<p>Opie12,and Alex, re grad rates…at umich, 5800 of its undergrad students are in Engineering, which is normally a 9 semester sequence. I do believe that skews the four year grad rate a little, since that’s roughly a quarter of the undergrad population. Even when students bring a lot of APs etc., many of those only fulfill electives, not necessarily program or even distribution credits. When umich gives Coe scholarships, they last for 9 semesters, not 8, which tells me it’s pretty common to expect that segment of the population to take a little longer than the standard four years. ;)</p>
<p>In addition, there are another 900 approx students at the School of Music, many of whom dual degree, which takes an average of 9-10 semesters. So I personally wouldn’t take the four year grad rate as “meaning anything” in terms of quality of the school or its student body. The six-year grad rate is more meaningful in this sense.</p>
<p>And frankly, since I don’t think the 4-yr grad rate “means” anything except as it relates to a UG BA at LSA, I don’t really think Michigan needs to work on that metric when its an “artificial” signal of quality that is otherwise evident ;)</p>