<p>
Often times those “significant” benefits come at an increased cost. If you’re in-state for a top public, the extra “benefits” may not be worth the premium.</p>
<p>For that matter, the “private” school advocates on these forums focus solely on resources per student (e.g. smaller class sizes and more hand holding) and tend to ignore the fact that hundreds of thousands of students receive absolutely wonderful educations at the top public schools every year. </p>
<p>The costs of the top privates often do not exceed the benefits to undergraduates in terms of what I will broadly define as “life outcomes” and the advocates for the type privates often forget that their beloved schools often hog resources for pretty dorms and nicely manicured lawns that could otherwise be invested in more productive endeavors. </p>
<p>The importance of institutions like Michigan, Wisconsin, Berkeley, and Texas to this country dwarfs schools like Duke, Rice, or Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>hawkette,
I didn’t take shots at Lehigh, NYU et al. In fact I said they’re good schools with some very good programs (though a bit spottier than Michigan, Duke, etc), and that on an individual basis students coming out of those schools can be very competitive in admissions to top grad and professional schools. We’d certainly give outstanding candidates from schools at that level a close look. But there just aren’t as many of them, either as a percentage or in sheer numbers, and to that extent they just aren’t at the same tier as a Michigan or a Duke. I don’t know why you have such a hard time accepting that Michigan is simply much closer to Duke than to Lehigh. The hard numbers back that up, plain as day.</p>
<p>As for EAD’s preposterous claims as to Michigan’s success rate in placing top students in top professional programs, it just has no basis in fact whatsoever. Look, I am a Michigan grad who fits into none of those special categories. I was admitted into the top grad program in my chosen academic field, and later into the top professional school in my field when I changed fields—both leading Ivies. There were as many or more Michigan grads in both of those programs than there were Dukies. Small sample, I know, but the numbers bear me out. </p>
<p>Moreover, the idea that Michigan’s numbers in the WSJ survey are somehow inflated by Ross pre-admits is plainly false, as Ross was not even one of the 5 “elite” business schools counted in the WSJ survey. So all those elite Ross pre-admits actually count AGAINST Michigan’s WSJ ranking. As critics of the survey pointed out, Harvard’s numbers are inflated by the inclusion of 3 Harvard professional schools (law, medicine, business) on the list, since more Harvard undergads decide to “stay home” and go to a Harvard professional school. Yale, Columbia, and Chicago had 2 schools apiece in the survey, while no other school had more than 1. Michigan had 1 (law) and Duke had none, by the way, which may help Michigan’s stats a little vis-a-vis Duke, but on the other hand is not very a very complimentary statement about how Duke’s professional schools stack up in the eyes of WSJ.</p>
<p>hawkette. I"m curious, where did you go to school?</p>
<p>“Awwww, Alexandre…I thought you were busy compiling data from Facebook pages…LOL!”</p>
<p>Hehe! You know me too well. But I am not going to bother. No matter how much the stats support Michigan, the attitude will remain unchanged.</p>
<p>"You have GOT to still be a college student, because in the real world people don’t walk around saying, “This guy went to Michigan and he’s a real dork, therefore this other guy who also went to Michigan must be a real dork too.”
Do you think there are no unimpressive people at HYP? Of course there are.</p>
<p>No, I have seen this play out in recruiting and interviewing time and time again. It’s not a matter of someone at UMichigan will be viewed as a dork, but someone potentially not smart enough or impressive enough in comparison to other candidates. People at HYP are more given the initial benefit of the doubt, which, many times, is all you need to be given a chance.</p>
<p>“Prospective employers don’t care about the selectivity numbers. They care about the education gotten.” </p>
<p>From what I have seen, this is very wrong. Most jobs don’t have anything to do with the education received (and don’t actually need more than a high school education), but what matters is how smart someone is and how well they can learn.</p>
<p>I don’t understand this notion that the most desirable candidates for IB and consulting are different than other jobs, except for the fact that your F30 company knows that its entry level positions do not pay as much and are not as sought after by recent grads compared to positions in IB and consulting; so do not even bother trying to get candidates from Harvard, Yale, Princeton.</p>
<p>Alexandre’s ‘hard numbers’ were both incomplete and contradicted other statements he made. There were only 54 students from UMichigan going to BB banks (instead of the 100-200 he claimed) and it was likely (although indeterminate from the data) that not all these positions were corporate finance analysts. Not to mention that he didn’t show any other schools’ employment figures (to the extent they’re even available) to offer up any kind of comparisons. Not that I want to go find those kinds of stats, but one can’t make any type of relative conclusions from his ‘hard numbers.’</p>
<p>keefer,
You said that I am making up how I arrive at my estimation of U Michigan’s student body strength. Sorry if it was not clear from prior posts, but the conclusion comes from how U Michigan ranks on standardized test data. </p>
<p>Nice try on hoping to minimize the importance of standardized test scores. But do you really mean to insult all college admissions counselors by calling them childish and immature for making it one of their top three elements for evaluating college applications? </p>
<p>Please tell me if you think that these numbers are “made up.”</p>
<p>U Michigan’s Ranks in the following:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>SAT Average Critical Reading is tied for 37th with Georgia Tech</p></li>
<li><p>SAT Average Math is tied for 27th with UC Berkeley, Brandeis, Lehigh, Boston College, Georgia Tech, Case Western, U Illinois, and Worcester</p></li>
<li><p>SAT Average Total is tied for 35th with Georgia Tech (20 points behind BC, 10 points behind Tulane, 5 points ahead of NYU, and 10 points ahead of Lehigh)</p></li>
<li><p>ACT Average is tied for 24th with Emory, NYU, and Tulane (and there are about 3-6 others who don’t provide ACT averages, eg, Yale, Caltech, etc. that would likely score better than U Michigan)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Standardized test scores are not the be-all, end-all for measurements of student body strength, but it is the single best measure that we have as outside observers and, according to NACAC (National Association of College Admission Counselors) they are highly valued and have a high correlation to the overall quality of student’s application. These are not absolutes and should not be interpreted literally, but I think that the broad numbers allow us to make some broad judgments.</p>
<p>Re your statement, </p>
<p>“Michigan has repeatedly stated in the CDS, and the prior points system, that SAT scores are not as important as difficulty of curriculum, and GPA.”</p>
<p>this is false (if I were you, I might even label your statement a “lie”). Please refer to Section C of the U Michigan CDS where Academic GPA is given the same weight as standardized test scores (both ranked as important). You would be correct that Rigor is the most important consideration (ranked as very important). I think you would find this to be the case at most of the top colleges. </p>
<p><a href=“Office of Budget and Planning”>Office of Budget and Planning;
<p>I am not arguing that U Michigan is a bad place or that it is a weak school. But I think you and other U Michigan proponents promote the school to an unjustified perch.</p>
<p>Hawkette, I filled out the most of the CDS on admissions this year. </p>
<p>You can’t read that much into it. Given the choices available, it’s true that both are important. But the CDS does NOT (and cannot) capture the way readers at Michigan weight them. They are not equal. Both important, but not equally so. CDS is a rather general way to give students some idea of what a school looks at, but doesn’t capture nuance at U-M (or other schools, I’d wager).</p>
<p>It’s true that they are both important, but GPA and curriculum matter a great deal more. U-M stopped using its point system, but look at their relative weights back then: GPA maxed out at 80 points, and curriculum went from -4 to +8; while SAT maxed out at 12. When it stopped using the formula, it did not overthrow the primacy of grades/courses in the evaluation.</p>
<p>Your arguments about SAT being a standardized outside measure may have merit, but it is incorrect to interpret our CDS response in this manner.</p>
<p>Michigan PA 4.5
Duke PA 4.4</p>
<p>Just my input-I’m a tarheel who is friends with many Robertsons and people at Duke. I would argue that the undergraduate experience at UNC (public similar to Michigan) and Duke are very similar. I know that classes and professors are very comparable, as evidenced by the number of kids at both schools that cross over for classes (via the Robertson bus, kind of a special program). I’m not a Duke hater, but money is a big factor for me, and Michigan might give you some financial aid (private schools hardly gave me any at all, that’s why I turned down Cornell). I’d go Michigan undergrad and Duke grad for the money, or vice versa-then you get a degree from each! Yes, a compromise!</p>
<p>54 from Ross alone. </p>
<p>Citigroup 10
Goldman Sachs 9
JP Morgan 9
Credit Suisse 8
Deutsche Bank 7
Lehman Brothers 5
UBS 4
Morgan Stlaney 2</p>
<p>That does not include other major IBanks that recruit on campus, such as Lazard and Merrill Lynch or LSA or Engineering figures. Generally, Goldman Sachs recruits twice as many Econ majors as it does BBAs at Michigan. UBS generally recruits more Engineers than BBAs. </p>
<p>Overall, 100-200 is about right for Michigan. I would like to see some numbers from the other 15-20 universities that you claim are more heavily recruited than Michigan. Like I said, if you cannot, you are just stating an opinion.</p>
<p>You picked the GPA on the CDS… while under the prior point system, 80 points were given to a 4.0 GPA, while only 12 points were rewarded for a 1600 SAT score.</p>
<p>This type of argument, along with your SAT ranking system is really indicative of the fallacy of your entire argument that Michigan’s peers are Lehigh, Boston College and NYU. You pick the things that Michigan are not good in… and compare them to these other schools’ strengths. </p>
<p>However, it still stands that Michigan is ranked #23 in selectivity, higher than all those that you consider peers. (I have always conceded that Duke is more selective, but selectivity does not equal education quality) </p>
<p>So you tell me? why is it that you consider Peer Assessment, a rating assessment made by hundreds of leading academics around the nation, to be worthless, while your ranking of SAT score to be the holy grail of all rankings? If lehigh suddenly get 10,000 more applications, and its SAT score jumps 50 points, is it now a peer of Vanderbilt? (a University that for reasons unknown has a special place in your heart), or 80 points, then is it now a peer of UPenn?</p>
<p>It’s quite simple keefer why hawkette discounts the PA ratings. It shows schools like Berkeley and Michigan rank up there in academics with the best of the privates. Well after HYPSM at least.</p>
<p>Hey Jbone. If you are still reading this thread, i wonder where you decided to go to school. Either choice is fanstastic. :-)</p>
<p>
Berkeley is tied with Yale on PA score…therefore, its up there with Y at least…
:D</p>
<p>
Ummm, Okaay…and how does “selectivity” numbers from ones alma mater have anything to do with “how smart someone is and how well they can learn.” I think you’re putting too much faith in a school’s reputation vs. standing out on your own…Recruiters are not going to look at a resume of a Duke job applicant and one from a Michigan job applicant and assume the Duke grad is better before the interview because the school is more selective…<em>unless they happen to be an alum from either</em>…;)</p>
<p>“Michigan PA 4.5
Duke PA 4.4”</p>
<p>Michigan Median SAT: 1320; acceptance rate: 50%
Duke: Median SAT: 1440; acceptance rate: 23%</p>
<p>The students are the ones applying for jobs and grad school, not the professors. One set of figures is subjective and is based on the critiques of people who know little about the schools they are rating vs the other set is objective, irrefutable data. How hard is it to understand the difference between these two?</p>
<p>Lazard is not BB and apparently Merrill didn’t hire anyone from UMichigan in whatever year this data is from. You seem to ignore how you have to be so much higher in your class from UMichigan to get these jobs vs other schools, which is why you continually post absolute numbers rather than % of class numbers.</p>
<p>“Generally, Goldman Sachs recruits twice as many Econ majors as it does BBAs at Michigan.”</p>
<p>So, you are saying there are typically 27 people from UMichigan in the analyst class at Goldman? How many people are in the analyst class total at Goldman? I find it hard to believe that 20%+ of Goldman comes from UMichigan and certainly wasn’t the case when my roommate was there and a quick check on Bloomberg profiles (which is going to be heavily weighted in favor of UMichigan because of its size and larger prominence of MBA school) still only shows 23 from UMichigan vs 20 from Duke, 40 from Georgetown, 37 from Cornell, 20 from Brown, 14 from UVA, 14 from BC.</p>
<p>“Overall, 100-200 is about right for Michigan. I would like to see some numbers from the other 15-20 universities that you claim are more heavily recruited than Michigan. Like I said, if you cannot, you are just stating an opinion.”</p>
<p>Basically, what you are asking for is unprovable and you aren’t able to justify your general 100-200 grads from UMichigan alone. I notice you don’t offer any other schools’ employment figures as a comparison. Bloomberg profiles is a step in the right direction and shows that UMichigan has less at Goldman than Brown, Duke, Georgetown, Cornell (all schools I’m guessing you think UMichigan is above in your top 10 statement), but this approach is inexact and painfully tedious to specifically decipher actual numbers, but should still be a representaive sample of relative differences between schools.</p>
<p>UMich seems to do a better job at educating these “weaker” students and placing them into top grad schools and firms…Which then is the better school? One that prepares weak-SAT scoring students for top positions, or one that seems like an entitlement club with rampant grade inflation and where you go to have fun, get your butt wiped and your golden ticket stamped?</p>
<p>“Lazard is not BB and apparently Merrill didn’t hire anyone from UMichigan in whatever year this data is from. You seem to ignore how you have to be so much higher in your class from UMichigan to get these jobs vs other schools, which is why you continually post absolute numbers rather than % of class numbers.”</p>
<p>So WHAT? Even if no one from Michigan got into ANY i-bank in NYC, what would that have to do with the quality / strength of the EDUCATION at these schools?</p>
<p>Good lord, is there no one other than pre-professionals in your world? No art history majors? No philosophy majors? No political science majors? No dance majors? No Spanish lit majors? No public policy majors? How is the placement record at i-banks in NYC meaningful about anything other than the i-bank-at-NYC placement record?</p>
<p>“Bloomberg profiles is a step in the right direction and shows that UMichigan has less at Goldman than Brown, Duke, Georgetown, Cornell (all schools I’m guessing you think UMichigan is above in your top 10 statement), but this approach is inexact and painfully tedious to specifically decipher actual numbers, but should still be a representaive sample of relative differences between schools.”</p>
<p>It’s NOT a step in the right direction. There’s nothing inherently better about going to an i-banking job than any other type of job. Just because some people are money whores …</p>
<p>“I think you’re putting too much faith in a school’s reputation vs. standing out on your own…Recruiters are not going to look at a resume of a Duke job applicant and one from a Michigan job applicant and assume the Duke grad is better before the interview because the school is more selective…<em>unless they happen to be an alum from either</em>”</p>
<p>Of course not. Which is why it’s so evident that we’re dealing with college students here with no knowledge of the real world. EXCEPT for this eensy-weensy bubble of i-banks, both Duke and Michigan will serve as excellent “smart stamps” for the job applicant. And then … the first impressions that the person makes and how well they establish rapport is going to be far more important. No one’s going to look at an arrogant Duke applicant and a friendly Michigan applicant and think, oh, I’d better take the arrogant Duke applicant because he went to Doooooke where they’re more selective and have better frat parties to boot (burp).</p>