<p>ok..so I live in maryland. I was having a discussion with some UNiversity of Maryland College Park Smith Business School students, and they told me...</p>
<p>That the Robert H. Smith School of Business owns Ross.</p>
<p>please don't flame me for saying that. it's their opinion.</p>
<p>I think they're a little biased. Or jealous.</p>
<p>I've never heard of the Robert H. Smith School of Business. They own some nice property though. ;)</p>
<p>Although I don't believe that the US News rank should be used to say one score is unequivocally better than another (does it really matter if a school is #14 instead of #15?), but Michigan's Ross is at #11 (tied with Duke) and Maryland's Smith is in a three-way tie for #38. This should give a rough idea of their relative quality.</p>
<p>Source: US News Best Graduate Schools 2007 (<a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/mba/brief/mbarank_brief.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/mba/brief/mbarank_brief.php</a>)</p>
<p>And for undergrad UMAA is tied for 3rd with Berkeley and behind MIT and Penn.</p>
<p>Let me be blunt about Maryland. In the 70's and 80's - the school was a mediocre place - the State never put money into it, preferring to subsidize the dysfunctional city that is Baltimore instead. It was mostly an open admission school. Good profs wouldn't stay, period. But the place vastly improved in the 90's, and now it is a much better school. But it is light years away from Michigan - by any measure. </p>
<p>I can't imagine going to school in College Park either. Yes, it is near DC, but has none of the charm of the better parts of DC (read Georgetown, American and GW) and essentially sits in a crime ridden, increasingly run down suburb. PG County, where it sits, is no gem - in fact, PG County is for the most part awful. It has one of the worst school systems in the country, incredibly high and out of control crime rates (more autos stolen in PG County last year than in the entire Commonwealth of Virginia), and carved up as it is by I-95 and its cheap sprawl (not coincidentally in PG one of the worst drug corridors in the country), has zero ambiance or beauty. Given this, it is no accident that a great many students disappear on the weekend, giving Md. the feel of a big commuter school. There may be good reasons to go to Md., finances most likely being one of them, but College Park is anything but as its name implies, and is as far apart from the idyllic college town that is Ann Arbor. And if finances are neutral, why anyone would even think of choosing the Smith school over Ross is a mystery to me.</p>
<p>...I think mam1959 dispelled any opinion otherwise. Haha. Nice job.</p>
<p>actually, mam1959, I would say college park is far from being a "run-down" neighborhood in the literal sense, as you imply. Yes, the surroundings are not THE best, but the school itself is huge, allowing for comfortable living space. As well, the campus is fairly safe.</p>
<p>I concede that crime in the area is more rampant than it could be, however, it is not dissimailar to, say, RPI or such.</p>
<p>People come to College Park for several reasons. Several of my college-aged freinds come from New England (NYC, Boston, etc.) UMCP is fairly well-known in the Mid-Atlantic.</p>
<p>I assume that you must either be from this area, or an uninformed visitor who happened to hear misrepresented information concerning UMCP. Certainly, I am no avid supporter of UMCP, but I give the school more credit than you are willing to grant. The Smith School of Business ITSELF is VERY nice, if yu've ever taken the time to visit. It is, in fact, the most-endowed school at maryland. </p>
<p>Like I said, though, I'm no avid supporter. Personally, i'm headed to NY, MA, MI, IL, or CA. Just thought your summary was a bit maliced.</p>
<p>Ross and Smith aren't peers. Ross is peers with Haas, Sloan, Stern and Wharton. Smith is not close to that level. </p>
<p>As for College Park, I actually agree with Mam1959...unless things have changed drastically since 1996, when I lasted spent a few days in the CP area.</p>
<p>I live in Howard County which happens to be bordering Prince George's County. In my opinion(and other people's opinion in Howard County) that place is the next best thing to the ghetto. I don't know if any of you watched Commander In Chief on ABC, but in it they said that you shouldn't go into PG County wihtout a militia. Needless to say, the show got a lot of flack from county officals and whatnot. I would never go to UofMaryland in a million years. While the school itself is not bad the surrounding area is just not pretty. Maybe, this is just how I see it because Howard County is one of the richest counties in the nation, has nationally ranked public school system, and has virtually no crime compared to PG County. Like that one guy said a couple of posts above me, it is very crime ridden asn whatnot. Just some words of advice for any of you considering it. Tehe...</p>
<p>"ok..so I live in maryland. I was having a discussion with some UNiversity of Maryland College Park Smith Business School students, and they told me...
That the Robert H. Smith School of Business owns Ross."</p>
<p>i don't think they're just biased.. they're stupid -_- i'm definitely biased towards Ross, but i obviously know that wharton is a better business school.</p>
<p>I've never even heard of the smith business school. Ross is world renowned.</p>
<p>Wharton is number 1, but at least Michigan is in the same league (the "majors"). Smith is in the minor leagues, and most of us have never heard of it (outside of the region) until this thread popped up.</p>
<p>rhassan - not only I am from the area, I visited the school regularly in the late 70's and early 80's in Div. 1 athletic competition, and my spouse went to the school as well. She feels more strongly about my views than I do. My coach in college was an All American from Maryland - retired now - in his 70's - and he feels the same way (significant because he had to recruit against Maryland and hence knows the school well). It is a shame really - UMD's location in PG County is a hurdle it will have to overcome for some time - because PG County is a such troubled place with awful demographics. If only College Park could move 10 miles east to Bethesda....and if only the Maryland legislature in the 50's, 60's and 70's cared about the school rather than investing in the cesspool that is now know as Baltimore....against this background, Maryland is doing well, but unless finances are a significant issue (as they often are), I can't see ever making the choice of UMD over UMich....there is a reason Bethesda and Potomac send 50 or so kids to UMich a year - they can afford it - and it is a heck of a lot better option than College Park. And I can't think of anyone from Michigan going to Maryland....</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, PG County threatened to actually sue the show Commander-in-Chief for slandering the county, because PG County has put in a lot of effort and money into bolstering and cleaning up their image. Don't trust everything that TV shows say.</p>
<p>Your friends have obviously not been to UMich and to visit Ross. They may change their opinion if they were somehow able to get degrees from both schools and see what each degree allows them to do in life. Ross will open up many doors and is sought after by students around the country...I just realized Smith was the business school at Maryland when I read this thread. So, there's the difference.</p>
<p>Time out guys, this is way over the top. I agree that Ross/Michigan has a better reputation than Smith/Maryland, but some of you are unjustifiably killing Smith and have gone way off the deep end in terms of this College Park/crime nonsense. And I wont even begin to deal with Mam1959s insane hatred of a very nice city in Baltimore (a cesspool?); thats for other discussions Yes, UMs in the top 10, maybe in some top 5s, but Smith is on the cusp (even inside, in some rankings) of the Top 30 and thats a pretty heady crowd. To call someone an idiot for choosing Smith over Ross is way too strong, esp without considering other factors, like money. Ross is excellent, but its not Wharton in terms of rep, esp at the undergrad level (and Wharton is the only Ivy that even has an undergrad component). Tons of money has been poured into Smith (by namesake Robert Smith, no less, an alum whos one of the wealthiest landholders in America) and U. Maryland in Ross, as it does in its other programs, has really capitalized on the U's closeness to Washington to bring in top-flite faculty. Also, the few-years-old Van Munching building housing the B-School, is state of the art and spacious.</p>
<p>As for College Park, no its not Ann Arbor, but Ann Arbor's not adjacent to Washingon, D.C. either (no ones mentioned UMDs proximity to the Metro rail system that puts students minutes away from thee nations capital). CP is also not this crime-ridden ghetto you guys are making it out to be methinks theres a bit of latent racism going on here; PG County has the wealthiest African American population of any American county; there are many $1M homes in the county (not in College Park, though). Next door to CP, is University (Heights? Park?) with largely upper middle class homes. </p>
<p> Its disturbing to me that oftentimes anyone mentions comparing or selecting another school to or over UM, it gets unfairly trashed -- does trashing other schools make Michigan better in your eyes?</p>
<p>Quincy, nobody here trashed UMaryland or CP. The OP stated that he heard that Smith was better than Ross. We were responding based on that comment. Obviously, from a philosophical stand point, is there truly a huge difference between a top 5 B school and a topo 50 B school? Maybe not. But in a world where every little advantage helps, some people may think it a propos tp get into the best possible program.</p>
<p>This said, I believe most comments made by posters above were spot on. I must correct you on a few points. </p>
<p>1) Penn isn't the only Ivy to have an undergraduate B program. Cornell has one too. </p>
<p>2) Although Wharton is the unquestioned #1 B school at the undergraduate level, Ross is one of the 4 or 5 undergraduate programs (Sloan, Haas, Stern and perhaps McIntire being the other 3 or 4) that actually comes very close. Smith is seldom listed among the top 20, let alone the top 5. </p>
<p>3) CP's proximity to Baltimore and DC doesn't help. Those aren't industrial centers like NYC, Chicago or San Francisco. Very few major companies recruit on campuses from those cities. DC is primarily a government and legal center. If the OP were talking about Political Science, I'd agree, but we are talking about Business.</p>
<p>4) Although CP isn't a ghetto, it is not a nice town. Nobody here said it was horrible, what most were saying, from personal experience mind you (I lived in Rockville, MD for 2 years and visited CP several times in the 1988-1996 period), is that Ann Arbor is a much more pleasant place to go to college.</p>
<p>what about Kellogg (NU)? I know its not relevant, but Im just sticking up for my dad here lol with some blatant bias!</p>
<p>Kellogg is recognized as one of the best graduate business schools in the world by many, but I think this thread is mainly focused on undergraduate business schools, and Northwestern does not have one.</p>