You’re taking my Devry comment too literally. I really mean 3rd tier grad schools. Michigan does hold events on campus that let these programs advertise
Neat thread. Interesting to see that Michigan produced as many fanatically loyal alumni like @Alexandre in the past as it produces now . Allow me to contribute my own perspective as a current undergraduate. While I do not attend Michigan, I grew up very close to the university and have many friends and relatives who have attended or currently attend. I almost chose Michigan myself after being admitted to the LSA Honors College.
That being said, I have to agree with @ForeverAlone on the LSA. I’ve been on Michigan’s campus a lot recently, and many engineering and business school students label the LSA as the “LS and Play.” Although it may be said jokingly, the fact that it’s said at all demonstrates that there is some negative connotation about the LSA on campus. Furthermore, while the middle 50% ACT scores of Michigan as a whole are 30-34, when I went to the LSA Campus Day last year, the admitted middle 50% ACT scores of the LSA was revealed to be 28-32. While this is still great, that still means about 1000 students scored a 28 or below, which isn’t quite “Ivy-level” and cannot be dismissed as all athletes. Compare that to the ACT scores of other peer liberal arts colleges or schools without engineering like Amherst’s 31-34 (https://www.amherst.edu/admission/apply/firstyear/enrollment), Emory’s 30-34 (http://apply.emory.edu/discover/fastfacts.php), or Georgetown’s 31-34 (https://georgetown.app.box.com/s/xani81o0z2iq0anudhge).
Lastly, I wasn’t very impressed with the LSA Honors College. There wasn’t much benefit besides sightly smaller classes, possibly more competition, and getting to live in South Quad, and it ends after sophomore year when you have to apply to a completely different program. The vast majority of us (myself included) were Ivy rejects. Alexandre mentioned that the top students at Michigan are “academically indistinguishable” from peer students at Harvard, etc., based on test scores and GPA, but I don’t think that’s a fair way to evaluate it. Two students at Harvard and Michigan might have the same test scores, but the one at Harvard is far more likely to have many significant awards. I think it’s a testament to selectivity difference between Michigan and schools like HYPSM that you can get into Michigan with high scores, but at the other schools it’s just gets you into consideration.
All in all, Michigan is a fantastic school and an excellent deal in-state. However, if you’re looking for an undergraduate liberal arts education, I’d recommend a top private (if you got good financial aid, of course). I believe Michigan truly shines in its graduate programs. I personally chose a top private over Michigan because of the area of study I was interested in and aid that made it almost as cheap as my in-state tuition for Michigan. I guess the best advice is the classic CC cliche: go for fit.
^ I stopped reading at “While I do not attend Michigan…”.
@wayneandgarth
My apologies. I didn’t know I had to pass a Michigan purity test just to contribute my opinion to the discussion. A purity test that I think I would pass seeing as I’ve lived my entire life 15 minutes from the university. But whatever floats your boat.
ForeverAlone, you make a lot of generalizations and assumptions.
“There are plenty of students who come into college uncertain about what they want to do, and they enroll in college because their parents and society tells them this is best for their future at this time.”
Sure. Admittedly, Michigan is probably not the best place for such students. Then again, I am not sure any university will be able to compensate for a student with a lack of direction. Most graduate schools and “exclusive” employers give preference to students who have planned well ahead. But those students aside, most individuals with the vision and drive to get into a top university like Michigan will at least have a general idea of what they wish to do in the short to mid term (i.e., pre-graduate school vs pre-professional).
“Duke and Dartmouth liberal arts grads tend have more success employment wise than LSA liberal arts.
I, myself have met plenty of these unemployed and underemployed LSA grads. And this isn’t an uncommon occurrence at all. Sometimes, departments take these poor souls as in administrative staff. Its not glamorous, but it helps pays the bills (at least some of it).”
That may be the case, although it is by no means a certainty, unless you are referring a certain industry. For example, it is certainly the case that financial institutions at Michigan will focus almost entirely on Ross, not so much in the case of other companies. But you are definitely resorting to anecdotal evidence. I have known several Duke students who could not find good jobs when they graduated. Some could not find any jobs whatsoever. And according to the, they were not an outlier. Like I said, anecdotal. We have no actual figures to prove either of our experiences. LSA, Duke, Dartmouth etc… do not actually publish detailed placement reports like Ross does. But from what I have seen, Ross grads tend to have more success employment-wise than Duke and Dartmouth grads. Which is why Michigan students who are serious about working after graduation, and have the academic results to do so, should consider Ross.
“Alexandre, reading your post, I can obviously tell you’ve been detached from the current campus climate and its people. Your post is just regurgitated stuff you’ve read online (while true), but still one-dimensional.”
So I am detached and incapable of forming my own conclusions? Thanks! 
Or could it be that you simply see things as they are on the Michigan campus? Has it occurred to you that those sentiments of helplessness and uncertainty are prominent on all campuses today. There was a time, many year ago, when a college degree almost certainly guaranteed a good job at graduation. That is no longer the case. If you think that Michigan students are worse off than Dartmouth and Duke students, you are deluding yourself. As a percentage of the total graduating class, there will be just as many Dartmouth and Duke students living in their parents’ basements or flipping burgers as there are Michigan students…and in this climate we live in, that number will unfortunately be high.
But I return to my initial point, LSA students are no weaker than CoE students, and the reputation of LSA in academe is extremely strong (certainly on par with the CoE and Ross). The high percentage of LSAT students who are placed in elite graduate programs or who win major fellowships/scholarships/awards proves that beyond any doubt.
If you are talking about job placement, Michigan is obviously not an exception; Engineering and elite Business school graduates will typically have an easier time finding jobs than liberal arts graduates, even those at elite LACs and universities. Wharton, Ross, Sloan, Haas, McIntire, McCombs etc…graduates on average, will have an easier time finding high paying jobs than graduates from elite LACs and liberal arts majors at most elite research universities (not including Harvard, Princeton and Stanford).
GeoTransfer, your post contains a lot of inaccuracies.
“Interesting to see that Michigan produced as many fanatically loyal alumni like @Alexandre in the past as it produces now.”
First of all, I am not fanatical in any way. I am actually completely objective. You do not get to be a super moderator on CC being biased in any way.
Secondly, nobody knows Georgetown’s SAT/ACT averages, since Georgetown does not publish a CDS. Besides, Georgetown is more likely to list the SAT/ACT ranges of students who are admitted, not of those who actually enroll. Emory’s SAT/ACT scores are suspect. They were exposed a couple of years for lying about their SAT/ACT ranges. And LSA’s mid 50% ACT range for enrolled freshmen in fall of 2015 was 29-33, not 28-32, but LSA did not officially announce those figures until January 2016. Not that it matters since Emory and Georgetown are completely different from Michigan. Very few students considering Michigan will seriously consider Emory or Georgetown…and vice versa. But if you really think Emory and Georgetown are better than Michigan, you clearly haven’t seriously looked explored Michigan.
“Lastly, I wasn’t very impressed with the LSA Honors College. There wasn’t much benefit besides sightly smaller classes, possibly more competition, and getting to live in South Quad, and it ends after sophomore year when you have to apply to a completely different program.”
This is one point I completely agree on…but not for reasons you may think. At underfunded universities with average student bodies (ASU and Maryland come to mind), an honors program can offer a widely different experience. Michigan, which is the 6th wealthiest university in the country (not including state funding), has an abundance of resources that are not exclusively available to honors students, and the overall quality of the student body is good enough to make the classroom experience intellectually engaging and rewarding for all.
“The vast majority of us (myself included) were Ivy rejects.”
So you actually sat and mutually discussed your acceptances with a very large number of honors students did you? Because I did not…and could not manage to do so, and I spent four long years at Michigan. I am amazed how you managed to sample the 1,000+ honors candidates in such a short time.
That being said, I did get to know a lot of students while I was a student at Michigan, and most of them had other equally viable options, including some Ivies, as well as other Michigan peers such as Cal, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Georgetown, Northwestern etc… So, from my experience, the vast majority of Michigan students were not Ivy League rejects. Some were and some weren’t. The vast majority had other excellent acceptances, Ivy League or otherwise. And that did not apply only to honors college students. There were as many brilliant non-honors students in LSA who had similar acceptances.
“Alexandre mentioned that the top students at Michigan are “academically indistinguishable” from peer students at Harvard, etc., based on test scores and GPA.”
I never said that. I said the ENTIRE student body is indistinguishable from those at other top universities, although I never listed Harvard in that context. I listed Brown, Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern and a couple others. As an alumnus of both Michigan and Cornell, I have sufficient first hand experience and exposure to the two schools, and I can say with confidence that their student bodies are indistinguishable top to bottom. And they have identical reputations in in the corporate world and academe.
“…but I don’t think that’s a fair way to evaluate it. Two students at Harvard and Michigan might have the same test scores, but the one at Harvard is far more likely to have many significant awards. I think it’s a testament to selectivity difference between Michigan and schools like HYPSM that you can get into Michigan with high scores, but at the other schools it’s just gets you into consideration.”
How do you know that the top students at Michigan have not won “significant awards”? Besides, I was referring to data that can be verified and measured, not to whether or not those students were merely high scorers but undesirable in other ways. If you choose to believe that virtually all of the 2,000 LSA freshmen who were high scorers were Ivy League rejects with high test scores and no redeemable quality otherwise, that is your prerogative.
“I personally chose a top private over Michigan because of the area of study I was interested in and aid that made it almost as cheap as my in-state tuition for Michigan. I guess the best advice is the classic CC cliche: go for fit.”
We can agree here as well. If you are not paying more to attend a top university, and it happens to be better than Michigan in your field of study (Georgetown in IR, Chicago or NU in Economics, Brown in Applied Mathematics, Cornell in Hotel Management, CMU in Computer Science, Duke or JHU in BME or the life sciences etc…) then you made the right decision. Fit is very important. You did not have to go through an entire exercise to come to that conclusion.
I have heard Engineering students call LSA “L, S, and Play”, but not so much Business students. Business students get the most generous curves. Yes, Engineering is more rigorious than most LSA majors. The same cannot be said of Business.
Everything boils down to money. When we lived there, I heard similar stories. Some really left big names to save money or stay near home, others just made it up because they weren’t accepted at big names. IMHO its a great value for in state STEM students but if money is not a major issue then it’s not exact equal to Ivy or Stanford/MIT.
I did provide a source for Georgetown, but if it’s preferable and for further reference, Georgetown does publish a CDS [here[/url] (just updated this month). I’ll take your comments about Emory at your word. Could you point me to where the LSA’s score range is? I have only been able to locate sources that list the university’s as a whole, and I could swear that they said 28-32 on the PowerPoint at my LSA Campus Day session. Maybe they were using data from 2013-2014?
What? When did I ever make a direct comparison of the educational quality between those schools? I only listed the ACT ranges that I knew of. At the end of my post I personally recommended a top private over the LSA, but that’s simply my opinion. Is my opinion objectively wrong to you because it disagrees with your assertions? Furthermore, your dismissal of Georgetown and Emory is a bit presumptuous. A student interested in political science or business may well equally consider Michigan and Georgetown. All three are great for a liberal arts education, just in different environments.
I don’t know how the Honors process worked when you were at Michigan, but when I visited there was a separate Campus Day group for students already admitted to Honors. There were about 50 of us, and I’ll reiterate that most of us were Ivy rejects. I don’t know if this is a accurate sample of the 450 students in Honors (if the Honors website is to be believed), but its more recent than your experience. I apologize for not being more clear.
I did not mention anything about the reputation of Michigan vs. other schools and I agree with you that they have equal reputation. However, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say the entire student body is indistinguishable from the schools you listed. This is simply because Michigan is a public university, with 50%+ in-state students. A state with 10 million people like Michigan can only produce so many good students, especially since according to the Michigan Department of Education only [url=https://www.michigan.gov/documents/mde/MDE_Fast_Fact_379573_7.pdf]20%of students](Common Data Set | Office of Assessment and Decision Support | Georgetown University) met ACT College Readiness standards. Furthermore, the University of Michigan doesn’t even get all the top students from Michigan. It loses out to other top privates and other in-state and out-of-state universities that give much better merit aid. Michigan is still notoriously stingy with aid even for in-state students. Do out-of-staters make up for it? Maybe. But if they’re paying full freight anyway they either picked Michigan because they liked it the most or didn’t get in anywhere else.
Of course there are students at Michigan who have won major awards and have more than just top scores. But then what is the reason for the difference in selectivity between Michigan and the schools you mentioned? Is it luck that some are the privates you mentioned, or is going back to fact that Michigan’s public? And I don’t believe that they’re all “Ivy league rejects with no other redeemable quality.” You’re putting words in my mouth again. I believe that the best students at U of M can easily compete with and surpass those at any other university. Just not the entire student body.
Finally we return to this. Let’s be realistic, no one can be purely objective when discussing the quality of any school. Your experiences are colored by time you spent at your school, just as anyone else’s would be with their own. I think the fact that you’re a fanatic is proven by how you’re still posting on this forum however many years after you graduated.
You’re looking at Michigan through rose-colored glasses. Old ones. I don’t know when you attended Michigan, but as I’m sure you know, college admissions in general are a lot more competitive now and I don’t think Michigan has kept up as well as it could have, because of its in-state limitations. The fact that you didn’t know about “LS&A is LS&Play” demonstrates you haven’t been in touch with campus culture in a while, or at least interacted with many current students.
Look, the point of my “exercise” was just provide a more recent, even contrasting, opinion to those usually said on this forum by Michigan alums. Looking at your posting history, it looks like you’ve given yourself a personal quest to promote Michigan and defend against any comment that isn’t glowing praise about the university. You try to personally respond to and counter any comment that says otherwise, and I guess my comment was included. Forgive me if I’ve said anything wrong or false, but I’m just expressing my own perceptions of the university. Michigan’s a great university. It’s not going to collapse based off what some people on the Internet said about it.
" The fact that you didn’t know about “LS&A is LS&Play” demonstrates you haven’t been in touch with campus culture in a while, or at least interacted with many current students."
That line is decades old Geo Transfer. It was used even before you you were born. You know what Engineering students call Industrial Operations Engineering? IOE…In and Out Easy. They even mock students in their own college.
“I did provide a source for Georgetown, but if it’s preferable and for further reference, Georgetown does publish a CDS here (just updated this month).”
I stand corrected. Georgetown and Michigan have roughly identical ranges (1320-1500 vs 1300-1500 and 30-34 vs 29-33).
“I’ll take your comments about Emory at your word.”
http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/20/emory-rankings/?_r=0
“Could you point me to where the LSA’s score range is? I have only been able to locate sources that list the university’s as a whole, and I could swear that they said 28-32 on the PowerPoint at my LSA Campus Day session. Maybe they were using data from 2013-2014?”
I cannot disclose my source, but it is reliable. That being said, if you consider the facts, you would see that it is impossible for the LSA ACT range to be lower than that of the University. LSA/Music/Nursing/Kines/Architecture/Art Design students make up 80% of the freshman class, while Engineering students make up approximately 20% of the freshman class. There is no way that LSA’s (and Kines/Nursing/Music etc…) mid 50% ACT range is 28-32 if the University’s mid 50% ACT range 29-33, unless the Engineering mid 50% ACT range is 32-36. But the CoE’s ACT range is 30-34. If the University’s range overall is 29-33, then LSA’s (and the other, non-C0E colleges) range must also be 29-33. As you suggest, the range you listed must be for 2013-2014.
“I don’t know how the Honors process worked when you were at Michigan, but when I visited there was a separate Campus Day group for students already admitted to Honors. There were about 50 of us, and I’ll reiterate that most of us were Ivy rejects. I don’t know if this is a accurate sample of the 450 students in Honors (if the Honors website is to be believed), but its more recent than your experience. I apologize for not being more clear.”
Thanks have not changed. But I don’t see how 50 students would share their rejections so openly. Furthermore, there are far more than 450 Honors students who come to campus day. There are over 1,000 that do. Of those, 500 will enroll, and like you, another 500 or so will not. So yes, even if by some strange happenstance, the 50 candidates in your group all shared their exact acceptances and rejections, it would not be representative of the whole. Like I said, the number of honors students that are accepted, or rejected by the Ivies is not high, nor is it low. But the percentage of honors students who are admitted, and who end up enrolling, at Michigan that also have acceptance to other top universities.
“I did not mention anything about the reputation of Michigan vs. other schools and I agree with you that they have equal reputation.”
I appreciate your clarification on this matter.
“However, I think it’s a bit disingenuous to say the entire student body is indistinguishable from the schools you listed.”
I suppose it depends on one’s personal standards. I think universities with SAT ranges in the 1300-1500 and 1350-1550 and ACT ranges in the 29-33 and 30-34 have roughly similar/indistinguishable student bodies. I don’t see how stating that Michigan and Cornell have indistinguishable student bodies is disingenuous, as I am an alumnus of both schools and therefore, perfectly qualified to compare the two…statistically anyway.
“Do out-of-staters make up for it? Maybe. But if they’re paying full freight anyway they either picked Michigan because they liked it the most or didn’t get in anywhere else.”
That is an interesting question. OOS students face significantly steeper admissions odds. That does not mean that OOS students have significantly higher academic credentials, but the odds of getting in are significantly worse. You would be surprised how popular Michigan is in many parts of the country, particularly among the elite in New York and New England and California.
“Of course there are students at Michigan who have won major awards and have more than just top scores. But then what is the reason for the difference in selectivity between Michigan and the schools you mentioned? Is it luck that some are the privates you mentioned, or is going back to fact that Michigan’s public? And I don’t believe that they’re all “Ivy league rejects with no other redeemable quality.” You’re putting words in my mouth again. I believe that the best students at U of M can easily compete with and surpass those at any other university. Just not the entire student body.”
Like I said it really depends on one’s own personal opinion. I think an average ACT gap of 1-1.5 points or average SAT gap of 20-60 points (out of 1600) is negligible.
“Finally we return to this. Let’s be realistic, no one can be purely objective when discussing the quality of any school. Your experiences are colored by time you spent at your school, just as anyone else’s would be with their own. I think the fact that you’re a fanatic is proven by how you’re still posting on this forum however many years after you graduated.”
You are confusing fanaticism with duty. Like I said, I am a super moderator because I am perfectly capable of being objective. As the moderator responsible for the Michigan forum, I am charged with ensuring that this forum remains conflict free. Obviously, since the majority of the people posting on the Michigan forum are Michigan students, Michigan alumni and students seriously considering Michigan, I will naturally rectify incorrect generalizations made by posters.
“You’re looking at Michigan through rose-colored glasses. Old ones. I don’t know when you attended Michigan, but as I’m sure you know, college admissions in general are a lot more competitive now and I don’t think Michigan has kept up as well as it could have, because of its in-state limitations.”
Hehe! Not that old. I graduated 20 years ago (1996), but given my profession, I have kept up with all the recent changes. But you are actually incorrect when you say that Michigan has not kept up well with admissions trends. In fact, Michigan has bridged the gap dramatically over the last 6 years, primarily because it joined the Common Application. Michigan’s applicant pool has grown at a faster pace than that of most of its peers, and the quality of the students enrolling at Michigan has actually improved slightly vis-a-vis the quality of the students enrolling at most of its peers.
“The fact that you didn’t know about “LS&A is LS&Play” demonstrates you haven’t been in touch with campus culture in a while, or at least interacted with many current students.”
LOL! Come on! Of course I know about it. Engineering students have always mocked liberal arts majors for the ease of their curricula. That is not a new phenomenon (it was certainly case back in my day), nor is it restricted to Michigan. Go to any campus in the country and you will see Engineers complaining about the rigors of their curricula and belittling the academic worth of their liberal arts counterparts on campus.
Alexandre has certainly made herculean, objective efforts to prove that U of M is the finest university in the world today.
Let’s applaud her for efforts, and it might be true. She is in the tradition of just about every other loyal, U of M alumnus I know, even those who performed very poorly and were unhappy there. They tend to be statisticians, who, when their school is questioned, cite the rankings of the dental school or social work school or various departments. I think this is a carryover from the AP and Coaches football rankings, and from US News and World Reports.
But, there were some of us Michigan residents, who, when we were looking at colleges when we were 16 or 17, just did not think it felt right. This is despite a family tradition of attendance or pressure to attend. Of course, we stayed overnight there with our older friends, visited Ann Arbor with our families, and went to a few football games, so Michigan was not an unknown quantity when we had to make that decision.
Probably, the biggest factor was that it was too big and impersonal to us. We did not want to attend college in the middle of a major city, with masses of other students. We sat in on some classes which were huge, where the professor was lecturing and the students were just taking notes. We decided to go to small, liberal arts colleges in small towns, where the classes were small, and there was much interchange between the professor and the students.
My college was Oberlin which has had some bad publicity lately, but was and is an excellent college. The culture there and at similar liberal arts colleges was completely different than U of M.
One of the big differences is the treatment of sports. At U of M, the football program seems like an amalgamation of 3 NFL teams; it is so big. Some of us questioned the domination of sports and the coddling of athletes who were worshipped, and seemed to get away with most of their transgressions.
Should the university be a place for this form of entertainment? Should these massive resources be devoted to this at the expense of education? We concluded this was a means of obtaining the support of the alumni, legislators, and others who might lavish their attention and resources onto the university as a whole. Some of us were high school athletes who wanted to continue our sports in college. We would have had to be almost professional athletes to make U of M’s teams, so we were satisfied to play NCAA Division III sports at our small colleges. Rather than sit in the stands on a football Saturday in Ann Arbor, we were actually on the gridiron at a small college, actually playing the game. And if the punter dropped the snap on the last play of the game at our games, his life was not threatened.
One of the values of going to a small college was the ability to participate in just about everything. We were encouraged to try different activities we never considered before. It was easy to do, because getting somewhere meant walking or biking 3 or 4 blocks at most. Virtually all of us lived in dorms or college-owned coops. The college needed the money, but the convenience of it let us easily participate in our academic and extracurricular activities. We did not have to look for an apartment every year, and deal with the crisis of ,say, the heat going out during finals. During the summers, and after leaving college, we knew we would have plenty of opportunities to live in apartments and our own homes. If someone REALLY wanted to live off-campus, it was usually possible.
You would think there would be nothing to on weekends, but Oberlin has the music conservatory with 400-500 performances per year, and there were always speakers, movies, and other events. There were also parties and social life as well, but there was nothing like the drinking on a football weekend in Ann Arbor. Because your parents and you were paying more than at a public university, you felt like you wanted to get your money’s worth, and take advantage of all that Oberlin had to offer, which was a lot.
“Alexandre has certainly made herculean, objective efforts to prove that U of M is the finest university in the world today.”
I never said Michigan was the finest university in the World. It is certainly an excellent university, and one of the best universities in the United States, but I fully admit that there are some universities that are better (Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale), and many that are just as good (Berkeley, Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Penn, Rice, UCLA, UVa, Vanderbilt, WUSTL etc… and a number of elite LACs that are too numerous to mention).
There are obviously variances in quality within that large group, with some of the smaller schools excelling in niches while several of the larger ones (such as Cornell and Michigan) excelling across most disciplines. But they are all excellent.
“My college was Oberlin which has had some bad publicity lately, but was and is an excellent college. The culture there and at similar liberal arts colleges was completely different than U of M.”
Oberlin is one of those awesome colleges that I prize as highly as Michigan. There are dozens such LACs that deliver just as exceptional an undergraduate education, and experience, as the best universities in the nation. Oberlin, along Carleton, Grinnell, Kenyon and Macalester in the Midwest, the Claremont Colleges, Colorado College and Reed out West and over a dozen on the East Coast (Amherst, Bates, Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr, Colby, Colgate, Davidson, Haverford, Middlebury, Smith, Swarthmore, Vassar, Wellesley, Wesleyan, Williams to name a few).
I never claimed that Michigan was the finest. But I do object to those who come on this forum and attempt to downgrade the University. Like all elite universities, Michigan is exceptional in its own way, and only a handful of universities (literally) are better in any appreciable way.
Oh, and by the way, I am not female. Alexandre is the French way of spelling Alexander!
Alexandre, there are a huge chunk of students at UMich that major in Communications and Psychology that don’t plan on getting a PHd in those fields. And those two degrees are still not competitive for top Medical Schools or Law Schools, etc…
You speak on very idealistic terms. I’m sure you probably think every student attends all of his/her classes.
Its a way better perspective than yours.
Your view right now is mostly via the Internet.
My view combines both the Internet + the real life Campus, so I have more depth.
Don’t worry, I did say some of your conclusions were true, just limited.
People act less disciplined when they don’t live with their parents. So most good habits, don’t stick around for the average student. Its a completely different environment.
Remember Uber kid and those Ski Trip children? And there are other things that happen behind the scenes, you don’t want to hear about.
There are lots of students at Michigan as a whole with the same infantile mentality. While, I am very proud to go UMich, I’m often disappointed when I see other students act with a maturity level I’d expect to see at Michigan State instead when I took my required humanities classes or studied in the Fishbowl/Ugli. There’s definitely a difference in personalities, drive, and intelligence between Engineering North Campus and LSA Central Campus. Anyone who disagrees has obviously not spent significant amount of times between both.
This depends on how you define “significant awards”. At UMich, National Merit Finalist is actually a dime a dozen. Which isn’t surprising, since its probably the best Public university.
But students who win Intel/Siemens, USAMO, NACLO, etc… usually go to MIT, Harvard, CalTech, Stanford, Yale, Princeton, etc… so most who won those won’t even enroll in the College of Engineering
I’ll have to agree with ForeverAlone in the sense that there is a different overall attitude between engineers and northern LSA students, but I don’t think that’s necessarily in opposition to Alexandre’s point. The difference between engineering students and school of LA students at ANY college would be different. You’re talking about students whose upbringing involved them coding for fun instead of other activities like sports, movies, etc. As such, they’ll be directed towards a different mindset over time. All of them have their uses in society, so to argue about one being better than the other isn’t really necessary. As for the “people act less disciplined with their parents”, I’d have to completely disagree. You’re only hearing about the cases where people screw up because of survivorship bias. I have many friends who have actually become MUCH more responsible because once they got to college, they realized they were effectively in total control and they didn’t have any excuses if they did poorly. I personally have done much better in college than in high school; My GPA was the highest it’s ever been, I worked out five times a week, I held a part time job,I still went out to party once or twice every week. I’m currently in a finance internship, and I’m headed into Ross next year as the new Co-president of a club on campus. I was never the president of a club in high school. I didn’t have time to workout regularly because of classes in high school. I didn’t have the convenience of the dining hall and 4 meals a day in high school. I didn’t go out on weekends nearly as much. And I certainly didn’t have time to take daily naps. But in college I can.
@rkjofnovi it’s actually Instead Of Engineering… come on get it right.
^^^LOL. See how times change? In either case, you appear to be doing quite well with your IOE degree. 
@blue85 “saying that the best students are somehow cordoned off in a few disciplines is just not accurate.”
They are not cordoned off. Top students today are clustering up increasingly by major, just like they are increasingly sorting themselves by university ranking. This is happening everywhere, not only at Michigan.
@alexandre " I have always said that the difference between the students at Michigan and the students at other top universities is negligible to non-existent. 75%-90% of Michigan’s undergraduate students are statistically indistinguishable from those at Brown, Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, Penn…"
Alexandre, Michigan is a great school, and I understand that you think you are completely objective. However, to me, there is a small chance that you may be just a little tiny bit slanted toward Michigan, which in may ways I admire. However, I still think it is slanted.
For example, compare the data for two schools. School one has an average ACT score that is, on average, two - three points lower per student, has a lower average gpa, and only about 1/2 of the level of diversity in targeted URM groups. At school #2 it is clear that a large number of the applicants who are URM need a 30 or higher to be admitted, and The data is current and pulled from the CDS or the schools’ websites, except for cross admit percentages from parchment.
School #1
29-33 ACT Composite middle 50%
29% Percent below 30 ACT
3.83 Mean UWGPA
9% URM Percent (Black and Latino)
14% Cross admits won vs. School 2
School #2
32-35 ACT Composite middle 50%
10% Percent below 30 ACT
3.93 Mean UWGPA
17% URM Percent (Black and Latino)
86% Cross admits won vs. School 1
Based on this data, would you say that these universities where “undergraduate students are statistically indistinguishable”?
I think at a certain point the differences do become meaningless. In @Much2learn 's example above, you are splitting hairs on the top 1-2% of the HS student population. The URM count also becomes meaningless because most of those URM’s would likely come from upper-middle class backgrounds with professional parents are are indistinguishable from the non-URM population as a while (meaning no real diversity). Alternately #1 might pull from a low diversity area and #2 from a high diversity area GPA could easily be explained away from a state vs national perspective, and each institution might pick students for certain characteristics that it desires, or ignore characteristics such as race by law.
An alternate explanation is that #2 is an elite technical school whose students tend to score higher in math and science.
All the post above shows is that both are very good.
“Alexandre, there are a huge chunk of students at UMich that major in Communications and Psychology that don’t plan on getting a PHd in those fields. And those two degrees are still not competitive for top Medical Schools or Law Schools, etc…”
How is that statement different of students at Michigan than it is of students at any other major university? Are Communications and Psychology students at Michigan any less marketable than their counterparts at other universities? In other words ForeverAlone, we are not in disagreement, but is that fact an indictment of LSA? Are people supposed to just not study Psychology if they are interested in the field? Are there no career prospects for Psychology or Communications majors?
“Its a way better perspective than yours. Your view right now is mostly via the Internet. My view combines both the Internet + the real life Campus, so I have more depth. Don’t worry, I did say some of your conclusions were true, just limited.”
You assume too much, but I am not going to debate my credentials on CC. But it still does not address my main point. Is the reality facing LSA students any different from that facing graduates of other top rated liberal arts programs?
“Remember Uber kid and those Ski Trip children? And there are other things that happen behind the scenes, you don’t want to hear about.”
I hope you are not suggesting those outliers are indicative of LSA students.
“There are lots of students at Michigan as a whole with the same infantile mentality. While, I am very proud to go UMich, I’m often disappointed when I see other students act with a maturity level I’d expect to see at Michigan State instead when I took my required humanities classes or studied in the Fishbowl/Ugli. There’s definitely a difference in personalities, drive, and intelligence between Engineering North Campus and LSA Central Campus. Anyone who disagrees has obviously not spent significant amount of times between both.”
I am not sure I understand your point here. Engineering will obviously attracts different types of students than LSA. First of all, the academics at the CoE are, without a doubt, challenging across the board, and therefore will attract students who are willing to accept the academic intensity that comes with their major. While some LSA majors are also challenging, some aren’t. Secondly, the CoE offers what? 13 of 14 majors, most of which are related. LSA is far more diverse, offering over 70 majors, ranging from the Classics and Philosophy to Computer Science and Physics. But there are far more gifted students who take their education seriously than there are average or mediocre students who lack maturity or intellectual curiosity. The percentage of Michigan students going on to top graduate students or winning major awards such as the Fulbright or the Churchill is roughly equal to that found at schools like Cornell and Penn.