<p>Alexandre, I significantly differ in my opinion as I feel the non-HYPS Ivies and maybe Duke offer just as much as HYPS. They have similar placement, the same recruiters, the same tight alumni networks, etc.</p>
<p>And there is no way UT- Austin is in the same category as some of those schools.</p>
<p>So do Michigan, Chicago, Northwestern, Johns Hopkins, UVA and Cal etc… But H,P,S,Y and M have it magnified. The average Michigan alum is as tight with his fellow alums as the average Dartmouth alums. They come from the same types of background (usually upper class or upper middle class), form the same valuable connections, have similar graduate school placement, the same number of job offers upon graduation and the same starting salaries.</p>
<p>The distinction between the first and second group isn’t so much what they offer as their reputation. CalTech is MIT’s rival in the sciences, yet most people don’t know of it. Of course reputation is overrated, but if you don’t go for a graduate degree or need an internship after your first four years it matters more than if you continue your education.</p>
<p>Alexandre,</p>
<p>I’m also a very proud Mich alum, but I think you may be getting a little carried away when you say that UM has “the same nurturing environment as the lower ivies.”
UMich has definite advantages over this or that Ivy but not many UM grads would say that “nurturing environment” was one of them.
Do you think you might be reaching a bit?</p>
<p>And, although I realize this was not your choice of words, I think most MID-WESTERNERS would feel that refering to, say, INDIANA, OHIO STATE, IOWA, PURDUE, MICHIGAN STATE as “the lower BIG TEN” would be in bad taste, or crass. I realize most those who refer to CDBPC in this manner are high-schoolers who are apt to use confrontational language, perhaps Michigan grads should be careful in not mimicing it.
Especially as your opinion is widely and well regarded as being an unbiased and prolific poster/moderator.</p>
<p>Woodwork, I agree that refering to certain schools as “lower” anything is not fair to those schools. </p>
<p>As for Michigan being less nurturing than the Ivies, it really depends on the school. Obviously, Michigan is not are nuturing as Dartmouth, Brown or Princeton…but neither are Columbia, Penn, Harvard and Cornell. But in terms of networking , career and graduate school placement etc…, Michigan offers similar opportunities to most of the ivies.</p>
<p>Comparing an Ivy top/LAC education with that of diplomas mills – even ones with great faculties like Mich and Wisc – where the tests are multiple choice exams because there is no way they could read essays with 10,000 freshman is a joke.</p>
<p>Mensa is right, you guys. The state schools really need to start giving their students at least 50% A’s. I mean, a 3.0 average GPA should not be tolerated!</p>
<p>Mensa, I never had a multiple choice exam at Michigan. All of our tests were essay format. We always had blue books. I do not know where you got your information from. Classes at public schools are not much bigger than classes at private schools.</p>
<p>My tests are essay format too… they are usually read by TA’s who grade on a rubric given by the professor (since the professor did the teaching). i am just a freshman and i am in big classes (200-300 students), but i havent had a multiple choice exam yet. </p>
<p>“The state schools really need to start giving their students at least 50% A’s. I mean, a 3.0 average GPA should not be tolerated!”</p>
<p>haha i wish. the avg GPA at my school is around 3.1 =(</p>
<p>it seems to me that “Mensa” doesn’t really get his information from anywhere except his imagination and random biases he seems to have accumulated from ignorant sources.</p>
<p>ay_caramba, you’ve hit the proverbial nail on the head. Right on! Mensa does alot of hip shooting, then likes to tell people what everyone else thinks.</p>
<p>Alexandre: I know you have been most generous in helping Michigan applicants. Thats great, and it is apparently what earned you your stripes as a moderator. But because you are now a moderator, I think it is inappropriate for you to create lists that purport to rank colleges. In my opinion, they serve no purpose other than to create discord on these boards.</p>
<p>WJB, I do not think I should stop posting just because I am a moderator. But if I had to chose between posting at will or being a moderator, I would chose the former rather than the latter.</p>
<p>Alexandre: I am not suggesting that you should stop posting. You’ve given lots of great help and advice, and you certainly have the right to express your opinions on these boards, whether you’re a moderator or not. My concern is only with laundry lists of college rankings. I don’t think they provide any meaningful help to applicants. In my opinion, they simply spawn fruitless arguments about which colleges deserve to be in which categories.</p>
<p>"In all seriousness, think about how you worded your post: "Lesser Five vs. Top Publics.“Go to a school you think is at the “top” for you. Go to a school that makes you proud. If you truly feel that Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Penn are “lesser,” then don’t go.”</p>
<p>You’re exactly right!!!..collegeperson has a huge grudge against Ivy League and near-Ivy schools (MIT, Stan, Duke etc.), and never says anything that isn’t anti-ivy in any thread. He’s got a huge inferiority complex!</p>
<p>I have spoken nothing but praise for Harvard, Stanford, Yale, MIT, and Princeton. Maybe I have argued that the Lesser Five leach off the prestige of the Greater Five, but that is a different story.</p>
<p>Was the “Lesser Five” a rock group in the 70’s?</p>
<p>“Nothing but praise”? The truth is that there is only a very small, if any, difference among the Ivy Leagues and other similar universities in the quality of the education, the real difference is in prestige among high-school kids applying for college. And we all know how much that means in real life, right?</p>
<p>Obviously there is a difference between a chemistry degree from Chico State and Caltech. However, the people that matter, namely those that will employ you or grad school adcoms, will acknowledge the quality of education from a school like Chicago which high schoolers don’t obsess over like they do HYPSM.</p>
<p>MIT and Caltech award Bachelor of Science degrees (no BAs) so they are not appropriate for someone who does not want to take a lot of science OR engineering classes.</p>
<p>Overall, Harvard and Yale may be the most prestigious, followed by Princeton & Stanford. However, for Engineering, Yale cannot really compete with the University of Michigan or the University of California at Berkeley.</p>
<p>UPenn has an outstanding undergrad business program, but it’s Political Science department cannot compare to Columbia’s, Michigan’s- or even Ohio State’s!</p>
<p>I have had friends and co-workers who graduated from each of the Ivy’s, the West Coast UCs and Stanford as well as a number of smaller LACs. With the exception of an occassional lawyer or economist most of these people never gave away their schools with their work product of personal conversation. There are a lot of smart people out there, and there are a lot of successful people out there, sometimes the groups overlap but not always. While I believe one school might be more comfortable for some students and that individuals can find fit differences, I do not believe that one college is best or that a small group of colleges is superior to all of the others. </p>
<p>If I was having brain surgery, I would be more concerned with the surgeons success rate and recommendations of others or his rank in his med school, than I would with where she or he went to undergraduate school. If I was hiring an attorney for a specific legal case, I would look at their personal experience and expertise over where they went to undergraduate school…</p>
<p>Prestigious schools can open doors, but a well fit and excecuted education makes for decent people and success.</p>