OOS Students and the Public State Universities

ring_of_fire_1
Tue, 03 Mar 2009 00:49:50 +0000

Alexandre:

I also think it is important to segregate the Ivies (and Stanford and MIT) from the rest of the privates. Privates like Chicago, Duke, Emory, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Rice, Washington University etc… simply do not have the same appeal as the Ivies and MIT & Stanford. If you look at the yield rates of those non-Ivy private universities, they run in the 30%-40%. Ivy League universities (along with MIT and Stanford) typically have yield rates that run around 50%-60%.

That’s simply a false statement. First of all, Duke, Northwestern, Wash U and Chicago are “elite” private schools while JHU, Emory and Rice are simply “good” private schools. You can’t group these schools together as if they are all equally desirable. MIT, Stanford and HYP are MUCH MORE DESIRABLE than the remaining Ivies.

Out of the remaining Ivies, I would say that only Columbia has more national appeal than Duke or Northwestern for instance. Heck, most students haven’t even heard of Penn, Cornell or Dartmouth. The reason these bottom feeder Ivies have such high yields is because they get bombarded by applicants who live in the Northeast that have a strong bias towards these schools. Applicants from California will view Duke and Penn equally I believe.

There is no way Michigan is even close to matching the profile of the “elite” private schools. It is definitely on par with the “good” private schools like Emory, Vanderbilt and JHU because those schools are just as expensive as NU and Duke, but don’t give out financial aid packages that are nearly as good.

For an OOS student, Duke is more affordable, has higher national prestige, better job opportunities, is located in a stronger job market, has better weather, has a more aesthetically pleasing campus, has more research/study abroad/civic engagement opportunities, has a stronger student body and offers a more intimate undergraduate experience than Michigan. UMich has a better college town. The quality of academics and athletics are a wash at both places. The same argument could be made for Northwestern or Wash U.

Why on earth would a student choose UMich over these “elite” private schools?