Dartmouth vs University of Michigan

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
21

“UMich is still a state school, is it not? Yes it is prestigious, but are we really comparing an Ivy League school to a public school in terms of undergrad? I’d even say Cornell, while seen as the lowest of the Ivys, is probably more prestigious undergrad-wise than UMich. I love my school, but Ivys are Ivys.”

It is indisputably the case that any Ivy school carries more cachet than any public school – that is, on a purely reputational and subjective basis, any given Ivy is more impressive…especially to Ivy graduates and to the pundits who construct rankings. However, most rankings penalize size and also penalize poverty (e.g., years taken to graduate at a public school is almost purely a function of wealth rather than aptitude, but counts heavily against publics with their inherently less fiscally sound undergraduates; the same can be said of student/teacher ratio and/or class size…also a function of funding, but not necessarily determinative of instructional quality) and thus are not, strictly speaking, a good proxy for the education delivered or the education absorbed.

Further consider the following: Michigan has EXACTLY the same interquartile ACT range as – in alphabetical order – Amherst, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth. Michigan matriculants also run a median high school GPA of around 3.85. So, at the undergraduate level, and with regard to entering board scores, Michigan is indistinguishable from Dartmouth. Of course, with regard to graduate program rankings, Michigan is far stronger in aggregate than all of the Ivys but Harvard (trumped by, in order, Berkeley, Harvard and Stanford). In the research domain, Michigan is far stronger than all of the Ivys but Cornell. Michigan trumps Cornell, but by a narrower margin.

If you look at the number of kids on the Michigan campus with a greater than 30 ACT, that number is well over 18,000 students in total. Thus Michigan has more kids with elite board scores on the Ann Arbor campus than Harvard, Yale and Princeton combined.

So, while Michigan may not carry the same prestige factor as Dartmouth, I’m reasonably confident that you will find plenty of challenges on the Ann Arbor campus and exit well prepared if you choose to accept those challenges.

22

Only more recently in the past years. It was not too long ago that the ACT range for michigan was 28 - 32 and even lower.

23

Consider this: Michigan’s 10th ranked medical school favors Michigan grads. You also have better chance doing advanced undergraduate research with medical school professors/researchers.

24

@GoBlue81

Are you sure about that? I heard the exact opposite story from a current UofM pre-med student. She might be wrong about it though- can you confirm?

25

"2015 Entering Class Profile –

Class size: 170

Undergraduate Colleges Attended:
Institutions with the highest numbers of students:


[QUOTE=""]

University of Michigan - 55
Stanford - 6
Duke and Yale - 5
Harvard, Hope, Oakland, UPenn: 4 each"
https://medicine.umich.edu/medschool/education/md-program/people-places/class-profiles

[/QUOTE]

26

@yikesyikesyikes

If you also look at this website: https://www.amherst.edu/campuslife/careers/act/gradstudy/health/guide/part2/appendix

And go down to UofM, it’s seen that the favorability to OOS students is 0.62 (equal favorability between OOS and in-state would be 1), which shows that UofM favors in-state kids even though more OOS kids apply to UMich Medical School

27

“Only more recently in the past years. It was not too long ago that the ACT range for michigan was 28 - 32 and even lower.”

ForeEverAlone: 1) fair enough, any student with a time machine may take advantage of those lower scores; 2) given that applications are up, yield is steady, acceptances are down, the day when one might take advantage of the levels you cite is gone; 3) I’ve put together a small table just below which shows that the number of students in the top composite ACT bucket (unfortunately, the highest granularity shown has a lower bound of 30) at Michigan are increasing faster than at several Ivy League schools; 4) Unfortunately, the school which I used originally (Dartmouth) does not store the bucket percentage, so I’ve substituted Princeton, which, if anything, strengthens the argument.

Students over 30 on ACT                     
An ACT of 30 is the 95th percentile or roughly a 1.65 Standard Deviation Event                      

Michigan        Brown       Cornell     Princeton

2014 19,025 5,029 11,982 8,576

2013 17,847 4,648 11,140 7,964

2012 16,340 4,633 10,981 7,746

2011 14,800 4,594 10,625 7,530

2010 13,622 4,423 8,918 7,695

2009 12,056 4,371 9,891 7,619

Delta

2009-2014 58% 15% 21% 13%

Average 6 year Ratio

Michigan v. Brown 338%

Michigan v. Cornell 147%

Michigan v. Princeton 199%

As you can see from the above: 1) Michigan has always had more high ACT scorers than even the largest Ivy school, Cornell; 2) taking the average Michigan headcount relative to that top composite ACT bucket for that period and comparable numbers for the other schools, you can see that over the 6 year period Michigan’s cohort of elite scorers has increased more quickly than the other 3 schools in the sample above;

28

yikesyikesyikes, historically, between 25% and 33% of Michigan medical students are Michigan alums. So clearly, the medical school gives priority to all Michigan graduates, in-state or OOS.

hailbate, Michigan medical school does not distinguish that much between in-state from OOS applicants if they are graduates of Michigan. The difference between the % of OOS applicants and matriculants is more a function of the fact that more OOS Michigan graduates are willing to leave the state for medical school…perhaps for financial reasons.

29

That’s good stuff @hailbate and @Alexandre

30

@hailbate again, you are mixing data on public med schools, of which very few are of the caliber of UM. Thus, it’s entirely possible that UM Med school places more emphasis on undergrad prestige/challenge than other publics. If you look at the list by GoBlue81, that should jump out immediately - at least 24 of the 115 non UM undergrads come from small, distant, highly regarded private schools.

And no, UM is arguably not a public school any more, what with fully 50% coming from out of state and near total disinvestment from the state government. Why not compare them, when most of my professors either taught at or got their advanced degrees from an ivy/stanford/berkeley/MIT?

I couldn’t give a crap less about popular media rankings, and i’m guessing neither does much of the entering class, since they had at least as quality credentials as those from the higher ranked ivys you list. As one example, my 2nd roommate from PA turned down Penn to come here. I don’t know why you’re hung up on the “ivy” thing, but outside new england, UM definitely is more well known than the ivys, except HYP

31

@steellord123

No offense, but do you work on the admission committee for UM Medical School? No? Well great, cause neither do I. That is why I am basing my claim off of released data from AAMC. I can counter your guess by saying that it’s entirely possible that people from small, distant, highly regarded private schools are more motivated “go-getter” type students than students from other schools, thus increasing the chances that they have better ECs or are better essay writers or have higher GPAs due to grade inflation… aka the prestige of the undergraduate institution is irrelevant due to that.

While UMich is becoming more “private-like”, unless the state of Michigan goes bankrupt, there’s no way anytime in the near future that UMich will become a private university. You think Rick Snyder or any future governor is stupid enough to completely cut funding and allow out of staters to fully take advantage of a university with one of the most prestigious collection of grad/professional schools in the US (let alone Michigan)? Not to mention they’d have to rewrite the state constitution, which would be a headache by itself…

Also it may or may not be true that a majority of professors got their advanced degrees from an Ivy/school of similar standing (in my experience, a majority didn’t), but don’t act like that all classes at UMich are taught by professors. If we took into account lecturers (which teach a fair amount if not a majority of classes), it’d be much much lower % since they represent the University as well.

You’re basing your opinion on one person, your roommate? Crap, well I can do that too! I know people who choose JHU over UMich, UPenn over UMich, Harvard over UMich, MIT over UMich, Amherst over UMich, Boston U over UMich, NW over UMich. Hell I know a few people who chose MSU and Wayne State over UMich… And I don’t know of a single person from my hometown (and there were 100 of us from my hometown who got into UMich) that chose UMich over an Ivy/school of similar standing. And in the time that I’ve been a student here I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s told me that they chose UMich over an Ivy. Of course it’s possible that people will choose UMich over any other school, but it’s much more likely they’ll choose a better school over UMich as well.

The University of Alabama is very well known due to it’s football to all states, as is Clemson and University of Oklahoma and Ohio State University, etc etc etc… Being well-known does not mean it has high prestige. UM is very well known mainly due to its huge alumni base and athletics; it’s irrelevant to why UM is a prestigious university

32

A few observations:

  1. The fact that Michigan may have "the same interquartile ACT range as ... Dartmouth" is impressive. But ACT scores alone are not dispositive. In fact, they are merely one factor among many the OP should consider when evaluating Michigan and Dartmouth as a student admitted to both schools. If anything, this interquartile range is an objective data point that typically has little relevance to the subjective evaluation of fit.
  2. While Michigan inarguably has excellent students, it misses the mark to argue that “Michigan has more kids with elite board scores … than Harvard, Yale, and Princeton.” First, this is an inapt comparison since Michigan has far more undergraduate students than these three universities combined. Second, each of these universities has a higher interquartile ACT and SAT range than Michigan does.
  3. While the college ranking methodology the U.S. News uses is flawed in certain respects, the class size and student-faculty ratio it evaluates can be critically important if the OP will benefit from the undergraduate focus at Dartmouth where professors teach generally small classes. Moreover, Dartmouth can complain about its US News ranking as the 12th best national university just as Michigan can object to its U.S. News ranking as the 29th best national university.
  4. Congrats and best wishes to the OP for getting accepted to Dartmouth and Michigan -- two great, if very different, schools. If the OP prefers Michigan, I am sure s/he will have persuasive reasons to join the 13 percent or so of cross admits who choose Michigan over Dartmouth.* If the OP’s ED acceptance to Dartmouth proves binding, the OP should not fret. Dartmouth is a wonderful school in a charming town.
33

“Also it may or may not be true that a majority of professors got their advanced degrees from an Ivy/school of similar standing (in my experience, a majority didn’t), but don’t act like that all classes at UMich are taught by professors. If we took into account lecturers (which teach a fair amount if not a majority of classes), it’d be much much lower % since they represent the University as well.”

Woah! Easy there hailbate! Lots of claims, most of them either incorrect or invalid.

  1. What is your personal experience that has demonstrated that the majority of the faculty at Michigan did not get their advanced degrees from top universities? Are you sure you go to Michigan? Michigan's faculty is very qualified. According to most measures, among the top 10 faculties in the nation in terms of qualifications, publications and awards. Let us take a small sample of the faculty at random; Michigan' Economics faculty. Here is where they earned their PhD:

US UNIVERSITIES (ranked among the top 20 PhD programs in the nation)
Chicago 4
Columbia 2
Cornell 1
Harvard 9
MIT 9
Michigan 5
Minnesota 1
NYU 3
Northwestern 2
Penn 3
Princeton 6
Stanford 3
UC-Berkeley 6
UC-Los Angeles 1
US-San Diego 1
Vanderbilt 1
Yale 3

INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITIES
London Business School 1
London School of Economics 1
University College of London 1
University of Oxford 1

SECOND TIER ECONOMICS DEPARTMENTS
16 (including decent departments such as BU, NC State, Rice, Rochester, UIUC, Washington)

Out of a faculty of 80 Economics professors (all of them have PhDs), 60 (75%) received their advanced degrees from top 20 US Economics departments. 4 (5%) received their advanced degrees from top UK universities. Only 16 (20%) did not earn their graduate degrees from top programs. No matter how you look at it, virtually all Michigan professors have doctorate degrees, and most of them from top ranked departments in their field of study.

https://lsa.umich.edu/econ/people/faculty.html (feel free to go through it yourself)

  1. Since when are lecturers not professors? At Michigan, the vast majority of Lecturers are Professors, assuming that by professor, you mean a member of the faculty that has a PhD. And Professors at Michigan teach 97% of the classes. Admittedly, GSIs (TAs) play a significant role in leading discussion sections (roughly 25% of lectures break into discussion sections, and those are usually led by GSIs), but they do not teach, they merely facilitate discussion. 74% of Michigan classes are led entirely by faculty. 23% are led by faculty leading the lecture and the GSI leading the class discussions and 3% are led entirely by GSIs. Michigan is not unique in this regard. Any university with a large graduate school will have similar setup. How else are the thousands of PhD students to earn their stipends at universities with large graduate schools? That would include schools like Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Northwestern, Penn, Stanford, UCLA, Wisconsin-Madison etc...Even smaller private universities that are known for being more undergraduate friendly, like Brown, use GSIs extensively.

“You’re basing your opinion on one person, your roommate? Crap, well I can do that too! I know people who choose JHU over UMich, UPenn over UMich, Harvard over UMich, MIT over UMich, Amherst over UMich, Boston U over UMich, NW over UMich.”

So what? Does that make all those universities better than Michigan? Or more reputable? All this proves is that people you know do not care much for Michigan. There is nothing wrong with that, but it hardly matters. From my observation, high school kids rely a lot on the US News rankings to form their opinion of universities. Michigan does not do well in the USNWR. But Michigan’s academic prowess and prestige in the academic and corporate world is well documented. It is widely regarded one of the top 15 universities in the US for undergraduate students. It is certainly on par with JHU, Penn, Northwestern and it is superior to BU.

“And I don’t know of a single person from my hometown (and there were 100 of us from my hometown who got into UMich) that chose UMich over an Ivy/school of similar standing. And in the time that I’ve been a student here I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s told me that they chose UMich over an Ivy.”

That is indeed surprising. I met many students at Michigan who chose Michigan over other elite universities. Virtually everywhere I looked, you had a student who chose Michigan over another top 30 university.

“Of course it’s possible that people will choose UMich over any other school, but it’s much more likely they’ll choose a better school over UMich as well.”

I cannot argue with that. With the exception of only a handful of universities (literally Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Yale and perhaps 4 or 5 other universities), the yield rate for non-ED applicants will be 40% or lower. Michigan is no exception. Furthermore, while the intellectual and industrial elites would consider Michigan as good and as prestigious as Cornell and other Ivies, to high school kids an their parents, Michigan is just not as sexy!

34

@Alexandre

  1. My claim was against Mr. Steelelord's personal experience in having experienced a majority of his professors being from Ivy/school of similar standing.

Why are you refuting against my own personal experience? I never made any claims in regards to university as a whole, I’m simply saying from my experience a majority of my professors/lecturers did not come from Ivys/schools of similar standing. There was nothing that I said that implied that I thought that that represented the University as a whole. It was simply to counter Steelelord’s experience which sounded like that that is what everyone encounters at UMich. That data is very convincing though, so props for that.

  1. When I referred to professors, I meant those who have tenure here at the University of Michigan. So fine maybe in some technical terms a lecturer is a professor (which I don't really seem to see as true since they don't have any obligation to research), but that's irrelevant. Once again, logically it makes sense that it is less likely for a lecturer to have tenure than someone who does since if you do have an advanced degree from an Ivy/school of similar standing, you have a much better shot at becoming a professor than someone who didn't. Not that lecturers out there don't exist who are from an Ivy/school of similar standing, my point was that the % would go down since that would be logical for there to be a higher % of professors with an advanced degree from an Ivy/school of similar standing than # of lecturers with an advanced degree from an Ivy/school of similar standing.

And idk what the whole point of your graduate spew was, but I agree with it nonetheless and it doesn’t counter against anything I believe in. I did say that lecturers and professors teach a majority of classes did I not? And I certainly didn’t look down upon GSI’s.

  1. Once again, my whole point of saying that was to refute Steelelord's personal experience with my own. I am not arguing that UMich is inferior to WSU or MSU or BU or w/e. Holistically UMich is on par if not superior to a lot of those schools I mentioned, but at the undergraduate level, it certainly is below NW and UPenn. JHU is certainly on par, though. Of course, by saying that, I AM NOT SAYING UMICH IS NOT REPUTABLE. UMich has a very prestigious undergraduate program but I don't think you are going to find many people who didn't attend Michigan that will say Michigan is on par with NW and UPenn...
  2. Huge distinction between a top 30 and an Ivy/school of similar standing. And for one student you meet that has, I'm sure it's not out of the question to find 3-5 at an Ivy that chose the Ivy over UMich.
35

This whole debate just highlights the ridiculousness of focusing on rankings and prestige. There are students who will want Michigan over an Ivy League (my daughter for one) and vice versa. Don’t know that there is a point to “win” here. I just feel sorry for people whose entire worth is tied up in the name of their college. For heaven’s sake, pick the college that you feel the happiest at and that will give you the education and experience you are looking for.

36

“UMich has a very prestigious undergraduate program but I don’t think you are going to find many people who didn’t attend Michigan that will say Michigan is on par with NW and UPenn…”

hailbate, are you kidding? Michigan not on par with NU or Penn? Did the entire academic world not get that memo? LOL! What people are you referring to? High school children who rely entirely in what others tell them? Simple parents with limited knowledge? Insecure private university students and alumni who do not like having their precious university be compared to a leviathan such as Michigan? Let us be honest here. A lot of private school students, and to a lesser degree, alumni, feel very threatened by a scenario where the top 3 or 4 public universities are likened to their own universities, because it would “dilute” their potency. But it is an unnatural distinction. Elite public universities have been part of the fabric of US society for over a century. Michigan has always been a prestigious elite university. Michigan has defined the modern US university. Cornell was founded and managed by Michigan men, and Johns Hopkins and Stanford were influenced by Michigan’s model. This fact is lost on the ignorant masses, but not where it matters. If you read the article in the link below, you will see exactly how well regarded Michigan is by America’s intellectual elite. The author of that article is Gerhard Casper (Yale educated scholar who at one time was the dean of Chicago’s law school before becoming president of Stanford University.

http://web.stanford.edu/dept/pres-provost/president/speeches/961206gcfallow.html

This article also highlights one of the major flaws of the US News; the inconsistency of data reporting. I have seen huge fluctuations in every single criterion of the US News fluctuate beyond the stretch of believability and credibility over the years, save only the Peer Assessment rating, which has remained relatively stable. Of course, the fluctuations only seem to happen when private universities report data. Public universities are so thoroughly audited by the state that they can only report data honestly and consistently. How does a university go from a student to faculty ratio of 10:1, 11:1, 12:1, 13:1, 14:1 or worse, to a ratio of 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, 6:1 or 7:1 in one year? Or leap in the Financial resources ranking from #25 to #10? Or report 50% classes with fewer than 20 students and 15% classes with more than 50 students one year, and 70% with fewer than 20 students and 9% over 50 students the next? Those are not aberrations or isolated one-offs, but rather, frequent “adjustments” made by private universities jousting for ranking positions. They do not reflect actual changes in institutional quality. Those faculties did not grow drastically, but rather, many of those universities simply opted not to include thousands of graduate students in their ratio calculation. Classes did not actually shrink, but rather, those universities flooded their class roster with meaningless seminars and broke up large lectures into many smaller ones taught by the same professor. Those universities did not magically get wealthier, but they resorted to fuzzy math accounting practices, and included variables that are not supposed to be included. Michigan’s endowment is the 6th largest in the country on a absolute scale, and the 20th largest among research universities on a relative (per capita) basis. That does not include the hundreds of millions of dollars Michigan receives from the state annually, or economies of scale. Considering all of this, Michigan’s financial resources rank should be in or around the top 10, yet the USNWR, in its wisdom, would lead you to believe it is not among the top 40! And the worst part is, the US News lets it happen. It actually encourages it. The result? Over the last 25 years, the US impressionable public (not the educated elite mind you) has altered its perception of reality. But most educated people would scoff at any ranking that has a universities like Berkeley or Michigan ranked out of the top 20.

But none of that matters. Only kids and ignorant adults are fooled by the above tricks. In the eyes of academe and in corporate America, Michigan is very much on par with Northwestern and Penn. In academe, Michigan is usually considered one of the top 10, or top 15 undergraduate institutions among research universities (LACs not included). As flawed as the USNWR methodology and data tabulation is, the peer assessment score is fairly clear and impossible to manipulate by the individual universities. In the opinion of academe, Michigan has always been ranked between #9 and #13 undergraduate institutions nationally. Currently, Michigan’s peer assessment rating is 4.4 out of 5.0, tied with Brown, Duke and Penn, and in the same ball park as Carnegie Mellon, Caltech, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, UCLA and UVa.

There is no survey conducted on corporate America, but considering the number Fortune 500 and exclusive services companies that officially and aggressively recruit undergraduate students on campus speaks for itself.

“Huge distinction between a top 30 and an Ivy/school of similar standing.”

I don’t think it is “huge”. I can list over 25 universities that I believe are truly elite, and yes, Michigan definitely belongs on that list.

Brown
Cal
Caltech
Carnegie Mellon
Chicago
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Duke
Emory
Georgetown
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
Michigan
MIT
Northwestern
Notre Dame
Penn
Princeton
Rice
Stanford
UCLA
UVa
Vanderbilt
WUSTL
Yale

Obviously, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale are amazing, but the remaining schools on that list are all excellent in their own right. Of course, if you truly believe that some of the universities are far inferior to the majority of the others, as you seem to indicate when you say that there is a huge distinction between some of those universities, feel free to do so. You are entitled to your opinion. But like this post clearly proves, there aren’t many in the know, or in a position of influence or power, that would dismiss Michigan, or other universities on this list, as nonchalantly as you, and others on CC, often too.

37

@Alexandre

I never said UMich wasn’t a prestigious university. But even at the top level there are many levels of distinction… The University of Alabama and Michigan State University are both elite college football teams, but clearly one of those teams is superior to the other. Donald Trump and Bill Gates are both “elite” businessmen, but clearly one is more successful than the other.

Haha I think you misunderstand my stance on the university. i don’t “dismiss” Michigan as if it’s some crap shoot state school that’s ignored by companies and graduate schools. I’ve stated multiple times that I think it’s a prestigious university, but when I look at the average student here at UMich versus the average student at UPenn or NW, there really is no competition in regards to who is more “intelligent” academically speaking by the standard of schools (once again, not that EVERYONE is like this but the AVERAGE student). That’s my own opinion, like you said. However, you mistake for me saying that UMich is inferior in the sense that speaking of its name in the same sentence as UPenn or NW would draw laughter. I really love Ann Arbor and UMich, but is it that wrong to believe that it isn’t up to the quality of other private institutions? Of course department to department it’ll vary (I know UMich probably has a stronger Econ department), but even MSU has departments that are probably superior to us (once again so we have no confusion, I don’t think MSU is anywhere near UMich)

This is the last time I answer this thread in regards to the topic of the prestige of UMich. Like the above poster mentioned it’s pointless to try and argue about this when neither of us will change opinion on the matter, and quite frankly it doesn’t matter too much in the grand scheme of things. Whether you go to UMich/Dartmouth/NW/Ivy League, you are generally more than likely to find success after school.

If you are still not satisfied, then you “win” just to make everyone happy.

38

Northwestern? You’ve got to be kidding. It is past its prime. Time was it was a competitor to University of Chicago, but Chicago left it in the dust. NW is popular but mostly amount mid-westerners.

39

I think hailbate is a bit salty for whatever reason. I know that I’m enjoying the top mathematics department here.

You have to choose the school that is right for you (money issues aside, and assuming you can make the choice if non-ED). E.g. for engineering, Dartmouth is rarely ever a consideration. For pre-med, it might be a good choice, actually. If I were pre-med I would consider it, but it is true that if you want to get involved in research, U-M has a lot more to offer.

40

@eyo777 You would be wrong in your assumption. Just because I don’t have the same opinion of how “highly prestigious” UMich is doesn’t make me salty. I love my school and take pride in it, but I don’t think it just matches up with Ivys. That my own personal opinion and that’s all it is.