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There is not a single professional program on Planet Earth where MIT and Caltech alums are as well represented in absolute terms or in relative terms as say Duke grads. You’ve seen all the lists yourself for programs that report undergraduate representation: UVA Law, Yale Law, Harvard Law, Chicago Law, Michigan Law, Wash U Medicine, Vanderbilt Medicine, Hopkins Medicine, all M7 MBA programs, etc.</p>
<p>This is nothing to take away from those amazing institutions but I think you need to acknowledge that just because a school is more highly regarded academically, that doesn’t mean its students fare better in employment and professional school admissions. It would be silly to pick Caltech over Duke if one was interested in Investment Banking or Management Consulting. The former is a non-target school while the latter is a heavy hitter in this area.</p>
<p>I’ve also never seen Michigan outperform Duke in representation in any professional program besides Michigan Law and Chicago Law while UCLA, UNC, UVA, etc. are nowhere close to Duke in representation anywhere. I think a more comprehensive study will still show Duke as either #5, #6, or #7 trailing just HYPS and possibly an Ivy or two.</p>
<p>This is not surprising however since 18 year olds and most adults prefer the top private schools over the top public schools for undergraduate education.</p>
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Legal scholars and prominent academics are in love with Berkeley and Michigan for sure but neither of those schools place their students into corporate law positions anywhere close to the rate that NYU or even Penn does. Michigan Law had a poor showing this past year and its graduates fared worse in law firm hiring than any T14 besides Georgetown.</p>
<p>Obviously, Michigan’s legal reputation will be sterling among older law deans and prominent faculty members since when they were growing up, Michigan was considered the #3 best law school in the country. But should we trust these individuals when their opinions aren’t considered by decision makers who actually hire law school graduates? After all, law school is a professional program so placement in the legal field should be the most important criteria to look at when assessing the quality of a law school. I don’t see how faculty strength even matters.</p>
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Duke, Penn, WashU and UCSF Medicine have reputations that are a notch higher than the other schools you listed according to the Peer Assessment ratings done by Residency Directors and other medical schools.</p>
<p>I know you love Peer Assessment so you can’t ignore this metric in the field of Medicine.</p>