Preliminary 2013 admissions data

[goldenboy8784]

<p>

@Alexandre

Actually bclintonk, there is nothing wrong with Michigan’s s/f ratio. The reason it seems higher than its peers is because most of Michigan’s peers are private elites such as Cornell, Northwestern and Penn. The reason why Michigan’s ratio stands at 15:1 while Cornell, NU and Penn and most private elites stand at 6:1-9:1 is because Michigan includes 10,000 graduate students in their calculation, while the private elites only include undergraduate students. If private universities calculated their ratios as Michigan does, their ratio would usually be in the 11:1-12:1 range.

Do you have proof to back this up Alexandre? All universities are expected to conform to the same standards that are laid out by the CDS. Violation of these standards represent a serious breach of integrity which should be of tantamout imporantance to an institution of higher education.</p>

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@Alexandre

As for class size, Michigan is not that different from most of its peers. Michigan does not load its curriculum with hundreds of seminar classes as most other universities. If it did, it too would have an impressive 70%:10% ratio of classes with fewer than 20 and greater than 50 students. Those seminars are certainly fun, but they do not add much to the academic experience. Most of the people I know who attended universities will required freshmen seminars thought the requirement was pointless, if not a cumbersome hassle.

Alexandre, most freshman seminars are intended to be a bridge for 1st year students to transition from high school to college in a more controlled manner. I can only speak about my experience at Duke but most of the freshman seminars there are taught by world-class professors and are capped at 15 students so they are all intimate learning experiences.</p>

<p>[Duke</a> University | Trinity College of Arts & Sciences : First-Year Seminars Program](<a href=“http://trinity.duke.edu/first-year-seminars-program]Duke”>http://trinity.duke.edu/first-year-seminars-program)
[Duke</a> University | Trinity College of Arts & Sciences : Spring 2013 Seminars](<a href=“http://trinity.duke.edu/first-year-seminars-program/spring-2013-seminars]Duke”>http://trinity.duke.edu/first-year-seminars-program/spring-2013-seminars)</p>

<p>The fantastic thing about these seminars is that they are truly interdisciplinary and their content cuts across a number of main areas of study, allowing the student to better apply to content to real-world situations.</p>

<p>For a school its size, if UMich is not offerings its undergraduates thousands of seminars to choose from, its seriously doing them a disservice. Most freshman classes will be a large and a seminar allows a 1st year to have a small-group learning experience and form a meaningful relationship between his/her professors and peers.</p>

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@Alexandre

Some universities are so desperate to make class size stats look impressive that they actually split lectures into smaller lectures taught by the same professor. Instead of having one lecture with 130 students, you have three with 40-45 students each.

This seems less like desparation and more like improving the undergraduate experience. How can a reduction of class sizes ever be seen as anything besides helpful to the students enrolled? You can argue that its an inefficient utilization of resources but clearly schools like Duke and UChicago that are rolling in money have the leeway to misallocate resources to benefit their undergraduate population.</p>

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@Alexandre

At Michigan, I was amazed at how intimate classes were in most majors.

Very few undergraduates are interested in subjects like Math, Physics, Classics, and Philosophy so their undergraduate class sizes will be small regardless of whether we are talking about a public college, a private school, or an LAC.</p>

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@Alexandre

In short, Michigan has the quality and resources to provide the best possible undergraduate experience. HYPSM are in a league of their own of course, but most other elite universities offer similar opportunities as Michigan.

I strongly disagree here. One of the reasons I chose Duke over Michigan was its impressive array of specific fellowships and programs to support undergraduate research, scholarship, and community service. Michigan’s UROP program didn’t offer anywhere near the amount of structure or intimacy I was looking for. This is where the top 10 private schools excel as they are able to offer programs like these:</p>

<p>Preparation to become a Physician Scientist
[Overview[/url</a>]</p>

<p>Mathematics Research Preparation for a PhD
[url=<a href=“http://www.math.duke.edu/vigre/pruv/]PRUV*”>http://www.math.duke.edu/vigre/pruv/]PRUV*</a> Fellowships](<a href=“http://howardhughes.trinity.duke.edu/overview]Overview[/url”>http://howardhughes.trinity.duke.edu/overview)</p>

<p>Funding for Arts-Centered Projects
[Duke</a> University | Undergraduate Research: Benenson Awards in the Arts](<a href=“http://undergraduateresearch.duke.edu/programs/benenson]Duke”>http://undergraduateresearch.duke.edu/programs/benenson)</p>

<p>Structured Civic Engagement Program
[Duke</a> Engage : Home](<a href=“http://dukeengage.duke.edu/]Duke”>http://dukeengage.duke.edu/)</p>

<p>Intensive Summer Research in Engineering
[Pratt</a> Research Fellows Program | Duke Pratt School of Engineering](<a href=“http://www.pratt.duke.edu/undergrad/students/research-fellows]Pratt”>Pratt Research Fellows Program | Duke Pratt School of Engineering)</p>

<p>The list could go on and on but you get the idea. All of these experiences would put an interested student in a cohort of 5-10 likeminded peers led by top-notch faculty to conduct research in a very structured program.</p>

<p>All in all, I think you misjudge private schools far too much Alexandre. They choose to focus more on undergraduates while public schools serve a much larger constituency-different strokes for different folks I suppose.</p>