earlier today.

UM is an excellent university, but many public and private universities have far more NAS members among their faculty (my post #41 of today). Let's not get carried away.

hoedown

I am looking at survey data from U-M's class of 2008, where they report about their experiences as undergrads. If they go through four years without ever talking to a professor, they sure do lie about it when asked about their time here. So not just morons, but also liars, apparently. Useful to know, thanks.

Other gripey quibbles for a Thursday afternoon: You can be all kinds of "objective" and still put a school down in subtle ways. I seem to recall someone "objectively" noting that Ann Arbor was a small city and declaring that U-M was not convenient to a major airport. Bzzzzt, wrong answer.

And Lehigh is quite a decent engineering school, so I wouldn't necessarily classify it as an LAC.

barrons

It has more members in ther other categories--engineering, medicine, etc. The total is over 70 as reported here.

Research- The Center for Measuring University Performance

rjkofnovi

Look large public universities are not for everyone. If you need to be held by the hand and otherwise coddled you don't want to attend the University of Michigan. However if you want to prepare yourself to succeed in the real world and be able to communicate with people of all levels, then it is about as good as place as there is to attend college. It seems to me that the people who disparage public schools in general, and Michigan in particular, are not the type of people that most others would want to associate with. Just my humble opinion.

anzacday

We have several Nobel Laureates and 5:1 student faculty ratio. But this isn't about whether my school is better. I will say, however, that I applied to UM, was accepted and chose not to go.

My contention is simple:

A gigantic university, supported by the government, located in a dying state will never be first rate.

I don't put all that much stock in rankings, but UM was once ranked #8. What is it now #25? That's an incredible decline. The chancellor bolted for Columbia. What's the average SAT score, 1200?

I think most people regard UM as a second rate Northwestern.

Again, many of the graduate programs are manifestly excellent... and a PhD or a JD from UM certainly impresses me. But as an undergraduate institution it's simply not very good, and by what metrics I've seen, is worsening.

keefer

ok, now you are just a troll, ban!

hoedown

My own dad (not grandfather, but dad) taught at a university. I grew up being on campus, going to art shows there, socializing with faculty and their kids. That doesn't mean I know the place inside and out. It's neat that your granddad taught here, but it doesn't make your assessment credible.

U-M dropped from 8 to 25 or so because they expanded the components of the ranking. Rankings from this era and rankings from 1987 aren't a reasonable comparison. The #8 ranking, back in the 1980s, was a peer ranking. If you compare today's peer ranking with back then, you instead see U-M has hardly moved. Some very ill-read person at a think tank in Midland once said U-M "plummeted" based on that metric. It was a huge embarrassment for them and the author. For some reason that has stuck with people, you included. But it's absolutely incorrect.

Bollinger was not our chancellor--you really aren't coming off as someone who knows U-M well. I would not characterize his departure to Columbia as "bolting" for quality reasons.

The mean SAT is not 1200. But if you know this place inside and out, why are you asking?

rjkofnovi

As soon as i read the word "chancellor," i knew this person wasn't very familiar with Michigan.

hoedown

Next he'll be telling us that Ann Harbor isn't that great a town and that Zingermunds is overrated.

rjkofnovi

It's "Ann Arbor" and "Zingerman's." Personally i think Zingerman's is overrated. There are better delis in the Detroit suburbs.