GoBlue81

Here is a longer list of famous alum:
http://alumni.umich.edu/info/um/famous_alumni.php

Alexandre

I agree Redhare. Anybody who hasn't heard of Lary Page and Sergey Brin is living in the dark ages. Those guys are worth $15 billion each and they are barely 33 years old. They co-founded the World's hottest technology company since Bill Gates founded Microsoft. They have graced the cover of every major magazine, from Fortune to Times. They are as famous as they come.

Besides, the Wallgreen in Wallgreen's Drugstore, the Merrill in Merrill Lynch, the Borders in Borders Bookstore, the Adkins in Adkins Diet, the Leo Burnett in Leo Burnett, the Mayo in Mayo Clinic are all Wolverines. I'd say those are all famous people.

gchris07

Please, I am not referring to those who play in the NFL who have done absolutely nothing with their education.

By the way, Iggy Pop and Madonna both dropped out of the university. You are getting desparate if you must grasp for these two stars, for they did not even comlplete their education at UMich.

Alexandre

Gchris, do not jump to conclusions. Brady, Dolan, Dhani Jhones and several other athletes were very much into their education. They all graduated with 3.0+ GPAs and took challenging classes. And whether or not Madonna graduate or not is beside the point. The point is that she attend the University. And who is "grasping"? You said that Michigan produced only two famous people. We have proved that there are dozens of mega-stars who attended Michigan. The accomplishments of Michigan's alumni body, even taken as a percentage and not as a total number, is only bested by the likes of Harvard and Yale.

kb54010

I actually had Chad Henne in my Psych 393 discussion this past semester...he showed up and turned in stuff (which is more to ask for than one would think, esp given his time constraints), so I've sorta moved away from the stupid football player stereotype...just cuz they throw the pigskin around doesn't mean they blow off thier studies.

Alexandre

I took a poetry class with Dhani Jones (LB) and a German class with Rob Renes (Nose Guard) and they were both brilliant. That's one of the beauties of attending a school like Duke, Michigan, Notre Dame or Stanford. You have mega athletes who actually contribute to the learning environment. Sure, for every such athlete, you get some that are useless, but that's a small price to pay.

atomicfusion

Let's not forget that Michigan is a HUGE school with around 40,000 students. The alumni list is huge as well, but consider the fact that Michigan has two times as many students as Harvard, three times as many students as Yale, and a whopping six times as many students as Princeton!

So Michigan has a ton of alumni, but people need to compensate for other schools. If we want a fair comparing of Michigan's alumni to other school's, we must multiply the other schools alumni list to match Michigan's population. It's hard to quantify such a thing, but you get my point.

Alexandre

atomicfusion, Michigan's list of famous alums as well as the average wealth of its alums, taking size into account (so I am speaking proportionately) matches those of schools like Cornell, Duke, NU and Penn. None of those schools can match HP and Y.

dudedad

A little OT, but why doesn't Chris Webber's jersey hang from the rafters with others from Mich? Rudy T, Glenn Rice, Cazzie Russell are there, why not CWebb?

atomicfusion

Were figures of average wealth of every alum posted earlier in this thread? I honestly can't believe that the average wealth of a Michigan graduate is comparable to a graduate from Duke, NU, Cornell, and Penn. Michigan is a state school. Michigan Honors is at a level that's comparable to those places, but the regular Michigan school isn't. It has nothing to do with the teaching, but the initial quality of the students who aren't in the Honors school can't compare to the quality of the students in the non-HYP ivies.

dilksy

From wikipedia:

"In 2002, Webber was convicted of perjury. During the trial, he admitted to accepting large amounts of cash from a Michigan booster, Ed Martin, during his college career. This caused the NCAA to strike all of the Wolverines accomplishments from his two seasons (1991-92 and 1992-93) from their official records."

Alexandre

atomicfusion, believe it. Your analysis of Michigan's student body strength is way off. Last year, the mean SAT score of Michigan's Freshman class was merely 20 points below the mean of Northwestern's and Cornell's Freshman class. Historically, it was generally 40-60 points lower than any non HYPSM class. Only in the last decade did the private elites increase the gap from 50 points to roughly 80 or 90 points. However, the gap is once again in the 40-60 points range and closing. A 50 point hidtoric gap doesn't mean much. Also, according to a recent Wall Street Journal study, Michigan, Cornell, Penn and NU all sent roughly the same percentage of their students (3%-5%) to top graduate professional programs. Finally, wealth generates wealth and roughly 60% of Michigan students come from 6 figure income families. Michigan students are connected...not that they need those family connections given the strength and loyalty of the Michigan alumni association.

Although I have never been able to find it online, Fortune magazine did rank the wealthiest alumni bodies (on a per capita basis) back in the mid 90s and Michigan was one of the 10 wealthiest.

mnozzi

The SAT scores may be misleading. Most people in Michigan take ACTs, not SATs. The SAT scores that MI reports generally reflect the scores of out of state students who are required to have better stats for admission. For this reason I think the SAT scores are inflated.

MI reports their median ACT scores as 26-31. Using the conversion table this would be app 1170-1400. This is significantly below the scores of the top colleges

Also using ACT rationale --
Duke 29-34
Amherst 29 -33
CMU 28-32
Vanderbilt 28-33
Chicago 29-33

One of the reasons UM has been so successful is because of the overachievers that it attracts. The ACT average is 26-31, GPA 3.72. Most would be successful anywhere. It is not because UM is such a great academic bargain

Christine123

That's an interesting thing to think about for about 5 minutes. Most states in the South and Midwest take the ACT. In Alabama, I think about 4% of the state takes the SAT and 50% take the ACT. Thus, you could say that ACT scores at most schools represent students from certain states.
Anyways, remember that Michigan takes scores in a one-time sitting, while most schools report by section.

Enough about test scores. I'm in college now. And not taking the GRE yet. They indicate nothing beyond how well you can fill in bubbles. But bubbles are nice.

The point of going to Michigan for a lot of people is that, by numbers, there are equal amounts of people at the tops of the classes as most the entire classes of most top universities. However, it's big and famous enough to have well-known professors and more resources than most all universities and it has room for people with other talents, whether they be overachieving, athletics, or the arts. Woo hoo for diversity...

And I'd hope that most UM students would be successful anywhere. I'd just rather be successful at UM. It's awesome for a math and poli sci double major.

Alexandre

Mnozzi, the ACT range is 27-32, not 26-31. And 60% of Michigan students have taken the SAT, so I would exactly say that a low percentage of Michigan applicants take the SAT.