@MichiganDad22 As the parent of a child who attended Columbia, there was little-to-no “individual attention or personal touch” there, and Columbia College is small. Ditto with Harvard College. Conversely, I knew a student who attended Michigan’s Residential College and her classes were small and she had fantastic interaction with her faculty. Hard to generalise.
Conversely, bigger research universities offer their students fantastic opportunities that really cannot be replicated elsewhere. I know Harvard College students who did research projects at Mass Gen Hospital. Amherst couldn’t have offered that. So it depends what you want.
Actually nostalgicwisdom, Pomona, Amherst and Williams’s endowment per student (roughly $1.1-$1-2 million) are 5 times larger than Michigan’s ($230,000), and less than 3 times larger when you factor in state funding. When you consider economies of scale, I am not sure the difference is noteworthy.
akiddoc, I think MichiganDad was referring to the size, variety of courses, availability of options, and feel not, not the academics. Admittedly, Pomona is unique thanks to the consortium. Most LACs have stand alone campuses that look no different from a large, resource-rich prep school.
exlibris97, your observations are spot on, and I wish it were expressed more often on CC. The myth that smaller, research-intensive universities provide students more individualized attention than larger ones is rampant in these forums. They assume that just because they report impressive financial resources figures (almost always a result of fuzzy math) and better student to faculty ratios (of course, almost always omitting they utterly humongous graduate students from their calculations), parents and students are going to be impressed. Sadly, their assumption is right. Smearing their eyes with all those superlatives will convince unwitting, protective parents and impressionable students. But when all is said and done, the experience at Brown, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern, Penn etc… will not be superior to the experience at Michigan. The students will not be significantly smarter. The classes will not be noticeable or materially smaller. Resources and opportunities will not be more plentiful. Graduate schools and employers will not differentiate between Michigan graduates and their graduates. And faculty will not provide students with more personalized attention. This has been confirmed over and over by people I know that have studied at those universities, and even more so by people who have received degrees from Michigan and from another one of those elite private universities, as I have. Michigan is clearly one of the top universities in the nation. Naturally, fit is important, and that is where Brown vs Michigan or Chicago vs Michigan comes into play. Not which one is better…but which one is better for me.
@exlibris97 and @Alexandre I agree with all of your points. However, I am confused about the first paragraph in @exlibris97 post. Columbia had over 26k students enrolled and Harvard over 20k students. They are not small schools.
My daughter has a great experience at UMich… knows her professors…gets support she needs…found a world class internship after just her sophomore year… But she’s a total “go getter” with very strong interpersonal skills. You could certainly fall through the cracks at any big school if you don’t reach out. Conversely, if your entire school has 1.600 kids, your teacher probably knows if you don’t come to class. Don’t get me wrong, I am huge UM proponent, but I think you can generalize that a school with 1,600 kids can give more individual attention. Let’s give them that point at least
MichiganDad22, you are quite right. Most major research universities aren’t small. Stanford has 16,000 students. Chicago has 15,000 students. Northwestern has 21,000. Penn has 25,000 students etc… But those universities do not like to admit that, and they will omit their thousands of graduate students from any data they publish in order to boost their numbers. Columbia will claim they have 8,000 undergraduate students. That is true. But their faculty are engaged in heavy fund raising activities, time-consuming research and paper writing endeavors, and often have 5 or 6 PhD candidates they they are advising. CC posters think that only Michigan has Graduate Student Instructors. They ignore the fact that there thousands of graduate students at Columbia, Chicago, Stanford, Northwestern, Harvard, Penn etc…and they also work as instructors in order to earn their stipends. Parents and students are happy to ignore those facts.
World’s Largest University Subject Rankings: 2017 Edition | CWUR - Monday, April 3, 2017
The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), publisher of the largest academic ranking of global universities, released today its inaugural subjects ranking. The ranking features the top global universities in 227 subjects covering all academic disciplines in the sciences and social sciences.
Harvard University leads the way globally, achieving Top-10 placements in 112 subjects, including 72 top places.
Institutions with the most Top-10 placements worldwide are:
Harvard University, USA (112 Top-10 subjects)
University of Toronto, Canada (66 Top-10 subjects)
University of Michigan, USA (57 Top-10 subjects)
University of Pennsylvania, USA (54 Top-10 subjects)
Johns Hopkins University, USA (51 Top-10 subjects)
University of California, Berkeley, USA (50 Top-10 subjects)
Stanford University, USA (48 Top-10 subjects)
University of Oxford, United Kingdom (47 Top-10 subjects)
University of Washington, USA (45 Top-10 subjects)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA (41 Top-10 subjects)
@gmfreedom I’m confused. This thread was about the best public university. You have produced a list that includes mainly private universities, including some outside of the US.
Also rankings are inherently tricky things. Look at what this one weights. You couldn’t be a small LAC and do well.
It’s totally relevant to this thread. There are only two other public US universities on this list and UM is above both. UVA, UNC, UCLA, UT… not in the top 10 and they are good schools/big schools. This data is not intended to compare UM vs. an LAC. It compares UM to other big, prestigious schools, public and private.I think this is very relevant.
My point was … University of Michigan is good in just about any field. UofM is the highest ranked public university in US when it comes to “Institutions with the most Top-10 subject placements”. The fact that it is 3rd in the world among all institutions (public and private) based on this criteria…is Amazing.
“This thread was about the best public university. You have produced a list that includes mainly private universities, including some outside of the US.”
Actually exlibrish, 3 of the top 10 global universities are US public universities (Michigan, Cal and UDub). Sounds pretty impressive if you ask me. And the 2 non-US universities on the list are also public.
“Also rankings are inherently tricky things. Look at what this one weights. You couldn’t be a small LAC and do well.”
We can agree on that one. There is no ranking that truly captures the essence of a college’s or university’s excellence. Depending on the methodology, some types of universities will do better than others. Most of those global rankings focus mainly on research output. Naturally, LACs will not do well in such rankings. The US News methodology favors private universities over public universities.
@Alexandre The concept of “public” university does not really apply to British universities and reflects a misunderstanding of how higher education is organised in the United Kingdom. Oxford and Cambridge colleges are private charitable foundations. The Universities of Oxford and Cambridge Act preserved this. British students were previously publicly funded but these grants went to the students who paid them to the universities. Certain Oxbridge Colleges also have Royal Charters, which make them even more removed from “public” control.
exlibris, I agree that British universities are not public in the same sense as US universities, but they are federally funded. Admittedly, not so much today as it was centuries ago, but even today, roughly 15% of Oxford’s funding comes from the UK government. Oxford and Cambridge even describe themselves as “public research universities”. British students pay much less than non-British students. Bottom line. Oxbridge have a lot in common with US public universities.
@Alexandre “Federally funded”? Britain isn’t a republic and doesn’t have a federal system of government, so there is no “federal” government. Moreover, Scottish universities have a very different funding and teaching model from English and Welsh ones. The “public” funding you are referred to is now limited to the sciences following the Conservative government’s reforms. The term “public research university” is also used in a British, not American, context.
British students do pay less, but so do EU students. However, the government does not control admissions and Parliament does not have a regulatory function that in any way is equivalent to that seen in California, Michigan or other states.
Incidentally, Harvard gets over 15% of its operating and research revenues from the US Federal Government too. If you count federal student aid, you could argue it is a "public"university, which would be very misleading.
exlibris, good points. By federally, I meant nationally. I do not dispute that British universities aren’t public in the same sense as American universities, but they share a lot more in common with public universities than with private universities, particularly when it comes to tuition and enrollment, where government has influence over university matters.Here’s an article that speaks of matters all too familiar to the University of Michigan. It is dated, and I am not sure if things have changed.
Awesome! My wife and I can rest easy now! My D has had a very tough few weeks deciding between UMich, UVirginia, and Tufts. After searching and searching various forums such as this and analyzing hours of data, and of course, hours traveling to said campuses and cities, she decided on UMich for many of the reasons stated on this thread by so many well informed and knowledgable people…thank you all! One distinct reason was UROP and the extended reach of the Study Abroad programs. It just amazed her where the block “M” could be found across the globe. Again, with this great information, we know as parents, she is on solid ground for the years to come! Cheers to all!!
When public schools like Mich charge almost private school prices, they need to
be compared to private schools. My sons got 20k/yr scholarships each at multiple private colleges.
So the price tag of $65k goes to $45k, avg for most oos publics, and less than Michigan OOS.
So the above rankings vs privates matters, and the entire premise of the thread is not meaningful.
When state schools use OOS students as cash cows, that makes them a lesser choice in my mind.
Note that Michigan charges the same tuition between 12-18 credit hours per semester, considered ‘full time’. So a student could complete a 120 hr bachelors degree in 7 semesters while paying the standard tuition rate, less with AP credit.
blevine, many public universities cost roughly as much as Michigan. The 9 UCs cost about the same. UVa does too. UIUC, Colorado, Vermont and William & Mary are also expensive.
That being said, I think the OP was just trying to gauge the top public universities.
