Does Michigan have one flagship (U-M) or two (U-M, MSU?)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Michigan State University
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<p>Not always. Are you really going to tell me that California only has one flagship? That Indiana only has one flagship? </p>

<p>No one is claiming that MSU is THE flagship. The question was whether or not it is seen as a second flagship. The argument is that yes, it is, considering it outranks many other state flagships. </p>

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<p>Yes, because MSU is interested in being a STATE school whereas Michigan is more interest in being a NATIONAL school. Nothing wrong with either model. MSU could easily have the same percentage of IS and OOS students as U of M but that’s not their goal. </p>

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<p>What? Do you mean in Michigan or in the US in general? Really, both ways are false, but I’m curious as to which one you mean.</p>

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<p>In California UC Berkeley would be the “flagship” however UCLA is close behind and they are much closer in quality than MSU and U of M. Like I said before, IU and Purdue complement each other where MSU and U of M do not really complement each other. I meant in the state since really U of M is the only really tough in admissions. Trust me, Michigan State is selective but is not nearly as selective/tough in admissions as U of M. I remember reading in either the Detroit News or MLive that MSU’s director of admissions, James Cotter, admitted that MSU’s mission wasn’t to be really selective like other state flagships. Once again, I’m not saying MSU is bad, I’m just saying it’s not the flagship of Michigan. If UMich were to be privatized or if it didn’t exist then MSU would probably be the “flagship” of Michigan.</p>

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<p>gvnee, i keep harking back to that notion that the flagship doesn’t have to be hierarchal. i fully agree with what you and others have said about U-M’s status. where i’m countering is that “flagship” implies far more than just being the highest academic public university in state. </p>

<p>so perhaps we have a definition issue here. I mentioned on this thread a few times what i see as flagship descriptors so i won’t repute them (you can see them above if you wish), but i will put that “academic rating” under the microscope:</p>

<p>• In Virginia, nobody would argue that W&M’s academic reputation is every bit as stellar as UVa. And, as the second oldest university in the nation, W&M certainly has the blood lines that could make a flagship. but W&M is not a flagship in Virginia, mainly because the scope of the university is far more limited than the role UVa plays.</p>

<p>• Ohio is an oddball state. OSU came into existence rather late in relationship to some of the other public universities in state. It was the inability of schools like Ohio and Miami to create a flagship status that led to land-grant OSU having such a role. That’s why, I think, it has that “The” in front of its name; OSU worked hard to promote itself to its role. Yet in Ohio, one hardly looks at OSU as having higher academic standards than Miami. Yet Miami is no flagship.</p>

<p>• In Nevada today, there is no single flagship. UNR and UNLV represent a state that is basically made up of two worlds, apart and unconnected. That’s why UNR is what Reno/Carson City/Tahoe connects with as Vegas connects with UNLV. But UNR is the older and once only flagship. Yet today, with the tremendous growth of Vegas, the power center of Nevada, UNLV is larger and more academically respected. Yet UNR would still be considered “first” among the two flagships.</p>

<p>So I’ll go by what I’ve already stated: MSU is a flagship along with U-M because they both function as flagships, carry the descriptors that make them so. And those descriptors are not there in sufficient quantity for highly respected institutions like W&M and Miami to be considered flagships in their states.</p>

<p>The state of Texas identifies UT-Austin and TAMU as its flagships. Texas is obviously more respected and academically better than A&M. Yet having those two as flagships serves the state: through ability to have more selective schools within the system, by having schools that engage heavily in research, by having schools that attract attention by their status (some would consider SUNY to suffer because it doesn’t have the identifiable flagship or flagships that a stand out university or two can have). Texas today still ponders adding another flagship and schools like Houston and Texas Tech fight for that vaunted position.</p>

<p>If we restrict flagship to “which is the highest publicly ranked school in state”, we are left with something rather useless. Instead, it works best to use flagship to identify a certain type of institution with definitive descriptors and to be able to see them as a group, coast to coast. Some states have one, others two…but that relates to structure as much as anything else.</p>

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<p>I’m curious about the point of this thread. </p>

<p>What does it matter whether anyone considers MSU a “flagship” or not, especially since there’s apparently not general agreement on what that means? </p>

<p>Or maybe, to paraphrase Justice Harlan, you can’t define “flagship” but you know one when you see one? </p>

<p>Or perhaps, “a flagship is exactly what I want it to be?”</p>

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<p>Anna, the point was to ask a question. I only responded because fd and others made inaccurate comparisons and statements</p>

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<p>romani-
I think annasdad asked the question about the “point” of the thread because the very same question was asked about his UC/N’wern thread and, I believe another of his threads, yesterday.</p>

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<p>Ah… that could explain why he missed the fact that that question was already answered up thread…</p>

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<p>Gv, every single thing that you said in post #22 has already been addressed in this thread. I was going to respond to it piece by piece but I realized I would just be repeating myself.</p>

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<p>ENOUGH!!!</p>

<p>UM is a widely accepted as a flagship university throughout the nation. I feel as if this thread is receiving input from Michiganders and BIG-10 area schools who obviously know and respect MSU because of it’s influence/reputation in Michigan and it’s neighbors.</p>

<p>Not to say MSU is “easy” to get into but honestly, it is far from “difficult” <–(UM). they say 3.4 GPA and 24 ACT is the average for an incoming freshmen or something along those lines…but that is the AVERAGE! MSU has an enormous number of undergraduates granting many sub 3.0 students admission into the university. Also I have seen a shocking # classmates of mine, who were less than stellar (2.5ish GPA) in HS attend MSU after a semester at a CC because they obviously cannot get into UM…MSU is (in MOST cases) the best overall university academically and is an inciting option to these students because most are looking for the best overall college experience.</p>

<p>Now, please dont hate on my admissions rant because i recognize it is just one tiny factor in determining if a university is a flagship school or not yet i feel that it is more applicable and relevant in this case than others</p>

<p>MSU is an awesome school academically, socially and in terms of it’s research… but that doesn’t make it a flagship university BECAUSE ITS OLDER BROTHER/ COMPETITOR IS THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN!!!</p>

<p>Flagship status is circumstantial and should be awarded cautiously. </p>

<p>Do not talk about texas, indiana and ohio. its about michigan and there is, and most likely will always be, one flagship in the state.</p>

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<p>This is all obviously very subjective, but I think that in order to qualify as a true “dual” flagship, the second school should be fairly close to the first school in terms of admission standards, such as UCLA is to Berkeley, or William & Mary is to University of Virginia. Or even Clemson is to University of South Carolina. And that in order to qualify as a true “dual” flagship, that a significant number of people who are selected for admission to the first flagship school might well decide to attend the #2 flagship. </p>

<p>I suspect that the person who initially posted this thread is going to Michigan State, and is hoping to seek confirmation of his hope/belief that Michigan State is comparable to University of Michigan. </p>

<p>The stats show that someone who is the top 75th percentile at Michigan State would be in the bottom 25th percentile at Michigan. </p>

<p>Also, I would say that in order to qualify as a true flagship, that many people from OOS would want to apply to that school. I don’t think Michigan State attracts that many out of staters. </p>

<p>But of course, those are just my subjective standards.</p>

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<p>no, the OP went to the Univeristy of Iowa and UIC, not MSU.</p>

<p>not only that, Florida, you continue and Otota starts to ignore it with his “ENOUGH”.</p>

<p>I never said MSU was the academic equal of U-M. I merely said that both schools serve in the flagship role based on descriptors I’ve already used too many times to repeat.</p>

<p>unlike what you think, I don’t have any connection with Michigan State.</p>

<p>And Otota brings up the notion that W&M would be considered a flagship in Virginia along with UVa. I totally disagree. Is it because W&M’s academics or difficulty of admission are less difficult than UVa’s? of course not. W&M has stellar academics and is highly selective. But it’s scope is far narrower.</p>

<p>Just like in Ohio (which Otota wants me to forget…why I don’t know). Miami hardly takes a back seat to OSU in Ohio academics. Indeed, one could argue that OSU, the flagship institution, is not the most academically regarded or selective public u. in Ohio. But schools like MIami and Ohio aren’t flagships in Ohio because of their scope.</p>

<p>Otota can “ENOUGH” me until he is blue in the face but I am using a different type of descriptor than he is. And there are plenty of people who see “flagship” in terms I do…just like in terms the two of you see.</p>

<p>No, I really don’t care on focusing on Michigan and looking at this strictly as a pecking. I’m looking at “flagship” in terms that makes me understand a type of university that spreads from coast to coast. So it is instructive to me to know that MSU is like Iowa or IU, schools that are peers of it academically and which share with it the attributes of a flagship. More than half of the states in the nation have their top academic public institution lower ranked than MSU.</p>

<p>If you guys want to see it differently, that’s your perogative. But please…don’t come up with nonsense that I’m touting a university which I never went to and which I’m not connected with.</p>

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<p>If you’ll notice, the people that are most adamant in this thread at U of M’s superiority (which NO ONE has disputed) is not related in any way to either school.</p>

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<p>Btw…
“they say 3.4 GPA and 24 ACT is the average for an incoming freshmen or something along those lines…but that is the AVERAGE!”</p>

<p>They are wrong. Those are both on the bottom end of the middle 25-75% (literally the cutoff). But why let facts get in the way of a good story ;)</p>

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<p>“Hint: Both schools are great and either one would be the flagship in most states. The state of Michigan is lucky to have TWO high quality universities with its current state as the economic laughingstock of America.”</p>

<p>and that says it in a nutshell. both schools totally function like flagship public universities. it matters little if there is a degree of superiority between the two; it’s really about the term “flagship” being a descriptor that has meaning and can be used to categorize a type of university and its attributes.</p>

<p>is the term “flagship” from a semantic point of view flawed? yes. if you take the literal definition, there must be one. the santa maria carried the flag; the nina and the pinta did not. </p>

<p>and perhaps when the word was first used in terms of states and their public universities, there truly were just one per state. prior to the explosion in college growth in the post-WWII era, that term indeed probably did apply to one university per state (if I were to look at the 50 states prior to that time, I think I could make an argument that only one state, Indiana, had two flagships with IU and Purdue). MSU came out of WWII still being a college, MSC, one that still had agriculture as part of its name.</p>

<p>Going back to the semantics: I see absolutely no discernible information that can be taken from assigning automatically one university per state in terms of it being the flagship. in doing so, you’d just be playing a meaningless game, a USN&WR pecking order type of scenario. It tells you nothing.</p>

<p>Indeed, I would contend, that “flagship” has far less meaning as it looks at each state individually, but far more when it looks at these institutions in the aggregate, coast to coast, and identifies a type of school. Here in the midwest, we can view universities as types:</p>

<p>UW-Madison, UIUC, U-M, MSU, IU, Purdue, etc., function as flagship public institutions (in Wisconsin and Illinois, no other universities other than UW-Madison and UIUC function as flagships)</p>

<p>Northwestern and Chicago are national private universities</p>

<p>Notre Dame, Marquette, DePaul are religiously (Catholic) affiliated universities</p>

<p>WMU, EMU, Miami, Ohio, Northern Illinois are state universities that aren’t their state’s flagships due not to scope which tends to be narrower (despite the fact that one can certainly make the argument that Miami and Ohio are OSU’s academic equal…at the very least)</p>

<p>It’s the ability to use the term flagship as a meaningful descriptor that is what this is about; not the fact that U-M comes up on top of MSU on the ranking game.</p>

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<p>I find this thread to be amusing. The definition of flagship is:</p>

<p>“the most important or prestigious among a group of similar and related things”.</p>

<p>This suggests that there can be only one unless there is a tie. In this case, it is patently obvious that there isn’t a tie so MSU cannot be a flagship. It is of a quality that is comparable to or better than the flagships of other states but in Michigan it is a fine state institution.</p>

<p>Whether it shockingly easy to get into is relative and I can identify with both the perspectives of Floridadad and Romani.</p>

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<p>i would fully agree with you that when the term “flagship” was first used, it was used for ships and only one carried the flag. yes, the nina and the pinta were never going to be the santa maria. </p>

<p>but words change in meaning and aren’t to be taken literally. indeed, if they were, then a “flagship” could only apply to a ship and that ship would have to carry the flag(s), wouldn’t it?</p>

<p>a university is not a ship.</p>

<p>so the question is, can a state have more than one flagship? only when you answer that one can you determine whether MSU can share that honor with U-M.</p>

<p>My answer: yes, a state can have more than one flagship. As I’ve said far too many times here, some states are structured around one, some around two. And if the states can have an answer to that question about their own universities, well, then look at Texas: the state confers flagship status on both UT-Austin and Texas A&M. Are you suggesting that Texas is wrong in making such a designation? Indeed, Texas has discussed the need for a third flagship due to the state’s size and both Texas Tech and Houston have vied for that position.</p>

<p>Apparently the state of Texas disagrees with you. But surly the UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN agrees with you, right? In the university’s Millennium Project, the following observation is made:</p>

<p>“Hence Michigan’s strategies must broaden to include regional, national, and global elements, including the possibility of encouraging the state’s two flagship research universities, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University, to join together to form a true world university,”</p>

<p><a href=“http://milproj.ummu.umich.edu/publications/roadmap/download/Michigan%20Roadmap.pdf[/url]”>http://milproj.ummu.umich.edu/publications/roadmap/download/Michigan%20Roadmap.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>again…those are U-M’s words, not MSU</p>

<p>No one would argue that states like Illinois (UIUC) and Wisconsin (UW-Madison) have one flagship each. It would also be hard to argue that Indiana has two with IU and Purdue, two schools that divide up the curriculum with not a great deal of overlap. Of the two, Purdue is the higher ranked. And to prove they “belong” together, the two are partnership in the satellite campuses that make up the IUPU system.</p>

<p>In Michigan, is U-M a higher ranked university than MSU. Of course. But so what. they both carry on the flagship role of the state by offering a state wide image, heavy research component, advanced degree, size. Both are considered "public ivies’ which are classified as the best of the public flagship institutions. You will see plenty of references from sources in the know who refer to the two as being Michigan’s flagships.</p>