<p>When it comes to honors, don't listen to kb. I'm in the program and he was accepted into it but abandoned it before actually experiencing it. The truth is, you get the best housing on campus (South quad), you live with other honors students and can have great intellectual conversations in your dorms because of the quality of students, the classes are smaller (and more difficult if you desire), the curve is sweet....what else could you want in an honors college? Ours is also more reputable than Florida's. I know personally that over half of the honors math majors go on to grad school at HYPSM, and thats not even half of the ones that go to grad school, thats half of ALL the honors math majors. One of them is my current RA in south quad, and he's just awesome. We don't DIRECLTY get priority in registration, but we often schedule first because registration is based on AP credits and generally honors students have the most. I personally schedule ahead of the sophomores and I'm a freshman, so I was actually the first to register in every class I'm taking next semester. I really couldnt ask for much more from the honors program.</p>
<p>I won't say don't listen to chibears. Prospectives have two differing experiences regarding the honors program. I can't speak to honors with regards to the math programs that chibears is involved with. I can only reflect on my personal experience, and it is what it is.</p>
<p>As far as registration is concerned, an honors friend of mine gets to register before GRADUATE STUDENTS. I'm not saying there aren't perks, but compared to other universities..they are rather lackluster. Best housing on campus chibears...come on now..I've been to South Quad.....</p>
<p>I haven't abandoned honors, but I dont' participate in certain things b/c i'm in the RC which in innumberable ways is a superior academic learning community to honors. If i thought that there was much I was missing, I'd be running over to SQ every minute...but this isn't the case.</p>
<p>Ps...what was this thread about originally???</p>
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I second kb. I met a girl who took calculus for 2 years in high school, got a 100% in her class, and got a 1 on the AP test. Yeah, Michigan suburban schools sure are great....good thing AP scores arent used for admission...
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<p>That's unfair. You have an equal chance of getting a person from the Chicago suburbs with the same story.</p>
<p>Yeah, Chicago has a few more big-name schools than we do, but then again, it's bigger and its suburbs a bit richer. There are plenty of awesome high schools here around Detroit. Heck, I go to a public school here. We have 29 NMSFs - and that's this class alone.</p>
<p>D is a NMSF, 2280 SAT, 4.45 GPA...She'll attend UF in the fall. I don't know why UF gets a bum rap. I know lots of students who are of ivy caliber who choose UF not just for the scholarship, but because the education is excellent for this type of student and maybe being in-state is desirable to some students.</p>
<p>tetra were you at Troy or Pioneer?</p>
<p>Troy. But my guess is that DCD, Cranbrook, Pioneer and several others all have 20 or more NSMFs per grade.</p>
<p>That's pretty amazing. My school district (Utica) only had two, both of whom attended my school (Utica Eisenhower). Utica is the second largest district in the state.</p>
<p>I was commended, short of NMSF by 3 points I think. Really I think the school did a terrible job of helping us to prep for it. I had no clue what to expect with it. I thought I would be fine after getting 32 on the ACT back in 10th grade.</p>
<p>On the other hand though, my school is 95%+ white, relatively wealthy, so not too many kids are driven to succeed. I'm kind of kicking myself though. If I would have had any idea what the PSAT was about I definitely could have made semifinalist.</p>
<p>Thankfully, my magnet school is starting to get younger kids involved in it. My freshman sister and most of her class at the MST took it this year, so I assume that in a few years my district will have many more semifinalists.</p>
<p>It is all relative KB. Honors students at Michigan get more than honors students at other schools, but, regular students at Michigan get a lot more than regular students at other schools. That's because the average student at Michigan is only slightly less capable than the honors students and far better than the average student at say Rutgers or Arizona. Besides, given Michigan's wealth and huge operation budget, the University can afford spending money on all of its students. Furthermore, since Michigan is a top 10-15 university nationally, it does not see the need to fall all over itself to impress its honors students. The facilities, faculty and opportunities at Michigan are world-class. If that's not sufficient, nothing the university does will be.</p>
<p>The typical honors student at UF is middle class with IVY league stats--too much income for fin aid, but not enough to pay the ivy league price tag . I take that back--make that just below ivy league cal. The real cream of the upper middle ivy league look-a-likes get the free ride to Hopkins, Cooper Union, Washington U., etc.</p>
<p>FYI-I define ivy league cal. as 1550 best sats, 3.9-4.0 unw. 8-10 APS all 5s (maybe one 4 in the mix)</p>
<p>I think if you look at the creme de la creme at just about any flagship public institution, you're going to find ivy-calibre students. There are gifted, capable students in every state who want or need to stay close to home, who can't resist the full-ride and special treatment, whose parents think "public is good enough," whose parents invested in a prepaid state tuition plan, who grew up loving the football team, who feel intimidated by elite campuses, and so on. And it's not just affordability--I know kids who parents could afford a private, but when their child enrolled at the paid-for public they bought them a car instead.</p>
<p>While the elite colleges will (obviously) have many more of these top-notch students, nearly any flagship private will have a core number of them.</p>
<p>You are right on the button.I'll go further. This holds truer for kids who have more self-direction, i.e. they know they want go to med school, etc. top engineering, and are math science. Inability of Ivies to offer merit aid makes some of them less than competitive in this area.</p>
<p>Since we were on the topic of NMSF's, I could be wrong, but I believe Michigan's cutoff has been lower than other states' with poorer state universities (Illinois, for example). Just because U of M has many in-state NMSF's doesn't mean these kids could have made it in a better state. So maybe when Troy and Pioneer have a ton of NMSF's compared to other high schools instate, so do Stevenson and New Trier, except their students had a higher standard.</p>
<p>Hahah...yeah..if I had scored my 212 in Mississippi, I would have been set for life. Oh national merit...lol.</p>
<p>hoedown is right..every university has its core of gifted students. But everyonce in a while, it gets old knowing that your entire existance is inside some arbitrary core. Wouldn't instead be better if there was a broadbased sense of academic seriousness. I'd much rather have that sort of attitude all around instead of concentrated in a small group. And what's frustrating is that Michigan COULD have that...but for w/e reason....it doesn't.</p>
<p>Many fewer kids taking the test in Michigan though. With fewer kids, the qualifying score will likely be lower.</p>
<p>Perhaps you understand the concept of ratios. In every state, they just choose whatever numbers gives them the desired percentile (I believe it is the 99.5th percentile). Therefore sheer number of people in a state will have no effect on the cutoff score, only how many finalists there are for the entire state.</p>
<p>I was debating that when I took made the first post, but figured that can't be the way it works, since thats means Michigan's index of ~210 would be lower than Mississippi's.</p>
<p>Alexandre, you pose an interesting idea. Certainly, it would be nice for U-M to become more selective to obtain a finer student body academically. U-M overenrolled the past two years (over 6000) which means there is no lack of people who want to go. The only problem I can see, from the legislators' points of view, is that Michigan is a declining and dying state. As much as I hate to admit it, it's true. We relied on the auto industry for so many years that when it implodes upon itself...well, we don't know what to do. I believe Gov. Granholm is trying to focus on bringing biotech and life sciences to Michigan. This is a great idea because it would bring in much needed investment capital and many jobs -- all to jumpstart our economy. Michigan has the highest unemployment rate in the NATION; we need jobs. </p>
<p>The University of Michigan has had a mission to serve the people of Michigan as a public university, and by infusing the state with well-educated grads, it is fulfilling that mission. Non-residents, while adding to the diversity of the college, tend to leave the state more so than residents. I am not advocating for more residents to get in, but what if both pools were reduced? Thus, you have 16,000 students of which 1/3 are out of state and 2/3 are in state. In this way, both selectivity and in-state priority are fulfilled. Berkeley has about 23,000 undergrads, accepting about 25 percent. This garners great respect for UC-Berkeley as a competitive school. Michigan, on the other hand, accepts 62 percent, almost triple the acceptance rate of Berkeley. If the number accepted was reduced by 1/3 to 4000 coupled with higher admissions standards, better recruiting, and better merit aid (like Alexandre said), we can assume the acceptance rate would decrease to around 30 percent. </p>
<p>If U-M accepted only 30 percent, think about the kind of object lesson that says to students. If they only accepted that many, U-M could offer more merit aid and attract a better student body. With that said, I still believe U-M is an awesome school with great resources and all-round greatness; the Honors program will appease many competitive students who seek a challenge. I also believe it is easier for students to distinguish themselves among a less competitive student body like Michigan's instead of one like Harvard's or Yale's. But, for seemingly apparent reasons, this "reduction plan" won't happen any time soon.</p>
<p>You make many great points Stanford_dude. I certainly agree that Michigan should change things if it wants to appeal to a broader student base and if it wishes to serve its students best given their resources. And yes, the state of Michigan's population has declined significantly (from over 10 million to weel under 10 million) over the last 2 decades, and yet, the University of Michigan has seen fit to increase its student body from 35,000 to almost 40,000 in that same period. And in that same period, state funding has gone from accounting for roughly 30% of the universty's total operating budget to under 15% today. And still, Michigan insists on accepting in-state students at twice the numbers as it enrolls out of state students. It truly is mid-boggling.</p>
<p>But I need to clarify a couple of points. It is true that the calibre of student at Yale and Harvard is higher than that at Michigan. However, at Harvard, over 90% of students graduate with honors, compared to roughly 25% at Michigan. So to distinguish oneself at Michigan is by no means easier. Secondly, I would not confuse % accepted with quality of students. Michigan and Cal have similar calibre students. Similar SAT range, similar unweighed GPAs and similar class ranks. And both of those schools have student bodies only marginally weaker than those found at schools like Cornell, Chicago, Brown or Johns Hopkins. I would say that only the bottom quarter or third of the students at Cal or Michigan do not fit in at schools like Cornell or Brown. The remaining 60%-70% of the students are comparable to students at the elite privates.</p>
<p>Alexandre, you are a bit off with your numbers. Michigan's population has continued to grow, and upon a little Wikipedia, Michigan's estimated population in 2004 was 10.1 million people.</p>