<p>“Take the ratings with a grain of salt. Not to mention the fact that USNWR and NCR rank Graduate programs, not undergrad… :/”</p>
<p>Crono, can you please tell me how graduate school rankings differ from undergraduate rankings? Is there a significant difference between BBA and MBA programs or between graduate Engineering and undergraduate Engineering rankings? Do different faculties teach undergraduate students and graduate students. Do undergraudate students have access to completely different curriculae or facilities than graduate students?</p>
<p>Only two types of people would ever make such a comment as yours:</p>
<p>1) People who don’t know better or are simply regurgitating what others say</p>
<p>2) People with an agenda</p>
<p>The fact is, at most universities, there is virtually no difference between undergraduate quality and graduate quality. Most of my higher level classes in Econ were practically identical to their graduate school counterparts (401 and 601 or 402 and 602 etc…), except they were less quantitative. Those classes were often taught by the same professors and in the same classrooms as their graduate school equivalent course.</p>
<p>There are exceptions of course:</p>
<p>1) At some schools, excellent undergraduate programs do not have graduate school equivalents. That is especially true at major LACs and schools like Dartmouth. But in most cases, in a university has a top graduate program in a particular field, its undergraduate program in that field will also be excellent.</p>
<p>2) At some schools, excellent graduate programs do not have the necessay resources to make for the best undergraduate experience. That is especially true at large universities with relatively small endowments and revenues, such as UCSD and Maryland. But Michigan’s endowment of $6 billion (6th largest university endowment in the World) and revenues (from tuition, alumni donations etc…) allow it to manage a large student body with relative ease, although I do believe that Michigan would benefit from having a slightly smaller undergraduate student population.</p>