<p>IMO if you are a diamond you shine 
</p>
<p>Alex, I think I speak for all of the students here when I say that a couple nobel laureate alums and a handful of fortune 500 CEOs really covers everything I care about when deciding a university. Please fwd your compelling research over to USNEWS. Be sure to include athletic spending. Itâs quite obvious UM should be at least a dozen spots higher on USNEWS annual list!</p>
<p>Oh wait, these are the things that really matter to intellects in high circles:
Stu/faculty ratio: 8:1 > 16:1
4 year grad rate: 88% > 76%
Acceptance rate: 18% > 36%
Middle 50% ACT: 32-34 > 28-32</p>
<p>Itâs one of the greatest schools in the country. Your attempts to marginalize the place is sad and desperate. Q score doesnât matter to anyone serious about their education. As I said, most Michigan residents donât even know the difference in standards between MSU and UM. Or Ann Arbor and Dearborn. Why would anyone gunning for an elite education care what commoners think of their school? The people who know, know.</p>
<p>But flinstone, you are wrong on most of those fronts. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Acceptance rates are meaningless. They mean nothing. It has not impact on the quality of education whatsoever. Not at all. Only immature children even mention acceptance rates. Michigan had an acceptance rate of 55% five years ago. This year, it will most likely drop to 30%. In 5 years, Michiganâs acceptance rate could be as low as 15%. Chicagoâs acceptance rate was 45% in 2004, it is now 8%. The reputations of those universities have not changed as a result, nor has the quality of its professors, curriculum or in-class experience. A universityâs prestige and reputation are entirely based on the accomplishments of their faculty and alums, as well as on the strengths of their academic departmentsâŠnot on its acceptance rate.</p></li>
<li><p>4 year graduation rates mean very little unless they are very low. Stanford and Caltech have similar four year graduation rates as Michigan (83% and 80% respectively). It is what having a large Engineering program does to a school. Engineers usually take 5 years to graduate. Michigan and WUSTL have identical 6 year graduation rates.</p></li>
<li><p>Student to faculty ratios mean very little. But you should be careful not to take them at face value. For example, Michigan includes graduate students in its calculation of the ratio while WUSTL does not. If WUSTL included graduate students, its ratio would totally different. Just the graduate students at Olin and the school of Engineering number at over 1,000. The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences also enrolls over 1,000 graduate students. When you add those students to the ratio, it would probably increase to 12:1. </p></li>
<li><p>ACT ranges can be misleading. First of all, if a university purposely admits students with his standardized test scores, then it can easily achieve such high ranges. If WUSTLâs mid 50% ACT is indeed 32-34, it would be equal to Harvard. And yet, its students do not accomplish nearly as much as Harvard students. Which brings to my next point. How is WUSTL collating this data? It does not publish a CDS, so it is not possible to know how it came up with its ACT range. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Now answer me this. How did I marginalize WUSTL? Did I ever say it was not a good university? You are the one who is marginalizing Michigan. I think WUSTL is excellent. Very different from Michigan to the point where I would not consider them peers (Michigan is more like Cal, Cornell, Northwestern, Penn, UCLA, UIUC and Wisconsin-Madison) etc⊠while WUSTL is more like Brown, Emory, Vanderbilt etcâŠ), but still excellent. It is a matter of preference. But to say that WUSTL is better or more prestigious than Michigan is plain wrong. Or perhaps to you, I am marginalizing WUSTL merely by having the gal to suggest that Michigan is as good?</p>
<p>âAlex, wow thanks! I think I speak for all of the students here when I say that a couple nobel laureate alums and a handful of fortune 500 CEOs really covers everything I care about when deciding a university.â</p>
<p>Really? So you think that Michigan has produced 20 billionaires and Fortune 500 CEOS and that it stops there. After those 20+, there remaining 400,000 alums are all lower income individuals? Michigan alumni are among the most prominent and wealthiest. There are tens of thousands of alums who have succeeded a great deal and are out there enhancing the universityâs brand at the highest levelsâŠnot just in the Midwest but on the East Coast, out West and all over the world. From startups in Silicon Valley to very senior executives on Wall Street, Michigan alums are among the most well represented. That is why Michigan has so much social prestige.</p>
<p>âPlease fwd your compelling research over to USNEWS.â</p>
<p>The US News may mean the world to you. I personally think it is merely a business trying to squeeze as much money out of ignorant and uneducated people as possible. Beyond uneducated parents and impressionable high school kids, nobody buys into the USWNR ranking. </p>
<p>âI really donât care what middle class losers think.â</p>
<p>I did not realize that being middle class made a person a âloserâ. </p>
<p>âAs I said, most Michigan residents donât even know the difference in standards between MSU and UM. Or Ann Arbor and Dearborn.â</p>
<p>Most educated people know the difference all too well.</p>
<p>âWhy would anyone gunning for an elite education care what losers think of their school?â</p>
<p>I am not sure. But I do know why anyone gunning for an elite education should want to attend a university of Michiganâs calibre. </p>
<p>So you and your pal novi attempt to call UM undergrad a peer to Vandy, Wash U and Cornell ⊠yet find it appalling if anyone says MSU is a peer of UM? Please explain.</p>
<p>âBut to say that WUSTL is better or more prestigious than Michigan is plain wrong.â Generally speaking, it is a fact. Iâll give UMâs engineering school the nod though.</p>
<p>How is it a fact flinstone? Explain it to me. Show me data to support your claim that WUSTL is more prestigious than Michigan. </p>
<p>Also, prove to me that MSU is a peer institution to Michigan the same was as Michigan and Cornell are peers (I personally never said that Vanderbilt and WUSTL are Michigan peers as I think they are too different to compare). Keep in mind that I am an alumnus of both Cornell and Michigan, and in my eyes, those two universities are peers.</p>
<p>You are unemployed and obsessed with UM. You are not some expert. Your internet campaigning does nothing to help the university. In fact, your arguments are so childish, I suspect you are 14-15 years old, when in fact youâre like a 40 yo man</p>
<p>LOL! If it makes you feel better flinstone. </p>
<p>Hey, bluebound18! How have you been doing since you were banned? </p>
<p>Based on your logic that UM is a peer to Northwestern and Penn, MSU is a peer to UM. Itâs so funny how you insecure grads try to bunch yourselves in with higher tier schools, but all hell breaks loose when someone says MSU isnât much different from UM.</p>
<p>UM undergrad is in the top tier of public schools. That is great company. Itâs sad that you bitter and insecure grads canât just accept that as good enough. No, you have to embarrass yourself and try to claim youâre just as good as the next higher tier private schools. UM undergrad is not, period. You are wasting your life on forums convincing nobody. I hope for your sake you donât speak like this is real life. If you do, anyone from NU or Penn is laughing at you.</p>
<p>flintstone, whatâs your background / where does your knowledge of academia come from?</p>
<p>Not from ESPN or unemployed fanatics on a Michigan forum.</p>
<p>dodging the question only hurts the legitimacy of your pointsâŠ</p>
<p>Peer assessment score:
Cornell 4.5
Michigan 4.5
Penn 4.4
MSU 3.4</p>
<p>Endowment
Michigan $8.4 billion
Penn $7.7 billion
Cornell $5.3 billion
MSU $1.6 billion</p>
<p>Mid 50% SAT
Cornell 1320-1520 (1420 average)
Michigan 1280-1480 (1380 average
Penn 1350-1540 (1445 average)
Michigan State 970-1270 (1120 average)</p>
<p>Mid 50% ACT
Cornell 29-33 (31 average)
Michigan 28-32 (30 average)
Penn 30-34 (32 average)
Michigan State 23-28 (25.5 average)</p>
<p>I am trying to understand your angle flinstone, but I am unable to.</p>
<p>You are also unable to find gainful employment. Sorry Iâm not your life coach.</p>
<p>Donât worry about me flinstone. I have a roof over my head and food on the plate. On occasion, I can even spend a couple of weeks in the Greek Isles in the French Riviera, although affording all those Michelin starred restaurants can prove costly. I supposed being employed has it perks, but I prefer being self-employed. </p>
<p>I guess when youâre the boss, you donât have to look for gainful employment. flintstone, Alexandre is your Mr. Slate. LOL</p>
<p><a href=âhttp://www.sacua.umich.edu/cesf/12-13-13_Salaries-Comparison.pdfâ>http://www.sacua.umich.edu/cesf/12-13-13_Salaries-Comparison.pdf</a></p>
<p>That awkward moment when Michigan and WUSTL are peer institutions.</p>
<p>@Alexandre and @flintstoneâ </p>
<p>Alexandre is correct about the student faculty ratios. Michigan has 43,710 students total and 3235 faculty for a ratio of 13.51. WUSTL has 13,952 student total and 1102 faculty, ratio of 12.7. Source is the common data set.</p>
<p>Not much difference there folks. By the way, this is news to me. I previously took these ratios at face value. No more. Thanks to Alexandre for pointing this out.</p>
<p>Flintstone seems to be an MSU affiliated individual with a ridiculus inferiority complex. His constant UM attacks through his many (previously banned) personas show he needs help. Needs to move on⊠there is life after a UM rejection. It must be a miserable existence spending weeks on the UM board trying to minimze and denigrate at every turn⊠</p>