<p>I also had paid my deposit at Michigan and then got into Duke. I chose Michigan. I would give you a lengthy explanation, but, if I were to cut out all the fluff, it was that cost didn’t justify the benefit. The benefit of Duke over Honors at Michigan is there, but minimal. In certain programs - like Psychology - Michigan far outshines Duke. </p>
<p>I further rationalized my decision with two other things:
(1) <a href=“http://www.isi.org/college_guide/sample/2008/duke.pdf[/url]”>http://www.isi.org/college_guide/sample/2008/duke.pdf</a>
and the one for Michigan, which I read at Barnes and Noble.
(2) These modified rankings by another CC member:
1 Massachusetts Institute of Tec 106.924
2 Harvard University (MA) 101.670
3 Yale University (CT) 93.941
4 Stanford University (CA) 93.363
5 Princeton University (NJ) 92.413
6 Cal Institute of Technology 80.834
7 Cal Berkeley 79.979
8 Columbia University (NY) 71.055
9 U Chicago (IL) 67.569
10 Cornell University (NY) 66.336
11 U Pennsylvania 62.049
12 Michigan—Ann Arbor 61.968
13 Texas Austin 58.623
14 Brown University (RI) 56.961
15 Johns Hopkins University (MD) 53.940
16 Duke University (NC) 52.435
17 Maryland College Park 48.207
18 Virginia 45.952<br>
19 Cal Los Angeles 40.196
20 Illinois Urbana - Champaign 36.861
21 Carnegie Mellon University (PA 35.483
22 Northwestern University (IL) 34.895
23 Indiana University Bloomington 34.772
24 Wisconsin Madison 33.672
25 Pennsylvania State University 32.495
26 Cal San Diego 26.321
27 Southern Cal 25.848
28 North Carolina Chapel Hill 25.688
29 Washington 25.491
30 Dartmouth College (NH) 23.871
31 Washington University in St. L 23.745
32 Rice University (TX) 23.636
33 SUNY Binghamton 22.348
34 Texas A&M University College S 22.278
35 Florida 20.620
36 Michigan State University 20.568
37 Minnesota Twin Cities 19.199
38 Virginia Tech 18.685
39 Emory University (GA) 15.771
40 Ohio State University Columbus 14.957
41 Marquette University (WI) 13.925
42 Miami University Oxford (OH) 13.633
43 College of William and Mary (V 11.724
44 Vanderbilt University (TN) 11.627
45 Georgetown University (DC) 10.989
46 Notre Dame (IN) 9.988
47 Georgia Institute of Technolog 9.218
48 New York University 6.977
49 Oregon 5.116
50 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institu 2.314</p>
<p>Ranking based on following weights:
25% Student Selectivity
25% Peer Assessment Score
20% Faculty Resources
20% NRC Mean for Physics, English, and Psychology
10% Financial Resources</p>
<p>I first standardized the scores so they were all on the same scale. That is, for example, SAT scores and NRC rankings were both placed on a scale that basically ranged from -3 to +3. Then I applied the weights.</p>
<p>Good Luck, if you haven’t made your decision already. I think they are both phenomenal schools. It ultimately comes down to fit, though. I am liberal and love Ann Arbor.</p>
<p>EAD, I’m also curious as to why you, having been so sure that you were going to matriculate at Duke, stayed on Cornell’s (a school you clearly claim to be inferior to Duke) waiting list? Was this so you could get accepted to, and reject, an Ivy League school (i.e. an ego trip)?</p>
<p>“I think this would affect you when people see not so great candidates attending UMichigan and then associate you with being subpar, forcing you to fight an uphill battle convincing them otherwise. Why not enter into a situation where you are given the initial benefit of the doubt; bclintonk’s particular circumstances notwithstanding.”</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.”
Believe it or not, people don’t wear college t-shirts to the job, and someone who would really judge someone based on meeting or knowing someone else who has nothing else in common other than attending the same college is quite stupid.<br>
Do you think there are no unimpressive people at HYP? Of course there are.</p>
<p>“No, they usually can’t hold a intellectual conversation on a meaningful topic like politics, history, culture, etc. without revealing their clear lack of knowledge on the matter.”</p>
<p>If someone from a given school is an a-hole, does that reflect on everyone else from that school?</p>
<p>Get over yourself. You go to a very good school. Great for you. There are lots of very good schools. There are lots of very smart people at your school. There are also lots of very smart people who for whatever reason, whether it was personal preference or finances or the need to be close to an ailing family member or whatever don’t go to the very good schools. And because life is more than your GPA and SAT, they still do well anyway.</p>
<p>The biggest thing you can do to succeed in life is to learn from everyone else and have a humble attitude. You have neither. All your GPA points and SAT scores and impressive EC’s and the Duke name on your diploma aren’t going to mean squat unless you learn to work with people and not alienate them, especially by this meaningless insistence. What does it say about you that you are so determined to tear Michigan down? Good grief, it’s not like someone’s trying to argue that Arizona State is as good as Duke.</p>
<p>Evil Asian Dictator, as he finally had to admit, is a freshman at Duke. Based on other posts and profile information, he applied to all or most of the Ivies and at the time listed them as higher on his wish list than Duke, which was, I think his #8 choice. He’s confirmed that he was waitlisted at Cornell (and UPenn Wharton but apparently didn’t get off the waitlist). He has remained uncharacteristically silent on his status at the other Ivies, so it is quite probable that he did not get in to any of them. He’s had to reinvent his worldview of college prestige such that Duke is clearly better than some of the (sniff) “lesser Ivies,” so it’s almost as good as HYP, which allows him to rationalize his own failure (failure only in his mind - I see nothing wrong with not going to HYP and choosing Duke or Michigan or any one of several dozen other phenomenal institutions of higher learning).</p>
<p>This is an inferiority complex and he overcompensates through aggressive, irrational, and increasingly frantic attempts to shout down anyone who doesn’t concede that Duke is the land of milk and honey and guarantees all of its graduates a six-figure income and a trophy wife/husband in a gated community of 5,000 sq. ft. McMansions. The funny thing is that was the impression we had of Duke when we visited with my daughter a few weeks ago – that it was trying really, really hard to prove that it “is too just as good as the Ivies. So there!”. It was when I commented on this experience on another thread that I was given the EAD treatment for the first time. EAD (and perhaps Duke itself although I don’t want to make that assumption based solely on a one-day visit and the rantings of one of its freshman students) needs to realize that tearing down others isn’t the way to build yourself up. EAD you are bright, passionate, and capable of insight (as demonstrated on another thread you started where you did not feel the need to over-defend your school), and very fortunate, but you need to let go of the “mine is best” attitude. Be who you are and be that well (St. Francis de Sales).</p>
<p>Oh, and, although a couple of others have already noted, I have to comment on “for all intensive purposes.” It’s “for all intents and purposes,” but then what do I know? I only have degrees from non-top 25 William & Mary and from a bottom-tier commuter school (okay, it’s Wilmington University in Delaware).</p>
<p>Golly, thanks. I’m glad to know my contributions are so valued by you. </p>
<p>For thinking so little of me, you’re awfully willing to accept information from me when you need it–i.e. state appropriations figures, quotes from the actual U.S. News magazines which you don’t possess (but cite frequently), information on the CDS methodology… I guess even hopeless people can be trusted to look stuff up, hm?</p>
<hr>
<p>EAD, thanks for softening your statement. I’d still push you a little bit on your assertion that “most” top students go out of state. Do you have hard figures on that, or is that based on your experience from the high schools you know? I can look into this a little but I was not aware of anything done on the state level that measured college migration patterns by academic quality level.</p>
<p>“The reality is that U Michigan is a very good college and one of the top 5 public universities in the USA with a student body profile that places it around 35th in the USA among national universities, equivalent in selectivity to private colleges like Lehigh, NYU and Tulane and slightly less than Boston College. These are facts.”</p>
<p>Prospective employers don’t care about the selectivity numbers. They care about the education gotten.</p>
<p>hoedown
Others, including me, repeatedly praise U Michigan and place it among the top public universities in the USA and comparable in selectivity to many very good private colleges like Lehigh, NYU and Boston College. But this is never good enough for the U Michigan partisans who insist on attaching their name with higher ranked colleges and do so in a way that I almost never see coming from others with ties to top public universities, eg, UC Berkeley, U Virginia, UCLA, U North Carolina, W&M, U Wisconsin and U Illinois, where there are just as many top students as there are at U Michigan. As a result, I don’t think it is any great revelation that the arguments involving U Michigan dominate the boards of CC. </p>
<p>Saying that U Michigan is not as strong as Duke or some other top private is NOT the same thing as saying that U Michigan is a bad place. Unfortunately, that has been the tiresome reaction of nearly all of the U Michigan partisans and any comparisons that reflect differences/shortfalls vs other colleges are castigated as “tearing the school down.” </p>
<p>gellino’s thoughts from earlier in this thread indicating that there are 15-20 other colleges more prominent on Wall Street represent what I think is a more accurate and balanced view of the U Michigan. Pointing this out is not a criticism of U Michigan or tearing the school down-it is a expression of what is actually happening on the ground at the many of the top investment banks in NYC. </p>
<p>pizzagirl,
I completely disagree with your statement,</p>
<p>“Prospective employers don’t care about the selectivity numbers. They care about the education gotten.”</p>
<p>Employers care very, very much about selectivity. From the perspective of nearly every employer that I know, it’s all about hiring the best people and many will use the “top” colleges as something of a first-stage screen in their hiring process (and this is even more so for graduate schools). For the great majority of undergraduates entering the workforce, they will have to learn their positions as their college years don’t give them the knowledge to be effective in the real world. Employers care enormously about smarts and then they will teach the new hire what he/she needs to know to effectively perform the job for which they are hiring.</p>
<p>Hawkette, you keep on spreading lies. Michigan’s selectivity, as one of its weaknesses, is still ranked #23 with a freshman size of 5500, and lack of emphasis on the SAT scores, by USNEWS, ahead of NYU(#34), Boston College(#29), Vanderbilt (#26), Wake Forest(#38). 71% of Michigan’s freshman class last year were in the top 5% of their high schools.</p>
<p>I didn’t join the boards last week; I know how the conversations go around here. I also think I have a pretty clear understanding of where U-M fits in relationship to other universities. Not that I’ve said anything about it on this thread. </p>
<p>I wasn’t asking for a recap of the thread. I was registering my feelings about your sweeping dismissal of all posters from U of MI.</p>
I do not think Duke is in the same league as HYPSM and I also do not think Michigan is in the same league of Duke. Even if the next tier of schools after HYPSM totaled 15-20 in number, Michigan wouldn’t be among them. There are at least 15 national universities besides HYPSM and a half a dozen LACs that are better academically in my eyes than Michigan.</p>
<p>
Yes, the difference between Duke and Yale is substantial but the difference between Duke and Cornell is fairly substantial as well. Duke has smaller class sizes, a stronger student body, larger endowment, more financial resources available per student, higher graduation/retention rates, better service-learning opportunities, better classroom teaching reputation and higher selectivity than Cornell. Duke also has a more social student body, much better weather and much more visible big-name athletics to boot than Cornell. The difference between Cornell and Duke is almost as significant as the difference between Michigan and Duke. In terms of the overall undergraduate educational/social experience for students, the difference between Cornell and Duke is like light and day. It’s very unlikely that Duke has less name-recognition than Penn or Cornell in Asia. Although its tough to measure this sort of thing, the only schools IMO that have better name-recognition than Duke is HYPSM, Columbia and Berkeley(which is more visible only in Asia). Duke has an excellent relationship with Asian countries as seen by the school’s many joint study-abroad and service-learning programs with the region.</p>
<p>
Thank you, rd31, for being so modest! Yale is definitely one of the two best universities in the country in my opinion and most studies confirm this assertion. I actually didn’t say “yes” to my place on the Cornell waitlist but they still accepted me like 2 weeks later, a time period so short that it makes me wonder whether they just send out their RD notifications in batches as they saw fit. I know their admissions is rolling and the program I applied to(ILR) had already sent out many admissions offers before March 31st, so they probably kept accepting people in order to fill their class. Rest assured though, the only schools I was concerned about after I was admitted to Duke was HYP, Stanford and Wharton.</p>
<p>
I am sorry, but you are misleading the OP. The primary reason you picked Michigan was cost, which is completely reasonable. However, the rest of the reasons you present in support of Michigan are just ways in which you are trying to come to grips with the fact that you turned down Duke to go to Michigan. If finances weren’t an issue, it’s clear that you would have picked Duke. Unfortunately, now that you turned Duke down, you’re going to join the rest of this uninformed chorus of Michigan supporters who consider the school to be a peer of Duke.</p>
<p>
HAHAHA are you delusional? The only schools I would pick over Duke are HYP, Wharton and Stanford. Luckily you’re not a psychology, because your psychoanalysis couldn’t be further from the truth. Duke freshman this year had the the opportunity to listen to Jane Goodall, Karl Rove, Chelsea Clinton and Tucker Max(very entertaining ;)) speak. 3 of my classes this year had LESS THAN 10 PEOPLE. Friends I know from a special freshman Duke learning experience called FOCUS are traveling to Russia with faculty this summer to complement their classroom learning. Some of my friends have intenships to do biology research with National Institutes of Health this summer and another is going to South Africa this summer to join the fight against AIDS/Malaria as part of DukeEngage. A couple of friends I know are interning with Merill Lynch and Citigroup. Two other freshman friends of mine are studying at the London School of Economics this summer. Another friend of mine is doing an internship in Washington for the Genocide Intervention Network and a couple of others have been doing research with their Marine Biology professors at the Duke Beaufort Marine Lab this year and they will continue over the summer.</p>
<p>On the social front, I nearly cried when I went to a Michigan frat party during Spring Break with some Michigan friends because it was so bad. They had something called a “list” which means they denied most people from even getting into the party. They ran out of alcohol in like 2 hours and people were literally fighting over a can of Keystone(ewww). The ratio of guys-to-girls was like 70 to 30. I actually met a Michigan senior girl at Duke who as was visiting her boyfriend in the Fall during a home football game and she said that the tailgate she went to at Duke was about 10 times better than the ones she’s been to at Michigan. She told me that most Michigan students don’t even go to the clubs in Ann Arbor and Durham had much better clubs. Michigan football and hockey games are sweet but Duke bball and lax games are just as much fun.</p>
<p>Clearly, I have an “inferiority complex”. I’m so jealous that Michigan students go to a less prestigious school, get a worse education, attend larger classes, go to sucky parties, deal with terrible weather, drink cheap alcohol, have terrible tailgates, aren’t very social, don’t have opportunities to make a difference in the world, aren’t stretching themselves intellectually, have academically weaker classmates and have a basketball team that couldn’t even make the NIT this year and are working at their local restaurants and fast food chains this summer. Clearly, me and my Duke friends are very “bitter” about all this.</p>
<p>EAD, if you ever pay attention to people on these boards from schools like Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, UPenn, Columbia, or Northwestern (to name a few), you would be hard pressed to find any of them attacking other schools and insisting that their school is superior in the way that you Duke people do. No matter how many times you say it, Duke is not superior to any of those schools and none are universally inferior to Duke (each school will excel in different areas and appeal to different students). </p>
<p>There’s an extraordinary insecurity at the heart of your argument. It’s wonderful that Duke is perfect for you and Hawkette, but why must you demand it be considered superior to other schools that are so incredibly good in their own right it’s impossible to assess an undisputed superior? You two have forever tarnished my opinion of Duke. </p>
<p>I’m sorry you were not accepted at Cornell (being waitlisted is not being accepted. It means that you snuck in beneath the bottom of the acceptance pool and, if there’s room they’ll put you in). You have little to no working knowledge of UMich to make any sort of critique of it.</p>
<p>I would normally never say that, but your venom directed toward other schools requires a little reality check. It’s time to move on and accept your place in the world without having to insist it’s superior to others’ places.</p>
<p>I suggest you save this conversation and, in ten years, read through it. I think you’ll find the same humor and shame in it that we do once you realize that all of those schools are universally considered on par with one another.</p>
<p>P.S. - “luckily you’re not a psychology”? Come on, smart guy. If you want to get accepted to HYPS and Wharton, you might need to buck up a little.</p>
<p>Dartmouth, Columbia and Penn are definitely on par with Duke. Cornell and Brown are a couple of notches below Duke in my opinion and UMich is a couple of notches below that. They are all wonderful schools in my opinion and I think students at any of these schools will receive great educations. However, to say that there isn’t a difference between them, is an utter lie.</p>
Duke football tailgating better than Michigan football tailgating? Was anyone at the Duke tailgate? I’d have to see this to believe it.</p>
<p>
LOL! Oh yeaaah, I’m sure that never happens at Duke frat parties either…why they’re always chock full of Heinekens, Red Bulls and Absolut Vodka and welcome everyone with open arms…:rolleyes:</p>
<p>"gellino’s thoughts from earlier in this thread indicating that there are 15-20 other colleges more prominent on Wall Street represent what I think is a more accurate and balanced view of the U Michigan. Pointing this out is not a criticism of U Michigan or tearing the school down-it is a expression of what is actually happening on the ground at the many of the top investment banks in NYC. "</p>
<p>But the top i-Banks in NYC are not the be-all-and-end-all GAME, Hawkette. There’s real corporate America out there, where people make things. There are non-profit organizations. There are tons and tons of potential places where people can make their mark in life and use their education, and even as an econ major, a former director of a Fortune 30 company and someone who now does mgt consulting, am SICK of hearing “success” or “prestige” defined by the almighty Goldman Sachs on Wall Street. Who cares? What the i-banks of NYC do or think is IRRELEVANT to the majority of students at the elite schools. It’s about as pointless and irrelevant as the “but in Asia, XYZ school is revered!” Who cares, when the majority of elite school students are going to live and work in the US? </p>
<p>“Employers care very, very much about selectivity. From the perspective of nearly every employer that I know, it’s all about hiring the best people and many will use the “top” colleges as something of a first-stage screen in their hiring process (and this is even more so for graduate schools). For the great majority of undergraduates entering the workforce, they will have to learn their positions as their college years don’t give them the knowledge to be effective in the real world. Employers care enormously about smarts and then they will teach the new hire what he/she needs to know to effectively perform the job for which they are hiring.”</p>
<p>Let me give you an anecdote here. I worked for years for a Fortune 30 company whose name and products you would undoubtedly know and most likely use on a daily basis. We recruited at the MBA level from Harvard, NU, Penn, UChicago, etc. as well as some other MBA programs that had specialties that tied in with our business needs. And we recruited at two schools at the undergrad level. What were those schools? NU (where I came from) and Michigan. This was a company that could have had their pick of any undergrad program in this country. The caliber of the kids coming out of Michigan was THAT good. There was no distinction. I don’t know if you ever worked in corporate America, hawkette, but I assure you that Michigan “competes” equally as well as the top privates.</p>
<p>You clearly do not understand Cornell University. You do not understand that it is a very large and diverse collection of colleges pursuing very large and diverse disciplines. When comparing apples to apples (meaning like programs), there is no conceivable way you could say Duke is superior to Cornell. None. Acceptance rate? Then where’s University of Chicago fit in? Many of Cornell’s programs are niche and self-selecting. Just look at the NRC rankings to see how inferior Cornell is.</p>
<p>In addition to the traditional core, Cornell has diverse programs that cater to diverse style of intelligence. Your precious SAT scores are relatively low for the architecture program, but it’s the best in the country and churns out leading architects worldwide. </p>
<p>Perhaps if you got out of the bubble of prep star life, you’d begin to appreciate Cornell for offering education to a wide array of intelligences. The animal science program, for example, draws aspiring farmers. Something tells me their SATs probably aren’t up to par, but they’re the top in the ag industry and go on to become leaders in agriculture. How do you compare that to Duke?</p>
<p>It’s time to grow up, child. It’s time to grow up and stop worrying about your nebulous hierarchy.</p>
<p>“On the social front, I nearly cried when I went to a Michigan frat party during Spring Break with some Michigan friends because it was so bad. They had something called a “list” which means they denied most people from even getting into the party. They ran out of alcohol in like 2 hours and people were literally fighting over a can of Keystone(ewww).”</p>
<p>Oh, you ARE cool, EAD! I mean, you need alcohol to have a good time! Woo-woo!</p>
<p>“EAD, if you ever pay attention to people on these boards from schools like Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, UPenn, Columbia, or Northwestern (to name a few), you would be hard pressed to find any of them attacking other schools and insisting that their school is superior in the way that you Duke people do. No matter how many times you say it, Duke is not superior to any of those schools and none are universally inferior to Duke (each school will excel in different areas and appeal to different students).”</p>
<p>Honestly, this thread makes me want to cross Duke off my list for my high schoolers. I thought more highly of it before I came across the arrogant Duke-boosters who are so intent on proving it “superior” that they come across as arrogant and unpleasant. Should my kids be qualified enough to get into elite schools, they don’t need to hang around people like that.</p>