<p>dont you PA obsessed people get it? PA tells me that the University of Iowa is equal for undergraduates compared to Tufts? Are you kidding me? Now I am sure that Iowa has some good grad programs, whereas Tufts has relatively few of them, but this isnt about grad school. Believe it or not, quality of the students is actually a big factor in undergraduate experience. Despite the fact that Iowa is ranked better than BC in the PA, I dont hear students saying “I really hope i can get into the University of Iowa!” But yes you do hear that for Tufts and even BC, believe it or not. Of course, Michigan is a much better undergrad school than Iowa, and I believe it is about equal to BC, although there would be much more personalization at BC than a larger school like Michigan. For instance, my prof for intro physics actually enjoys teaching my class. Imagine that!</p>
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Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. BC takes the best combined scores while Michigan takes the best single sitting. Most students I know benefit from the combined scoring.</p>
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That’s not necessarily true. Many aspiring juniors/seniors are taking graduate courses and even more do some independent studies before they graduate.</p>
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This must be a new thing. I can only speak for the Chem Engineering dept. All of the professors I know are still there or have retired as professor emiterus. And all of the younger professors who came on board after I left are still working there.</p>
<p>Q: How diverse is the BC student body? I had the impression that it is not that diverse … that is before I read that BC has 24% AHANA (+2% int’l) and 71% on financial aids.</p>
<p>While Michigan may only use the one sitting score for admissions purposes, I believe that their reported scores from the Common Data Set don’t make that distinction. I believe that the 1210-1420 range for Michigan is correct. </p>
<p><a href=“Office of Budget and Planning”>Office of Budget and Planning;
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You don’t know that. I doubt if any university will keep the entire SAT history of each student on permanent file. It’s more likely they extract what they need (i.e., BC keeps the highest component scores for each student, while Michigan keeps the component scores for the highest single sitting). May be hoedown can give us the definitive answer.</p>
<p>The University of Michigan is a large state school, and, consequently, is not as selective as the smaller privates. The quality of the upper tier students at the University of Michigan is comparable to the students attending the top privates. Just look at the data that nefer used, and you’ll see that both have the same 75th percentile score. You can also add what GoBlue81 has stated and it becomes obvious that…</p>
<p>Michigan is a better school. QED</p>
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<p>Taking hockey out of the equation, UCLA, USC, Wake Forrest fit the bill. I’m probably missing some others.</p>
<p>Take out basketball too since Michigan isn’t really that good at basketball. 
To me, both are a notch below Stanford/UCLA in terms of combining the two. I don’t know why TG make it sound like they are that special.</p>
<p>Michigan was good at basketball too … remember the Fab Five and the Championship … We are paying for that now.</p>
<p>Hey, Northwestern was good at football too … even though it was only that one year.</p>
<p>While the desire of Michigan partisans to compare their school to the Ivy League is understandable, the facts would certainly say otherwise. IMO Michigan is much more similar and qualitatively equal to BC than it is to the lower tier of the Ivies. </p>
<p>Using the SAT numbers as one proxy for student quality, Michigan supporters regularly trumpet the high end of the 25-75 range (1410) as “proof” that the scorers (representing over 6000 students) above that are every bit the equal to the students at Ivy League schools. That may be true, but consider also that there are another 6000+ students walking around in AA who have scored below 1220. In fact, 1000 current Michigan students have scored below 500 on the Verbal section and 500 students have scored below 500 on the Math section. Hardly Ivy level or anything near it. </p>
<p>Let’s look closer at the lower 25% of Michigan’s undergraduate population representing 6000+ Michigan’s students (or more than 2/3 of the entire student body at BC). The Michigan SAT scores of 1210 or under put these students in the same league with some schools not often compared to Michigan. Examples include Syracuse (Average SAT of 1215, USNWR rank of 52nd), Rutgers (SAT-1215, USNWR 60th), UC-Irvine (SAT-1210, USNWR 44th), University of Washington (SAT-1210, USNWR 42nd), Penn State (SAT-1200, USNWR 47th), Virginia Tech (SAT-1200, USNWR 77th). There are others, but you get the idea. I think most dispassionate observers would conclude that it is very unlikely that these students would make it into ANY Ivy school or any of the top private schools. But it is a fact that there are over 6000 students at Michigan right now who are in the same academic league as the schools mentioned above. It is also a fact that 500-1000 of these Michigan students scored below 1000 on their SATs. </p>
<p>Yes, there is more to evaluating a student body than SAT scores and certainly there is more to evaluating a college than just the SAT scores, but Michigan fans consistently lack balance in their presentation and always try to associate up and never down. Their statements are often presented on CC as facts, but the real truth is that these statements/declarations are nothing more than (mostly wrong) opinions. </p>
<p>The point is not to insult Michigan, but to put their (false IMO) claims of academic equality to the lower level of the Ivy League and other top privates in the proper perspective. Michigan is an excellent state school and has a lot of good things, but it way overrated on CC. Boston College fans, you have nothing to apologize about in comparisons with Michigan.</p>
<p>hawkette,
You would have to say the same thing about UCB and UCLA, wouldn’t you?</p>
<p>Do you know how many varsity D1 recruits there are at Michigan? There are also a lot of people with less than 1000 on their SATs at Duke, Cornell, Stanford as well.</p>
<p>The thing that people don’t know is that Michigan has a lot of world class specialized schools, such as the school of music and added to the 500+ athletes at this school, and considering that Michigan takes only the highest single setting SAT score, and considering how little weight is given to SAT scores in UM admissions, that 1330 SAT average isn’t that bad.</p>
<p>Michigan’s SAT scores are impressive for a school its size. </p>
<p>Quantitatively, the SAT impact of the recruited athletes is much larger at places like Duke, Stanford, etc. because the class size is so much smaller. </p>
<p>You would probably say the same thing about UCB, UCLA, UVA, UNC, etc. or any other large state university. The difference is that most of the folks from those schools don’t drone on constantly about how their school is the equal of several schools in the Ivy League. We all agree with the idea that at least 25% of the students at these state universities are talented. What the Michigan folks fail to acknowledge is that there is an equal number that is significantly less talented and this has an impact on the overall quality of a school. If you do a fair and full analysis of Michigan (student body, the quality of the undergraduate experience, after-school job prospects, etc.) and similar excellent state universities, the conclusion is inescapable that these can be good places, but on the whole, they are not uber selective or mega elite. Sort of like Boston College. Not like Penn, Dartmouth, Wash U, Northwestern, Emory, Rice, etc.</p>
<p>I guess I have to agree with hawkette actually.</p>
<p>Michigan is a “feeder” school, one of 15-20 universities and LACs known to send disproportionately large numbers of their grads to the most exclusive employers and professional schools for generations.
This is where its megaluster comes from. You may question why it is so, but that’s fact. (Yes, it’s the Establishment)</p>
<p>I don’t like ranking schools, because I think it does more harm than good. Michigan does command more prestige than BC, although it may appear unwarranted. Embedded within Michigan undergrad population is the entire undergrad body of BC, or Northwestern, or any comparable school (except HYPSM and such) with room to spare, which makes it impossible to compare and declare one is better. One can be more selective, more exclusive, yes. But not necessarily a better institution.</p>
<p>I don’t think you can compare colleges like you compare country clubs. The mission of U Michigan, like other large universities, public or private, is to provide educational opportunities to a diverse student population.
The talented students receive the education and career opportunities comparable to that of any elite school, and the middling ones also benefit from the top-notch educational and social resources to help them
find their niche in the society and be productive members. That is the draw of such educational institutions. Apples and Mellons. Switzerland vs. US.</p>
<p>nefer,
I’m not so sure about your feeder comment. There are feeders and there are FEEDERS. Michigan is probably one of the former, but not so sure about the latter. On the Michigan vs Northwestern thread, we tried to discover more about job placement coming out of Michigan. While Ross grads seem to do well with Wall Street (about 150 last year), it is not clear about the specifics and there apparently is very little data available on an institution-wide basis for job placement. Nor is there great information about professional school placement, particularly as it relates to an entire graduating class of students. Michigan posters regularly state that they have great job and grad school placement, but there is little to no documentation of this that anyone can point to. Again, I am sure that Michigan does a more than creditable job for at least a portion of that top 25%, but each year over 6000 students graduate. What about everybody else? </p>
<p>As for your comment about size, I am not sure I understand your point. Do you mean that, due to the strength of the top 25%, the quality of BC or Northwestern exists as well within the body of Michigan? That may be so, but the Michigan undergrad population ALSO includes the entire student body of Tulane or SMU or Howard. I just don’t hear or read much about Michigan people comparing UM to those schools. Instead, I hear Northwestern, Penn, Dartmouth, etc. </p>
<p>Michigan is an excellent state university and does a good job of serving primarily the residents of the state of Michigan (69% of the current undergrad population acc to the most recently released CDS), and residents of other NE states (another 15% or so). With approximately 85% of its students from MI and the NE states, Michigan is not an exceptionally geographically diverse undergraduate institution. But I agree with your point that Michigan’s location feeds its graduates into the Education Establishment of the Northeast. And to that I attribute much of its undergraduate reputation among people in the NE and among academics, a large number of who are located in the NE. People who went to the school and know the school like the school, but I also know that the people in Texas like their flagship, the people in Georgia like theirs, the people in Washington like theirs, etc. Should their attendance and good experience necessarily promote that school to the level of the Ivies and the top privates? I don’t think so. </p>
<p>The fact that Michigan is not highly selective or highly elite or highly exclusive is not bad-it’s just that many of the Michigan people on CC constantly promote the school as just that (highly selective/elite/exclusive) when those of us who have not drunk the Kook-Aid know better. It is an excellent state school, but with average quality of its students about on the level of Boston College or Georgia Tech or Tulane. I, for one, think that is pretty good. If only the Michigan people would agree…</p>
<p>I’m about to graduate from Michigan in April, with a degree in Engineering. To be honest, I’ve doubted my decision to enroll in Michigan, I’m an out of state student as well. But, I realized after visiting my friends in the lower Ivy league schools that there isn’t any noticeable difference in student quality or the education that I received at Michigan. Speaking of career opportunities, any school in the top 50 in US News Rankings will offer similar opportunities, the only schools that do exceptionally better are the upper tier ivies and MIT, Caltech, Stanford. There are plenty of people who are unemployed upon graduation coming out of the lower ivies. Thinking that just because a school is ranked 10 spots higher will offer better career opportunities is childish. </p>
<p>There is often a perceived negativism towards public Universities in America. Perhaps this perception resembles the truth at Iowa state, or somewhere like that, but it should not be the case for schools like Berkeley, UVA, or Michigan.</p>
<p>It’s funny that people never doubt the selectivity of Berkeley, I think this is due to their low acceptance rate. What many don’t realize is that in the UC system, all you have to do to apply is check the campus name on your UC application. This at least doubles the number of applications that they receive.</p>
<p>hawkette, please clarify the differences between feeders and FEEDERS. Northwestern is a feeder, Michigan is a feeder. So are the ivies and the usual suspects. But BC, for examples, is not. HYPS and such perform better than others, of course, but all of them are in the same cabal.
The Establishment, as you call it, is not a conspiracy, as I’m sure you know. Large enterprises are conservative by nature. They are risk-averse. Once they find a formula for success, they stick with it. This is why the most desired employers keep coming back to the same ivy schools. In turn, the schools bend over backward to continue and improve the quality of the talents that their clients seek. Also, don’t forget that the schools are also buyers of the products and services they sell. Education is a big business, resulting in much more nuanced relationships.
I am somewhat familiar with reputations of engineering programs as it’s part of my job to know about them. Michigan is a “feeder.” So is Northwestern. I know Northwestern’s journalism is highly regarded, although I doubt most journalists have a journalism degree. I live in NYC. I am no great fan of Broadway shows, but I hear Michigan is one of the top feeders to the stage. And so on. That’s what makes them comparable, but hard to contrast. If Michigan cannot produce institution-wide post-graduate employment data, I guess we will never know how successful the weaker half of the graduating class is. But you know all schools have that issue. But at least the schools provided the opportunity, and hope that they do what they can do
help them utilize the resources to their advantage, and that’s one of real measures of quality that I think would be meaningful.</p>
<p>I just browsed some of your past posts. If it’s your thesis that it’s the proximity to NE that gives Michigan its edge compared to other schools with similar institutional characteristics but with less reputation, you are wrong.
I’ve lived in NE for very long time, and I can tell you that to us NEers Michigan is way~~ out there. Michigan’s excellence is more historical than geographical. Michigan has always been compared favorably to midwest powerhouses like U Chicago, Northwestern, Wisconsin. I’ve seen you mention U Texas more than once. I agree with you that UT is a great school despite its relative low rank in US News. To me, it’s further evidence of the misleading folly of attempts at absolute ranking of undergrad education.
yet, I see you are quick to judge one school is better than another ?
When you really look deep into the way US News ranks schools, it essentially boils down to this: money, prestige and size. The larger the endowment, the better the school. The smaller the size, the better off, but on the other hand, less prestige. Due to their size state schools are shafted by the ranking. UPenn and Cornell suffer among the ivy peers. Smaller undergrad-oriented schools like Brown, Georgetown, etc. tend to get lower marks. Only HYPS seem impervious. And that’s the folly.</p>
<p>Nefer,
No, I’m not a conspiracy theorist about the Education Establishment. But, having lived and worked in several regions of the country and appreciate the strength the areas outside of the NE, I guess I have become on CC an advocate for places, schools, people, companies, etc. whose names aren’t in the NYT on a daily or weekly basis, but which/who are nonetheless of great quality and merit better consideration. </p>
<p>For the feeder comment, my point was not well made. The 150 that went to Wall Street is good, but putting that in the context of 6000+ graduates, it seems like an awfully small number and hardly an institutionally defining number (like UPenn might be by how many of its students make it to Wall Street). Yet Michigan posters continually present that as their strong evidence that Michigan is this exclusive, elite school on the level of the top private schools in the country. While Michigan probably has a decent number of Wall Streeters, so do a lot of schools, including many of which you would not normally put in the first rank of American education (Indiana U, Fordham). This also relates to your comment about “the most desired employers.” You’re in NYC so you naturally would assume that Wall Street is the desired employer. It probably is among people in NY and the NE, but it most definitely is not elsewhere in the country. </p>
<p>As for how Michigan wants to be seen and is seen in NY and New England, I think you make my point for me. Michigan posters want UM to be associated with the top schools in the NE. But in NY and New England, Michigan is a tangential player. (A typical Manhattanite might ask, “Michgan-isn’t that that cold place where they make cars, they keep losing jobs overseas, and a lot of people get murdered?”). But still Michigan posters seek the stamp of approval on CC that they can run with the Ivies because they have recruiters coming to AA from Wall Street. I think Michigan fans would be better advised to focus on their engineering grads, although that probably does not carry the same prestige.</p>
<p>Re judgments about schools, I do make them (this is a college forum after all), but I try to use facts to support my conclusions and opinions. Boston College and Michigan are an excellent example of this as the student bodies and other parts of these two schools are very, very close. Yet Michigan’s prestige is much higher among academics (who are historically very hostile to places like BC and Notre Dame) and a ranking result is created that will be accepted by the academics and will perpetuate the pecking order that was established decades ago. Change happens slowly in college surveys and rankings and people go crazy when some newcomer upsets the old order (Wash U, Duke). The folly, I’m afraid, extends well beyond HYP.</p>
<p>This is really helpful because mich and bc are number 2 and 3 on my list</p>
<p>I think Mich is a bit more prestigious, and it has Ross on its side.</p>
<p>for me… its business… and I think lots would agree that Ross edges Carrol</p>
<p>I love teh combination of athletics and academics at both institutions, but size is better at BC</p>
<p>I honestly dont know which one I would chose it was accepted at both…</p>
<p>I think im leaning toward Mich…</p>
<p>You misunderstood my point completely, I am afraid. The average New Yorker may not be able to find the State of Michigan on a map, but the reputation of the University of Michigan is well known among those who care about such things. A large number of kids from NY go to UMich, and their alumni are all over NE. I work with UMich alumni daily. And did I ever mention that my daughter is a freshman there? I cannot speak for other NEers because I don’t know what they think, but I, for one, don’t have negative or biased opinions about the midwest region. Historically, the midwest was the center of population, commerce and industry outside of the eastern seaboard until the rise of the west coast. That prosperity was the engine that propelled some of the finest universities in the region to national prominence. UMichiganites have great pride and enthusiasm for their alma mater, to which you seem to attribute an unusual motive, which I think is groundless. When I look at their academics, happy people, campus, town, I see every reason for them to be proud. Those in-state kids and their parents, in particular, are lucky to have such a fine, affordable educational option in their State. And I should know. Here in NE the mentality is Ivy League or bust.</p>
<p>With regard to Wall St. placement, the subject has been exhausted, so there isn’t anything more to add. There are many kinds of jobs on the Street, and many schools are represented there, but only a fraction gets to work in megabuck high finance. Therefore I think that’s a poor way to assess the overall value of a university. I think Alexander summarizes the value of UMich best: No doors will be closed to Michigan graduates.</p>
<p>Yes, the domanance of Blue States in academia is still deeply entrenched. I know it’s changing, albeit slowly, and I think that’ is a good thing. In any case, it’s a topic of a different color. I get on this board once in a while mostly for the amusement value, and I just wanted to share my perspective on college selection. And I actually enjoyed reading your posts.</p>