<p>Hoo,</p>
<p>For the record, I went to Michigan and my wife went to JHU: she, of course, would agree with you.</p>
<p>Better school or better students? You are right when you say that JHU students have better “SAT Scores” than Michigan; however, as far as academically, Michigan is on par with JHU. Selectivity isn’t important in evaluating institutions because they don’t necessarily have any bearing on the prestige and education quality.</p>
<p>SDma89,</p>
<p>While what you say has some merit, it seems to me to be well over-broad to say “Selectivity isn’t important in evaluating institutions because they don’t necessarily have any bearing on the prestige and education quality.”</p>
<p>This would seem to imply that college X could educate gorillas as well as college Z could educate Valedictorians; that is to say, that you would have the same outcome. Certainly the class you’re in helps to determine your quality of education. Dont you think?</p>
<p>How about this: You are a valedictorian at Harvard with all this would afford, except, all of your classmates are orangutans. Now, it may be that you will be a better climber of trees upon graduation, and a bit less modest when it comes to exposing your overly colorful buttocks, but I’m not sure you would have learned the core as well.</p>
<p>I love CC in the summer=)</p>
<p>Selectivity is important, because when people start hearing of top students being shut out of certain schools, people start respecting it more. Kind of like The University of Georgia. As it has gotten harder to get into and has started rejecting former shoe-ins, people have started respecting it more. </p>
<p>You are right that overall selectivity isn’t going to make a school. You could have a school full of perfect SAT scores and valedictorians but the professors could be horrible or the facilities could be nonexistent. However, quality of an institution normally correlates to its students.</p>
<p>That didn’t come out right. Yes, the quality of your class can determine the quality of education. However, is a 1410 sat scoring applicant with a 3.8 gpa who gets into JHU better than a 1350 SAT Scoring applicant with a 3.6-3.7 gpa who gets into Michigan? Those numbers can become insignificant. Does that mean that JHU is better than the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>JHU IS better than Umich. I’m pretty sure most people would agree with that. There are far too many people at Umich to warrant that one on one attention that I love.Yes, Umich’s grad schools are great, but IMO it is almost pointless to say that Umich is a top 10 school like Alexandre is saying. TOP TEN??? Naw…maybe top 15. Umich is not ready to play with the likes of MIT and Columbia just yet.</p>
<p>“Selectivity is important, because when people start hearing of top students being shut out of certain schools, people start respecting it more. Kind of like The University of Georgia. As it has gotten harder to get into and has started rejecting former shoe-ins, people have started respecting it more.”</p>
<p>Who has started respecting the University of Georgia more? Prospective college freshmen and parents? Basically, the rejecting of shoe-ins and what not doesn’t necessarily mean that one school is better than another. Is Washington University in St. Louis necessarily better than JHU? I wouldn’t think so.</p>
<p>“Yes, Umich’s grad schools are great, but IMO it is almost pointless to say that Umich is a top 10 school like Alexandre is saying. TOP TEN??? Naw…maybe top 15.”</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s why I said that if it wasn’t top 10, it would be top 15. However, I wouldn’t jump so quick to say that JHU is better than Michigan because I wouldn’t say that JHU is a top 10 school either.</p>
<p>true, but it has ranked in the top 10 before by various agencies.</p>
<p>(10 characters)</p>
<p>“True, but it has ranked in the top 10 before by various agencies.”</p>
<p>That’s true.</p>
<p>Michigan is a fine school with some of the top grad programs in the nation. How does this benefit the undergrads? I am sure it does to some degree but when you have 300-500 students in a lecture and other courses taught by TAs, this may play a role in the quality of education. Another factor limiting Michigan’s selectivity is the fact that approx 70% are in state students. This lack of diversity limits the quality of student which is evident by the fact that the average non- Michigan resident has superior credentials to the majority of Michigan residents.
Still Michigan is a top school with a great reputation. It is considered one of the top 3 public universities for a reason.</p>
<p>Yeah I’m not saying that UM doesn’t deserve its reputation but not it isn’t a top 15 or 10 school, imo. It is ranked 22. That’s about right.</p>
<p>Honestly, I hope i do not get attacked, but I think that Michigan and Cal are overrated on this board. I know that they have some of the world’s best professors, but that does not necessarily translate into a great education.</p>
<p>With the possible exception of a very small school like CalTech, Stanford and Harvard suffer the same negatives of being a research university that Michigan does (only its undergrads get more grade inflation to make up for it).</p>
<p>I think I should clarify my statement. When I said that Cal, Duke, Michigan and Penn are “top 10 universities” I meant roughly. There are only 5 definite top 10 universities as far as I am concerned. They are Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale. There are, in my opinion, no definite top 10 universities after those 5. I would say that roughly 12 or so universities compete for the remaining top 5 spots. So in all, I would say that roughly 15-18 universities can make a serious claim at being top 10 universities. Michigan and Cal are two of those universities. But to rank Cal and Michigan out of the top 17 or 18 is to underrate them. Now one may say that there isn’t a big difference between #22 and #18. That is true. But, Michigan has hovered between #22 and #25 for the last 10 years. Cal has hovered between #21 and #27 (what the…!). In truth, those two schools deserve to be ranked between #6 or #7 and #17 or #18. So if you look at it as #18 vs #22, you are right, there isn’t much of a difference, but of you look at it as averaging in the mid teens (14 or so) as opposed to averaging in the mid 20s (23 or so) , we are in fact talking of a significant difference. </p>
<p>LAWYR, you make a few sweeping comments about Michigan that aren’t entirely accurate. For one thing Michigan’s largest classes have 300 students. There isn’t a facility on campus that can seat more than 350 students. And very few classes, generally introductory classes, have over 50 students. If a class at Michigan has over 200 students, chances are, that same class at Stanford, Columbia, Harvard, Cornell or Northwestern would have over 100 students in it. All in all, 70% (compared to 80% at most elite private universities like Harvard and Stanford) of Michigan’s classes hae fewer than 30 students and only 3% (mostly Calculus I and Intro to English writing)of classes are taught by TAs. </p>
<p>Secondly, Michigan is actually VERY diverse. 65% may come from Michigan, but 5% are international and 30% come from other states. If Michigan had 1,000 students, that would not be good…but with 24,000 students, that means that 8,000 students come from other states and 1,500 students are international. And that’s just the undergrads. About 60% of graduate students come from out of state and an additional 25% of graduate students are international. </p>
<p>HOO, Michigan is indeed less selective than some schools in its peer group. That is why it is not ranked among the top 6 or 7 universities. Academically, Michigan is a legitmiate top 6 ot 7 university, but its student body is, admitedly, not quite as strong as some schools that are slightly weaker academically. But make no mistake, Michigan’s student body is still extremely gifted given its size. On average, over 1,500 U of M freshmen have SAT scores over 1400. If you knock out the bottom third of Michigan’s student body, you pretty much have a student body that is as good as most Ivy League student bodies. You mentioned that for that reason, Michigan is not as successfull at placing students into top graduate schools and top jobs. But that is actually incorrect. Michigan is as good as school like Cornell, Northwestern, Penn, etc… at placing students into top graduate programs and average starting salaries and recruitment activity on campus are actually as high as they are anywhere in the country.</p>
<p>Over: Penn, Duke, WUSTL
Under: Cornell, Caltech</p>
<p>This is based on USNWR rankings. Cornell isn’t underrated to people though. Caltech should get more recognition. The recent shift in rankings places more weight on liberal arts than on technical subjects.</p>
<p>Alexandre, wow… that’s quite a long-winded explanation as to “Why UMich belongs in the Top 10”.</p>
<p>Bottom line? Mich is an outstanding university (certainly a top 3 public U, along with Cal and UVA).</p>
<p>But “Top 10”? </p>
<p>As Alexandre already stated, HYPSM already get you to 5. That leaves 5.</p>
<p>So Michigan needs to outrank or equal:</p>
<ul>
<li>Columbia</li>
<li>Dartmouth</li>
<li>UPenn</li>
<li>Brown</li>
<li>Duke
(that’s 5 already - i.e. “10”…not to mention…)</li>
<li>Cornell</li>
<li>UChicago</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>JHU </li>
<li>Cal
(there goes another 5 - i.e. we are already at 15 schools so far … not to mention…)</li>
<li>Rice</li>
<li>WashU</li>
<li>Goergetown</li>
<li>etc.</li>
</ul>
<p>this doesn’t even include the “top” LACs:
- Williams
- Amherst
- Swarthmore</p>
<p>…so if you include those… you are very quickly in the 20+ area in a heartbeat.</p>
<p>So, in sum, Michigan - a great school - absolutely. </p>
<p>In the Top 10? No… way. </p>
<p>Top 20? Now you’re starting to make a reasonable argument.</p>
<p>Hey, at the end of the day, this is a reflection of America’s strength in higher education - i.e. America is blessed to have so many top quality institutions across this great land. </p>
<p>Top 20 is absolutely “elite” class, no matter how you slice it (particularly given our population coupled with the signficant number of international applicants drawn to the “elite” schools).</p>
<p>But U of M in the Top 10? Keep it real man! </p>
<p>(please try taking off the Yellow/Blue colored sunglasses for a minute my good friend!)</p>
<p>Many people might disagree with me but…</p>
<p>Stern: underrated on Wall Street, overrated on this board</p>
<p>Ivy_Grad, I was wondering when you’d show up! LOL First of all, we are talking only about Research universities. LACs are in a separate group altogether. </p>
<p>Secondly, I believe that Michigan is on par with schools like Brown, Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and Penn. </p>
<p>Georgetown, Wash U. and Rice aree not quite as good.</p>
<p>But even if you think Michigan does not belong among the top 20, it does not change the argument I make: That:</p>
<p>1) Duke, Penn and Wash U are slightly overrated by the USNWR,
2) Cal is underrated by the USNWR,
3) The Ivy League, LACs and Private schools are overrated by CC
4) Public schools are underrated by CC.</p>
<p>i definently think that stanford is underrated in the rankings. It always seems to be outside the top 3 and i beileve that is strong enough to be at least tied with Yale.</p>