<p>Alex, it was nice of you to post an advertisement rather than answer my question. Your proselytizing knows no bounds.</p>
<p>"In terms of academics, Michigan has always been considered among the top 10 nationally, especially in the academic and corporate world"</p>
<p>According to who? What does this even mean? Which of the eight Ivys, Stanford, Duke are you replacing with UMichigan?</p>
<p>"This trend should continue for some time."</p>
<p>What is this blanket assertion based on?</p>
<p>Cost is a huge factor for the Ivy League despite scholarships. Some of the smartest people I know attend state and public universities for precisely this reason. Some even have to stay close to home to work part time to support the family.</p>
<p>ok first of all, when i said what i said about harvard vs. state schools, i was not talking about UVA BERKELEY and MICHIGAN obviously. I wasn't even talking about IU, IOWA, CU BOULDER, or any of those schools, i was talking about <strong>MOST</strong> public schools, berkeley uva and michigan very, very obviously don't fall into the category of <strong>most</strong> public schools.</p>
<p>Second of all, while i was not saying public schools do not have a few legitimately stellar students, the dropoff from these very best students to the rest of the top 10% is very steep. It's not hard to be in the top 10% of a public school, it's only the top 1% or even less though, at most of these institutions, who are actually harvard-caliber (even bottom 10%) and are attending public school for financial/personal/whatever reasons.</p>
<p>
[quote]
According to who? What does this even mean? Which of the eight Ivys, Stanford, Duke are you replacing with UMichigan?
[/quote]
I think when Alex listed out his university rankings, he had about 16-17 "top 10" schools.</p>
<p>when referring to public schools, i think schools like CU boulder, cal state long beach, ASU, etc should be compared. Just looking at the class sizes, the later 2 being 33k and 50k, there obviously has to be more than 1% that could compete academically with ivy league students. I would guestimate 10% or so. Do they have the drive or ambition, possibly, maybe no drive for school, but ambition for other things, but in all when refereing to how smart they are in relation, i am sure there are thousands if not hundreds depending on the size of the student body that can compare.</p>
<p>Not everyone gets "prepped" for the elite of higher education nor does everyone desire it.</p>