<p>OP, you are receiving some good advice here. Are you planning to remain in Boston after graduation or live in other cities such as Chicago, NYC, and DC? If it is the latter, the Michigan degree will open more doors career-wise for you.</p>
<p>It seems recent Michigan alumni are everywhere nowadays, except in Michigan! The brain drain of this state seems to be increasing every year. I can’t imagine that a high percentage of Michigan graduates are staying here after they finish school.</p>
<p>^^ rjkofnovi, it’s interesting that you bring this up. </p>
<p>In my graduate course, the professor asked the 40 students how many plan to remain in Michigan after they receive their master’s degree. Only half of the students raised their hands. </p>
<p>Even I told the professor it is 50-50 for me because the jobs I would like to do are predominately in the Boston-Washington DC corridor.</p>
<p>why would someone limit their career path and take a job in Michigan if they have options in states in better shape, which is virtually essentially every state outside of Michigan?</p>
<p>rjkofnovi, I forgot to add that many of my high school classmates no longer live in Michigan. </p>
<p>They are living in “cool cities” such as Boston, Chicago, DC Metro, and San Francisco.</p>
<p>Generation Y Michigan has produced a series about this situation:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://generationymichigan.org/2009/11/05/the-brain-drain/[/url]”>http://generationymichigan.org/2009/11/05/the-brain-drain/</a></p>
<p>Eh, I like Boston University a lot better, I definitely would not transfer if i were you</p>
<p>^^^Brilliant advice.</p>
<p>Two final points: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Campus recruiting isn’t a big deal and, as with most things, there are reasons, notably that Michigan is a long way from NYC so companies go there to visit. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to see kids from BU or other east coast schools. They’re looking for good people and so they need to stick their faces in at places farther away. The IB’s, etc. are also (more) interested in people in the grad program and that leads to #2.</p></li>
<li><p>Do not confuse grad school with undergrad. For example, UofM is in the top 15 in economics grad programs - not at the top of the list - but you improve your odds of getting into a top 15 program by doing very well in college, working somewhere in your field, and doing very well on the GRE. Getting into a top 15 program materially helps your career because that is grad school.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I’m not saying Michigan isn’t more “prestigious” than BU or a bunch of other schools, just that a) the prestige isn’t like Harvard or Stanford and b) doing well at almost any good school leads to the same results.</p>
<p>“1. Campus recruiting isn’t a big deal and, as with most things, there are reasons, notably that Michigan is a long way from NYC so companies go there to visit. That doesn’t mean they don’t want to see kids from BU or other east coast schools. They’re looking for good people and so they need to stick their faces in at places farther away.”</p>
<p>That’s not correct. First of all, anyone with reasonable knowledge about IB recruiting would know that target recruiting trumps non-target recruiting any day by a wide margin. If a bank doesnt do on campus recruiting, you basically have to rely on online application form which almost means your resume go straight in the trash. Last year, the intern class for my BB was 90% targets and semi-targets for front office positions, and most of the 10% of non-target people have an “in” at the firm, be it an uncle who’s an MD or a close family friend who’s a VP or simply great networking. This was at a lower-tier BB known to take more non-targets than GS and MS.
Your reason also does not make sense. The proximity does not stop banks from visiting Columbia, Stern right down the street. It does not stop them from visiting worthy schools on the east coast either. </p>
<p>“The IB’s, etc. are also (more) interested in people in the grad program and that leads to #2.”
Wrong again. The analyst program is way bigger than the associate program, and 95% of the analyst class are undergrads, with most of the other 5% from people in 5 year master programs.</p>
<p>"doing well at almost any good school leads to the same results. "
Wrong. The number of “doors” opened is different.</p>
<p>Moricarak, if you like BU so much, why on earth are you so desperately trying/hoping to get in to Michigan??? BU should be a (slightly) easier admit for you!</p>
<p>I attended both institutions (engineering at both), Michigan is superior to BU in the physical sciences, mathematics, and engineering. My concept of “superiority”: material covered by Math 215 at UM is covered by Honors Vector Calculus in BU, and it is not always offered because no one takes it (If you can handle Honor Math at UM, you are golden for any related graduate program). Same goes for couple other Math/ Chem/ Engr classes. Sometimes it’s funny but BU graduates cannot handle their own grad schools because of a lack of rigor in “core” undergraduate training. Example, if one needs to pass Biomed Engr Math Phd qualifier at BU, he should have “at least” have taken Honors Vector calculus at BU, which is not a requirement, and not always offered. To sum it up, on the whole BU students are not sufficiently homogeneously competent such that certain concepts can be taught as core requirements. Hence BU students are often “short-changed” in terms of things they learn for the amount of tuition they pay.</p>
<p>I am tired of hearing that graduate school excellence does not translate to undergrad excellence but it does. The translation is not in the sense that professors teaches better, but in the sense that better undergrad students tend to go to schools with better graduate schools (which are often times higher ranked, whatever that means), and hence the professors are able to teach at a higher level. Any professor who is interested in the subject that he is teaching tries to teach at a more competitive level rather than dumb-ing it down for students, which is downright uninteresting to the professor and to the smarter students.</p>
<p>For math, sciences and engineering, UM and BU are academically very different, not only in terms of the material, but also in terms of the loading per class.</p>
<p>Career-wise, UM has over a hundred recruiters for college of engineering, plus the myriad others you could crash (like the b-sch, which I did a lot cos they have shrimp cocktails on those events). Since the poster is at BU, he/she should already know how many recruiters came the past couple years. Also like bearcats mentioned, the companies that come are different.</p>
<p>You can’t never ever beat UM’s alumni network and alum pride, and I mean that globally.</p>
<p>People on this forum have many beliefs without substantiations…it’s funny.</p>
<p>
People on this forum have many beliefs without substantiations…
Why do some people doubt?</p>
<p>anononno, you raise a very important point. I have often stated that one of the major components to a great undergraduate program/education is curriculum, but many on CC just don’t get it. Fortunately, graduate schools admissions committees and employers get it. Classes offered and what is tought in those classes is what separates undergraduate programs. Michigan is known for having one of the more challenging and rewarding curriculums and that definitely earns it the reputation is has enjoyed over the years.</p>
<p>I also agree with your assessment of Michigan’s alumni network. It is indeed ridiculous! hehe!</p>
<p>I find these discussions interesting and yet kind of silly. I appreciate the information about the content of the math class and of course recognize that any school has its strengths and weaknesses, often varying within a single college or department. And of course reputation attracts better out of state students. How is that in doubt? But again, how much does it matter?</p>
<p>I’ve made the comment elsewhere that Clemson is very highly rated and yet almost 7 out of 10 students come from SC and the schools in SC are rated below average. So how “good” is a school if nearly 70% of the kids come from a worse school environment? Michigan is a public institution in the state. It takes between 6 to 7 of every 10 students from the state and Michigan isn’t exactly California or Texas in size so the pool is smaller. And Michigan has a larger than average public university system so some of the best students don’t go to UofM.</p>
<p>Is the ratio of Michigan students at the University of Michigan system and all high school graduates from Michigan public schools any bigger than California’s? Any bigger than Texas’s? </p>
<p>Though I’d like to ask, is the “dumbed down” claim of other universities (or the more positive sounding “smartened up” claim of Michigan) really true? And by is it true I mean is it true compared to other top public universities and private universities of the same level? Or is it only true compared to schools considered much lower than it?</p>
<p>“OP, you are receiving some good advice here…”</p>
<p>good? it’s all completely contradictory! D: lols.</p>
<p>Lergmom, a few comments about your observation in post #55:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Although the state of Michigan has a large public school system (accommodates roughly 200,000 undergraduate students), it is significantly smaller than the California and Texas state school systems. The UC system alone has over to 150,000 undergrads. The Cal State/Cal Poly system has 200,000 undergrads. And the UT system is also huge. Each of those two states have public university systems that accommodate over 400,000 undergraduate students.</p></li>
<li><p>State school systems vary significantly school to school. The drop in quality and reputation can be significant. The gap in quality and reputation from the #1 public university in the state of Michigan the the #2 public university in the state of Michigan is significant. The drop between the #1 public university in California and the #2 public university in California is not that significant at all. The same can be said of the top two public universities in Texas. Yes, Cal is better than UCLA, but only marginally so. Hell, even UCSD is not that much weaker than those two schools. All three universities are ranked out of the top 20 but in the top 35 according to the USNWR. Fiske gives all three universities a ***** academic ranking. And yes, UT-Austin is better than Texas-A&M, but again, only fractionally so. Austin is ranked around #50 in the nation and A&M is ranked roughly #60 in the nation according to the USNWR. Fiske gives Austin a *<strong><em>1/2 academic rating and A&M a *</em></strong> academic rating. That is not the case in Michigan, where the University of Michigan is significantly stronger than MSU. Michigan is generally ranked around #25 according to the USNWR and MSU is generally ranked around #75. Fiske gives Michigan a ***** academic rating and MSU a *** academic rating.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>3) A factor you forgot to consider is distance. The distance between schools also plays a part. Students generally want to stay close to home. Many top students in Southern California chose UCLA and even UCSD over Cal because they want to stay close to home. Berkeley is 300 miles away from LA and 500 miles away from San Diego. Austin is much closer to College Station, but we are still talking over 100 miles. Michigan and Michigan State are separated by 65 miles. As such, distance will play a large role in the decision of students in California and a significant role for students in texas but virtually no role for students in Michigan. </p>
<ol>
<li>Finally, and this is a significant factor to consider here, is in-state student make-up. Roughly 93% of undergrads at the top 3 public universities in California are in-state. Even private universities in California have a soignificantly large in-state student makeup. In Texas, 95% of undergrads at the top 2 public universities are in-state. At Michigan, only 65% of undergrads are in-state. So, the one top public university in the state of Michigan has 16,000 undergraduate in-students. The top 2 public unversities in California have 46,000 undergraduate in-state students (66,000 if you count UCSD) and California has some excellent private schools such as Caltech, Stanford, USC and the Claremont colleges, all of which attract tens of thousands of California students from the state. Stanford is 40% in-state and USC is over 60% in-state. The top 2 public universities in Texas have 67,000 undergraduate in-state students.</li>
</ol>
<p>I am currently deciding between BU and UMich for an MPH in Epidemiology. I am having hard time reaching a decision because I grew up in Los Angeles and got my undergrad degree on the West coast, so I am not familiar with schools in the Midwest/east. I have heard great things about both programs/schools, but many have said that UMich is way stronger academically. </p>
<p>I was hoping someone could provide me with some insight about both programs/schools as well as their surrounding communities.</p>
<p>It seems like BU has a busier city life, like that of New York, whereas UMich is in a smaller town but it is a very busy college community.</p>
<p>Please help!!! :)</p>