<p>^Yes, for your reference Umiami is private. The debate isn’t wether or not Michigan is more academically renowned or more known-I think we are all in agreement it trumps Miami in that regard. The debate is more about if the discrepancy between the two universities is large enough to where you’d choose Michigan almost without exception and almost without even considering any other factors. I personally do not believe the discrepancy between them is drastic enough to where you’d choose Michigan unfailingly or at the expense of your preferred undergraduate environment.</p>
<p>This reminds me of a method a close family used to send their 8 kids to colleges. They’d break it into 3 different categories:
1 Financial ease, 2 Fit/like-ability, 3 Academics/reputation</p>
<p>Each of the three criteria were given a mark 1-10. The college that accumulated the largest sum was the college the kid attended!</p>
<p>“My point is simply that of a student clearly preferred Florida/Miami, or had a preference for warm weather/beaches, I don’t think it would be foolish for the student to go with Miami. I think the discrepancy between these two, though evident, isn’t substantial.”</p>
<p>So you think it would be ok, in this case, for the OP to choose Miami over say Northwestern or Cornell or WUSTL? Is your opinion that Miami is almost as strong as Michigan, and therefore worth choosing if one likes warm weather and the beach due to my underrating Miami, or is it based on my overrating Michigan?</p>
<p>When people say “is money an issue”, I kind of laugh.</p>
<p>Money is never NOT an issue unless 200,000 or so dollars is chump change to you.</p>
<p>“So you think it would be ok, in this case, for the OP to choose Miami over say Northwestern or Cornell or WUSTL? Is your opinion that Miami is almost as strong as Michigan, and therefore worth choosing if one likes warm weather and the beach due to my underrating Miami, or is it based on my overrating Michigan?”</p>
<p>I don’t think Miami is almost as strong as Michigan. I think there is an evident difference between the two. However, I don’t think the different is drastic or hugely substantial. A school I think is “almost as strong” as Michigan is, for example, USC. </p>
<p>Maybe we both are assigning differing values for Michigan and Miami, like you are saying. Perhaps you give Michigan more credit in general than I do, and perhaps I give Miami more credit in general than you do. </p>
<p>This is kind of beating a dead horse. We are using vague terms (significant, insignificant, ect) to try and describe a discrepancy between two universities that can’t accurately be measured.</p>
<p>I think there are few cases where you would choose a university almost at the exclusion of all else, or despite having a preference for another university, and in my opinion Michigan vs Miami is not one of those cases.</p>
<p>Check this out! </p>
<p>Umiami’s rise:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www6.miami.edu/communications/messages/2011-2012/images/usnewschart.jpg[/url]”>http://www6.miami.edu/communications/messages/2011-2012/images/usnewschart.jpg</a></p>
![http://www6.miami.edu/communications/messages/2011-2012/images/usnewschart.jpg[/url]](http://www6.miami.edu/communications/messages/2011-2012/images/usnewschart.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
<p>Umiami’s Goal fundraising campaigns according to their site:
“Momentum (2001-2007) $ 1.4 billion raised
Momentum2 (2008-2016) $ 1.6 billion goal
TOTAL: $3 billion to propel the University of Miami into the uppermost echelon of higher education in the U.S.”</p>
<p>As you can see Umiami is right in the middle of the Momentum 2 campaign. They are clearly working hard to improve the school as a whole.</p>
<p>allcapella, Miami’s endowment is tiny for a private university of its size. It stands at $700 million today. Since private universities receive no state funding, that’s all the university has to rely on. Michigan’s endowment is more than 10 times larger than Miami’s (currentlty standing at $7.6 billion), and that does not include state funding. If you include state appropriations, Michigan operates as a private university with an endowment 20 times larger than Miami’s. Obviously, Michigan is three times larger than Miami, so on a per student basis, Michigan is roughly 7 times wealthier. That is significant. It would be like comparing Michigan to Princeton. Financially, Michigan’s peers (on a per/student basis) are schools like Brown, Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Emory, Northwestern, Penn, UVa, Vanderbilt and WUSTL).</p>
<p>And while the current $1.6 billion funding drive will help Miami, Michigan is about to release details on its own funding drive that is slated to start in the fall of 2013. </p>
<p>[University</a> to launch fourth capital campaign - The Michigan Daily](<a href=“http://www.michigandaily.com/news/capital-campaign-launch-november-and-focus-financial-aid]University”>University to launch fourth capital campaign)</p>
<p>I can tell you right now, Michigan’s funding initiative will likely be for $5 billion or more. The gap in institutional wealth between Miami and Michigan will grow, not shrink, in the future. It is easy to see why with alums like Ross, Zell, Taubman and Munger donating to the University $50-$100 million at a time! How does the saying go? Ah yes, “the rich get richer…”</p>
<p>Obviously a huge elite public like Michigan is going to have an endowment that a school like Miami couldn’t even begin to match, but I don’t think that unfailingly solidifies that the gap between these two concerning undergraduate education is colossal. </p>
<p>Again as I have said, all things being equal Michigan is obviously the clear choice. But, I don’t think this is a decision where you’d choose Michigan in any and all occasions, completely ignoring fit/social factors personal preference, ect… </p>
<p>The information I posted about UMiami was not meant to be a comparison to Michigan, nor was it to say Miami is equal to Michigan. It was simply adding on to the handful of posters who have voiced their opinion that Miami is a school on the rise. Not every post has to be interpreted as a competition, and mine definitely wasn’t intended to be.</p>
<p>I don’t agree that Michigan vs Princeton has an equal or smaller discrepancy than Michigan vs Miami in terms of a student’s decision. But we’re pretty much going in circles at this point. To each his own.</p>
<p>allcapella, I was referring to institutional wealth, not academic quality. I agree that when it comes to discussing academic quality, you and I have very different approaches and philosophies. Debating that is pointless. However, institutional wealth is not open to debate. Numbers are numbers and cannot be disputed. Michigan has an endowment of $7.6 billion and receives $300 million from the state annually. Miami has an endowment of $700 million and receives $0 from the state annually.</p>
<p>Fair enough. But academic/university quality should be the forefront of the discussion concerning a student who is choosing between them. That is why I was focusing on that. Numerically, Miami may not match Michigan in terms of endowment figures. But there are other numerical components where Miami does compare to, or even bests Michigan. (Student body strength, class sizes, ect)</p>
<p>Is working for a Fortune 500 company in all cases “better” than working for a small business?</p>
<p>All of these comparison data discussions contribute to kids/parents feeling pressure to choose the highest rated, highest ranked, wealthiest schools with the most resources.</p>
<p>Trying to remind kids that beyond a certain threshold of “good enough” and that choosing on fit is most important most of that gets tossed out when it’s time to pull the trigger because the pressure/cultural impressions are so heavy with other stuff.</p>
<p>But here’s the truth in terms of what 99.9% of us actually experience…Even at the tiniest of decent liberal art schools, including those known to be very solid but modestly rated (Wooster, Ursinus, Ohio Wesleyan, etc), the very brightest of students could not exhaust more than 5% of what those schools have to offer. So does it matter if they will only exhaust 1.5% at a bigger and “better” choice? What really is the material difference in going to a school with 98.5% left you couldn’t take advantage of vs 95% you couldn’t take advantage of? In other words, if a flyswatter will get the job done plenty well, why do you need a semi-automatic weapon???</p>
<p>And I know this is going to sound all Loren Popeish, but at what point are we talking about a rich educational experience vs a narcissism-and-anxiety-driven-resume-perfecting exercise?</p>
<p>Finalchild, I don’t think you were being biased. I would agree Rochester vs Duke probably had the least distinction of the comparisons I mentioned. </p>
<p>I agree with missjump on this one. I wouldn’t go to Michigan over Miami if I had a definite preference for Umiami and thought it would be a better fit. Fit being at or very near equal, I would go to Michigan.</p>
<p>Let’s flip the argument. Assuming an appropriately motivated, bright student, will he/she receive a materially better education at Harvard vs Michigan? And is this something the student will actually experience concretely?</p>
<p>"Peer Assessment Score
Michigan 4.4 (peers include Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, JHU, Northwestern and Penn, UCLA and UVa)
Miami 3.2 (its peers are obviously nowhere near the same league)</p>
<p>Undergraduate Business rank:
Michigan #3
Miami not ranked in the top 50</p>
<p>Undergraduate Engineering rank:
Michigan #7
Miami not ranked in the top 80</p>
<p>Biology
Michigan #20
Miami #82</p>
<p>Chemistry
Michigan #16
Miami #94</p>
<p>Computer Science
Michigan #13
Miami not ranked in the top 100</p>
<p>Earth Sciences
Michigan #9
Miami #39</p>
<p>Economics rank:
Michigan #13
Miami not ranked in the top 80</p>
<p>English rank:
Michigan #13
Miami #82</p>
<p>History:
Michigan #7
Miami #74</p>
<p>Mathematics
Michigan #8
Miami #98</p>
<p>Physics
Michigan #11
Miami #122</p>
<p>Political Science
Michigan #4
Miami not ranked in the top 80</p>
<p>Psychology
Michigan #4
Miami #52</p>
<p>Sociology
Michigan #4
Miami #84</p>
<p>Endowment
Michigan $7.6 billion
Miami $720 million"</p>
<p>These two schools are NOT academic peers. If you want warm weather go to Miami. If you want superior academics, go to Michigan.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, not a single person here has called Miami a peer of Michigan or suggested that there is not a clear distinction between the two.</p>
<p>That said, what does “superior academics” actually mean concretely…in terms of what a student actually experiences? What makes this a “difference that makes a difference”? And please don’t just respond with the typical “because the top firms only recruit” at the academically superior schools.</p>
<p>Finalchild,</p>
<p>That is an interesting question. I’m not sure, though I am interested to hear what others think.</p>
<p>RJK,</p>
<p>No one is suggesting Miami and Michigan are peers- they are not.
Also peer assessment rankings and departmental rankings aren’t the only factors that accumulate to undergraduate excellence. Miami matches Michigan in student body strength, and % of students admitted. It also has, on average, smaller class sizes.</p>
<p>“No one is suggesting Miami and Michigan are peers- they are not.”</p>
<p>Fine. Now just admit Michigan and Duke are academic peers.</p>
<p>RJ, haha. How about your response to #35 above?</p>
<p>Just as I would recommend Michigan over Miami, I would recommend Harvard over Michigan. This is of course if the student enjoyed both environments equally in the latter case. Michigan is academically closer to Harvard than Miami is to Michigan. I am not knocking Miami; but for academics there is a clear difference between the two schools.</p>
<p>“You can’t selectively choose a component that Michigan fares well in, like Peer Assessment rankings, and then omit or disregard the areas where Michigan is relatively weaker-retention rate, student body strength, class size, ect…”</p>
<p>Yes I can. Those other factors have been proven, time and again I might add, to be easily manipulated.</p>