Top 10 US Universities for Graduate Level

[cosmicfish]

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Fine, then perhaps you could explain why the consensus opinion is that Harvard has a better undergraduate program than UM does - something that even Alexandre readily concedes.

Perhaps I could, but I have not really studied it, so I will settle for pointing out obvious errors in your reasoning. Or, in this case, drawing you attention to points that others have made yet you have ignored.</p>

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Given UM’s lavish financial resources - having enjoyed the the largest endowment percentage growth of all of the larger schools over the last decade - I am sure that UM could provide sufficient stopgap funding.

So you think that Michigan should make some students ineligible for existing funding and instead deplete its own coffers, simply to improve a questionable criterion that is not actually hurting them or their students?</p>

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But more importantly, if double-majors at UM do indeed prevent many students from graduating in 4 years, then that raises the question as to why the same doesn’t seem to happen at the top private schools.

Relative costs, better advising, the different characteristics of the different student bodies, tighter restrictions on who can do a double major, amount of pressure placed on students to graduate in 4 years… without doing a real study I doubt that the reasons will be apparent based on a cursory survey of convenient statistical parameters.</p>

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But UM is not “most schools” but rather is an exceptional school, and is free to modify its double-major rules as necessary.

Any school can do so, and if you truly feel that it is in their best interest, encourage them to do so. I suspect that they will have reasons why they will not think it a good idea.</p>

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And that is a systemic problem with those programs. Those programs that are specifically redesigned to (realistically) take more than 4 years - engineering, I’m looking at you - should either be more efficiently redesigned, or should stop calling themselves bachelor’s degree programs, but rather should instead perhaps grant both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. Call it the MEng if you want to distinguish it from the MS.

Most engineering programs can and are realistically completed in 4 years. The 5 year programs that I am thinking of are Architecture and Architectural Engineering. The bachelor’s degree is supposed to represent the basic educational preparation for a given field or profession, with various masters degrees representing a level of education significantly above this minimum. Relabeling degrees based on the time spent instead of the preparation relative to the field helps no one. If Architects feel that 5 years of education is the minimum required, who am I to declare that 4 years is better?</p>

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Lest you find that outrageous, I would point out that that’s not dissimilar to how MIT runs its EECS department: many (probably most) undergrads in EECS, which is the largest department at MIT, will stay for 5 years to complete the combination BS/MEng.

Someone with an MIT BSEE has a basic level of education and is employable - the MEng is extra. This is not the same situation.</p>