Newbie Parent: Emory? Michigan?

Parents Forum
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<p>Hi all. I am the parent of a top public suburban high school 11th grader. My daughter’s QPA at the end of 11th grade will be somewhere between 4.1 and 4.4 depending on if she gets an “A” or “B” in two AP courses she is taking. Her SAT scores are 2010 including 700 on the math.</p>

<p>What are her odds of getting into Michigan’s business school or Emory’s business school? And are they worth it? We are fairly comfortable (won’t qualify for any need based money) but not megawealthy. I can afford the $250,000, but am not sure this is the best value…a little overwhelmed!</p>

<p>I just found this forum and sorry if I am starting at the beginning.</p>

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<p>Starting at the beginning is the best place. Welcome!</p>

<p>Are you in state for UM?</p>

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<p>I was the one who steered you over from the financial board. As with the other board, you will find a wealth of information here, but it does take time to digest it all. Whether your D will get into Emory or Michigan is rather like asking whether it’s a good time to buy bonds. You will always have someone ask you about your asset allocation and someone lecture about the evils of market timing and then tell you to go read Rick Ferri. In other words, before you get to that question, you need a bit of background about colleges, costs, kids motivations, safety schools, reach schools, merit aid, small liberal arts colleges vs large universities—the whole application process. There are a lot of books about applying to college and this board is an excellent, if somewhat disorganized, source of knowledge. You are thinking of spending a lot of money, so it might be good to research Emory or Michigan or Barnard or any of the other places your D has mentioned and have discussions with her about why she wants to go to those schools and what she wants out of school in general. Not to put the kids down, but many of them want to just get away to a place that sounds good to them or their friends, or that is in a city that sounds cool. I was that way at 17. If you try pin them down to valid whys, they have a hard time. It is important that they think through their choices to make sure that the school is right for them. It might be a good idea to really review with your daughter why these schools are good for her, and why they are better then her in-state options. One of the attitudes we tried to maintain with our daughter in all of this was one of partnership. We wanted her to find the best place for her with a reasonable financial outlay from us. It was never you can’t go here or there. It was more, this is what we can do and we will try to help you to the best of our abilities to get you there if you give us good reason. And in the end we’re all pretty happy about the place she chose.</p>

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<p>Unless you are mega-rich, $200k is a lot of change. If you are instate, UMich offers a much better value, IMO. Ross B-school is excellent, and Emory is not worth the extra $$. OTOH, if OOS, then the delta is much less and a private school offers a lot more in the way of smaller classes, better advising, more hand-holding, etc.</p>

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<p>A few more facts:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>We are in Pennsylvania, not Michigan so we’re looking at $37,000 (today’s price)/year at Michigan. </p></li>
<li><p>I am not megarich, but frankly have about $250,000 allotted, ready, waiting and able for each of my two kids for “kid launch”. That can be expensive undergrad only, non-expensive undergrad plus grad, non-expensive undergrad plus house downpayment money or whatever. My FINANICIAL issue is to help my kid recognize the BEST VALUE for her “kid launch” money. The academic issue is that my daughter is an excellent student with GOOD scores and GOOD grades but top top top.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>I’m not sure I understand your inquiry. I think its way too early to narrow it down to a choice between just these two schools if you haven’t even started applying yet. The family should work on composing a list first and foremost (5 to 8 schools?), and then worry about specific choices after the finances, acceptances and whatnot.</p>

<p>There are plenty of other great biz programs to examine at similar schools, some at lower prices, some not. She may also want to look at: IU-Bloomington, Penn State, Villanova, UNC, Wash U, Wake Forest, Illinois, Richmond… the list can go on for a long time.</p>

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<p>daryl-</p>

<p>There is no reason that both schools can’t be included in her application list, if they still make sense after all of her and your dule dilligence.</p>

<p>mafool</p>

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<p>daryl:</p>

<p>IMO, “best value” includes more than just name recognition. Both schools are excellent, but Ross undergrad is higher-ranked (and, therefore, higher valued for some). However, one consideration is job prospects coming from undergrad B-school. If your D is thinking about living in the south for awhile after graduation, then Emory is the easy choice. But, UMich is likely to have more job/alumni contacts in the northern states. Visit if you can, since each school has a different feel. For example, Ann Arbor has BIG-time football Saturdays; Emory is more LAC-like, and has smaller classes, likely better advising. Your D can also enroll in Emory undeclared and transfer into the B-school later.</p>

<p>btw: For OOS, you D can increase her chances signficantly if she gets that SAT up to 2100 or 1400 (M+CR).</p>

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<p>I recommend investing $14.95 for a 12-month membership to U.S. News online. There is lots of useful information, consolidated in one place. You would have to filter out some of the statistics, rankings, etc., which are sometimes deceiving or distorted in how they are reported. You can look up schools by location, level, and certain programs.</p>

<p>You very own Penn State (Smeal) is very respected, plus if she got in as an Honors student with $$, she would have more to set aside.</p>

<p>Ohio State (Fisher) is also well-priced and highly sought after, with some good merit scholarships for OOS.</p>

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<p>As someone who spends way too much time reading the U of Mich board, here are my suggestions:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Figure out your Michigan gpa – throw out all freshman grades, all weighting, all +'s and -'s, and all electives. </p></li>
<li><p>Go over to the UofM board and read some of the discussions regarding Ross Business School. Lots of good suggestions as to what they look for.</p></li>
<li><p>Read the Emory discussions. </p></li>
<li><p>Apply to them both. It’s much easier to make decisions when you have acceptances in hand.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>I am just getting my feet wet using this bulletin board system. I did not realize that there are specific threads for specific colleges/universities. I am sure I could find Emory and/or Michigan if I looked hard, but eyeballing it I did not find specific college threads. Perhaps someone so kind could direct me?</p>

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<p>Near the top of this page on the far left-hand side, in the left-hand margin, under “Top Forums”, click on “Colleges”.</p>

<p>That will take you a page with a number of colleges listed and available for clicking on. Emory and Michigan are both under “CC Top Universities”.</p>

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<p>Thanks so much. </p>

<p>And how do I “subscribe” to a thread for easy finding later?</p>

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<p>At the top of each page of a thread there is an icon on the upper right hand corner. The icon says “thread tools”. Click on that and follow the instructions.</p>

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<p>At the top of each page of a thread, near the upper right hand corner, on the “roof” of the top posting on the page, there is an icon “thread tools”. Click on that and follow the instructions.</p>

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<p>Ah! Thanks!</p>

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<p>Emory and U Mich are ranked closely for undergrad in Businessweek (Emory is #4, U Mich is #5). Both are good options and will provide a lot of contacts. Emory has excellent connections on wallstreet and a lot of alum in NYC, I believe U Mich does too. If sports and school spirit are big considerations, U Mich is the obvious choice. If a small school and city location are bigger considerations, Emory is the obvious choice.</p>

<p><a href=“http://bwnt.businessweek.com/bschools/undergraduate/07rankings/index.asp[/url]”>http://bwnt.businessweek.com/bschools/undergraduate/07rankings/index.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Having visited both, I feel I must comment that they are very different schools with vastly different feels. Each an excellent example of its type, but difficult to compare. (As was deciding between Duke and U of M, as our son did.)</p>

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<p>Michigan is a primary recruitment school for nearly every major Wall Street firm. I do not believe Emory is on many of their lists at all. The BW rankings are suspect at best as some schools zoomed up and down in one year when nothing really changes that much. I would look much more closely at each schools actual placement data. The proof is there.</p>

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<p>Data mostly drawn from USNWR</p>

<p>OBJECTIVE DATA</p>

<p>Undergraduate Enrollment:
Emory: 6510 U Michigan: 25,467 </p>

<h1>and % of students who are in-state:</h1>

<p>Emory: U Michigan: 17,572 (69%) </p>

<p>Cost (Tuition & Fees):
Emory: $32,506 U Michigan: $30,179 (OOS) </p>

<p>Graduation & Retention Rank
Emory: 25th U Michigan: 28th<br>
-% of Students expected to graduate in 6 years:
Emory: 93% U Michigan: 77%
-% of students who do graduate in 6 years:
Emory: 89% U Michigan: 86% </p>

<p>Faculty Resources Rank:
Emory: 12th U Michigan: 69th<br>
-% of classes with 50+ students
Emory: 8% U Michigan: 16%<br>
-% of classes with <20 students
Emory: 64% U Michigan: 43%<br>
-Faculty/student ratio
Emory: 7/1 U Michigan: 15/1 </p>

<p>Student Selectivity Rank:
Emory: 15th U Michigan: 22nd<br>
-Average SAT/ACT:
Emory: 1300-1470 U Michigan: 1220-1410<br>
-% of students ranking in top 10% of high school class
Emory: 90% U Michigan: 89%<br>
-% acceptance rate
Emory: 37% U Michigan: 57% </p>

<h1>of NMS Finalists from 2005 and % of student body:</h1>

<p>Emory: 64 (4%) U Michigan: 75 (1%) </p>

<h1>of 1500 scorers enrolled and % of student body:</h1>

<p>Emory: 1148 (18%) U Michigan: 1645 (6%) </p>

<p>Financial Resources Rank:
Emory: 16th U Michigan: 31st </p>

<p>Alumni Giving % and Rank:
Emory: 36% (15th) U Michigan: 15% (105th) </p>

<p>SUBJECTIVE DATA</p>

<p>Peer Assessment:
Emory: 4.0 U Michigan: 4.5 </p>

<p>Based on the objective data, Emory is the winner in every measurement, though in some instances the differences are narrow (G/R rank). However, the Selectivity measurements clearly favor Emory and Emory also has a noticeable advantage in Faculty Resources and Financial Resources. Among academics, the subjective Peer Assessment score favors U Michigan. As not transferable and others have pointed out, both schools have strong undergraduate business programs and good Wall Street connections. Both are very good schools and a student will have many opportunities from either Ross or Goizueta business school. These are very different universities and will likely attract different personalities. </p>

<p>I want to second the comments of art vandelay and chocoholic. There are many, many good college choices out there and I would also recommend the purchase of the USNWR online edition. No need to narrow your choices down so early in the process. I also agree with the suggestion of Penn State and if your child is a competitive applicant to Emory or U Michigan OOS, then he/she may also be competitive for PSU’s Schreyer Honors College. </p>

<p>Finally, a word of caution about taking at face value some of the comments that you find in any school forum on CC. Those forums can be very useful sources of information and for ideas that you may want to investigate further on their own. They also can be the locus of exaggerations and is where many school partisans will visit and post. People love their schools and I attribute no malice to their intentions, but sometimes objectivity is sacrificed in comparisons with other schools.</p>