<p>"Furthermore, our medical school also has it’s own campus in the city of A2 and doesn’t claim a defacto campus some 15 or so miles away in another city. 
"</p>
<p>Hehe! Good one Novi!</p>
<p>^ How does medical school education relate to UNDERGRAD?! </p>
<p><em>geez, I’m starting to sound like xiggi</em> ;)</p>
<p>^^^Well when you don’t have a top nursing program nearby your med school/hospital that grants undergraduate degrees, I guess it wouldn’t make much of a difference if you had a med school campus or not. ;-)</p>
<p>A medical library, medical research positions, shadowing and internship opportunities, a huge amount of people in the UM medical network willing to give advice, volunteering opportunities, jobs… was that a joke, ucbchemegrad? With such ease of access, the nearby hospital and medical school have had a fairly large impact on my undergraduate education.</p>
<p>“We don’t disagree, though I think the “edge” conversation is absolutely silly. Michigan has higher scores because the OOS students raise the average.”</p>
<p>Lergmom, the OOS students do NOT raise the average of the entering class at U of Mich. This is a myth that it seems never dies. Here are the statistics from The Michigan Daily:
According to an analysis of the 2007 freshman class, entering HS students from the state of Michigan had an average high school GPA of 3.8, while out-of-state students earned a 3.67.</p>
<p>Out-of-state students currently studying at the University are doing slightly better than their in-state counterparts. They have a 3.25 GPA on average while in-state students have a 3.21 average.
Have a read here: [Out-of-staters</a> get better grades | The Michigan Daily](<a href=“http://www.michigandaily.com/content/out-staters-get-better-grades]Out-of-staters”>Out-of-staters get better grades)</p>
<p>I was speaking of SAT scores not grades, but it doesn’t matter. And I don’t know those numbers except from naviance figures from some OOS high schools that show much higher SAT scores for Michigan admittees.</p>
<p>I strongly STRONGLY doubt that in-state students have higher test scores than OOS students at Michigan. I believe in state students would have a higher gpa because they go to worse schools and are more likely to be at the top of their class with lower test scores and lower extra-curricular accomplishments. </p>
<p>OOS students tend to come in with higher test scores and higher extracurricular backgrounds, but are less likely to have a higher gpa because they often come from more competitive school and performed decently, have scores and EC accomplishments that would have allowed them to get into more “selective” schools if their gpa was higher, and/or are attracted by extensive merit aid, which is heavily score-based. </p>
<p>This is, of course, generalizing the student body and is all relative. Most of the students here are quite strong or at least very hardworking.</p>
<p>Indeed OOS may have higher SAT scores, particularly since the State of Michigan uses, pays for and reports ACT scores…so SAT is under-represented and under-studied (unless a student is targeting some OOS schools.) And I agree Tyler, with your assessment that the GPA phenom of OOS students can indeed be explained by the fact that many of the students admitted will be from exceptionally rigorous private schools.</p>
<p>However, I note that if the OOS students were truly the cause of beefing up U. of Mich’s average stats, as the poster implies, that would be quite a mathematical feat considering the fact that the OOS pool only represents 30 to 35% of the student population. Meaning their impact just couldn’t be all THAT substantial on the AVERAGE and at the same time be in the general median acceptance range.</p>
<p>Together with the fact that each OOS and In-State student once ATTENDING U of Mich performs with a .04 spread (3.25 vs. 3.21) would support Tyler’s comment that “most students are quite strong or hardworking.” The evidence suggests to me that whether you’re from the State of Michigan or from a selective OOS school, there is not a major differential in actual performance at U of Mich.</p>
<p>To compare entrance profiles of UT to UM nets more of a differential than what can be passed off as “roughly” the same student body. At U of M, fewer than 25% of students would get in with a composite ACT of 26 with all else being equal. (Notably the 100 point spread on SAT scores is less significant, eg. 1:24 vs. 3:36 or 1:12 in the case of the ACT)</p>
<p>Which is not to say UT is not an awesome school. I am given to understand that it is. I am just a little sick and tired of the profoundly mythic opinion of the elite that
a) In-State students are stupid (folks, we built the school, thank you very much) and
b) the OOS students carry single-handedly the competitive nature of the school by virtue of their extra extraordinariness (y’all look about the same to me, statistically speaking : )</p>
<p>Cheers, all
K</p>
<p>I don’t think OOS students are the difference, but the lower percentage of in-state students is a mark of Michigan. The law school, for example, admits a lower percentage in-state than the other public top-ranked law schools - it used to be 50% and may still be. That helps the reputation if not the reality of the education. </p>
<p>As I said above, the grad schools reputations are the big driver. That kind of ranking is much more important and more reliable for a variety of reasons - as in, faculty in grad programs are more direct reflections of the kind of research the grad students do, reputation equals placement, etc.</p>