<p>Hi all,</p>
<p>Potential Michigan student here and I was wondering how you all think the university will fare in the near future for USNews rankings. Rankings don't mean everything, but I'm worried that if it keeps dropping spots it will start to lose its reputation.</p>
<p>Also, do you think other large public universities are under ranked (UCLA, Cal etc.)?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>Oh no… I think if dumb high school kids don’t think we are as good, then they might just close the university down. </p>
<p>Really the answer to these questions are all over this board. Just look for posts by some one named Alexandre</p>
<p>Michigan has been putting a lot of money back into the school lately, so I don’t see it decreasing in rankings. For example, Mechanical Engineering is getting a brand new high-tech building. ME engineering is already ranked super high and I only see this helping its rank. This is just one example. Secondly, the school is getting record applicants and can take from its choice of students, therefore they are getting the best and brightest students.</p>
<p>megmuncher, it is not possible to predict how Michigan will do in the USNWER ranking. It could rise or drop in the coming years. Personally, I think Michigan will remain ranked in the 25-30 range for a long time. As long as the USNWR maintains its current policy of not equalizing data to adjust for discrepancies in reporting, Michigan and other public elites (like Cal, UCLA, UVa, UNC, Wisconsin-Madison etc…) will remain ranked between #20 and #30. If the USNWR decides to level the playing field, some public elites (Michigan included) will be ranked well among the top 20.</p>
<p>But do not let Michigan’s ranking according to the USNWR discourage you from attending the University. The USNWR only impresses teenagers. Regardless of that ranking, Michigan’s stature in academe and corporate America remains firmly planted at the top. The UNWR ranking will never alter that. Academe regards Michigan as one of the top 10 or top 15 universities in the country, and will approach applicants to graduate schools as such. Companies also value Michigan a great deal. No matter what happens to the USNEWS rankings, Michigan will remain Michigan!</p>
<p>The “reputation” among grad schools and employers is certainly not derived from the USNews ranking. It’s only relevant to impressionable high school students and parents and trust me, no one else cares about that demographic’s opinions. I don’t know about continues to drop either…26>29 in the past decade doesn’t matter compared to there’s an obvious drop off after 30 or so, and UMich will be among that tier of excellent schools in the foreseeable future. In addition, the publics are at disadvantage, as you seem to suspect, due to lying about data by some privates.</p>
<p>Beyond falsification or “fudging” of data which is rampant among private colleges and universities, the US News ranking system itself is stacked in favor of private colleges and universities. Among other things, it rewards the schools have have the highest expenditures per student. It costs about the same to maintain an 8 million-volume library collection, whether that collection serves 5,000 undergraduates or 25,000, but the cost-per-student (=expenditures-per-student) will be much higher at the smaller school, which will be rewarded in the US News rankings. Bigger schools can often benefit from efficiencies of scale in, for example, producing much of their own heat and cooling, which translates into a lower level of expenditures-per-student, for which they are punished. Or they can use their size to leverage better deals in employee health insurance, which also punishes them in the US News rankings because it means lower expenditures-per-student (and probably gets double-counted, because health insurance costs are also counted as faculty compensation, which is based not only on salaries but also on the cost of fringe benefits).</p>
<p>Then, of course, there’s the obvious fact that it’s much easier to maintain high test score medians if you’re filling a class of 1,000 than if you’re filling a class of 6,000. Even though the class of 6,000 might easily include more top scorers than the class of 1,000, it’s the school with the class of 1,000 that’s rewarded in the rankings. This reflects just a basic difference in mission between public universities, which are obligated to educate large numbers of people, as opposed to private colleges and universities, which can be as small as they choose to be. Does that mean the educational experience for the high-stats, high-performing student will be worse at the bigger school? No, of course not. The faculty may be just as good, the student may be just as challenged, and especially in upper-level courses, the top students at the big university will tend to self-select into more challenging (and typically smaller) classes fairly early on in their college years. But the bigger university will be punished in the rankings for also opening itself up to some less-stellar students, because its mission includes performing a public service that the smaller private university is under no obligation to perform.</p>
<p>I don’t expect the US News ranking to change drastically in the near future. In fact, their market consists largely of people who have a bias in favor of private colleges and universities, and who would viscerally disbelieve any ranking system that didn’t place HYP #1, #2, and #3 in some order. So the ranking needs to be constructed to guarantee that result, and consequently the schools that most resemble HYP–smallish-to-medium-sized private universities that have large endowments per student and spend large sums of money per student–are pretty much guaranteed to come out on top.</p>
<p>This is all by way of saying you should take the US News rankings with a large grain of salt.</p>
<p>Michigan is the most underrated of the elites. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be in the top 25.</p>
<p>In terms of reputation, UofM does well in the USNWR rankings. In the academic reputation category, UofM is ranked 13th… tied with NW, Brown, Dartmouth, Penn.</p>
<p>Megamunchers, I think it’s great that you are seeking out information about how well regarded various colleges are and what their future strengths and weaknesses might be. It shows that you are making decisions based on more than how many trees a campus has. (No lie, I’ve seen that on other forums!)</p>
<p>I’m sure that you will gather your information from a wide variety of sources. Never be afraid to ask questions. And when you discover that UMich is and will remain the strong university that you think it is, I hope that you’ll apply and find a warm welcome in Ann Arbor. Best wishes to you.</p>
<p>Whether US News ranks it correctly or not, Michigan is viewed, by the employers, as one of the top 15 schools in the country. Also, in terms of acceptance to top 5 business schools, law schools, medical schools, Michigan undergrads do very well. I think, Michigan lacks the inclination to ‘market’ the university, the way some other elite schools do it!</p>
<p>In academe, Michigan holds a very special place. Its peer assessment says it all. It is generally tied with the likes of Brown, Carnegie Mellon, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Northwestern, Penn, UCLA, UNC and UVa.</p>
<p>Stanford’s president back in the 1990s, Gehard Capser, wrote a pretty accurate criticism of the USNWR that is shared by many in academe. Not surprisingly, Cal and Michigan are at the very heart of his argument. Few people in academe believe that Michigan should be ranked out of the top 15, let along out of the top 25. </p>
<p>[Criticism</a> of College Rankings - September 23, 1996](<a href=“http://www.stanford.edu/dept/pres-provost/president/speeches/961206gcfallow.html]Criticism”>Criticism of College Rankings - September 23, 1996)</p>
<p>Personally, I think there are quite a few ranking inaccuracies on USNWR. For starters I would rank Cal, Michigan, and UCLA higher. I also think that Georgetown is somewhat overrated on USNWR, and I think its name surpasses its academic excellence, honestly. Finally, I think NYU is slightly underrated.</p>
<p>IMHO, the most underrated, sleeper school in the top 35 is Rochester.</p>
<p>^Yes!!! I applied to Rochester. It is a great school!</p>
<p>I think Duke is slightly overrated. Northwestern and Penn are as good, if not better than Duke in my opinion.</p>
<p>Duke has huge name recognition, which gives it such a strong rank I think. Pretty much everyone has heard of Duke, almost (though not quite) as much as HYPS.</p>
<p>I do not think any of those universities are “overrated” or “underrated” where it matters. The publics are grossly underrated among high school students and on CC, while most private elites are highly overrated. But in the real world, where it really matters, all those universities have earned the respect they receive. </p>
<p>It depends on the region and on one’s philosophy of what makes a university great. However, I do not think any of those universities, Duke included, come close to HYPSM, or has a distinct reputational advantage over the remaining schools in its peer group. That includes the remaining Ivies, Cal, Caltech, Chicago, Duke, JHU, Michigan, Northwestern and a couple other schools I may have left out. </p>
<p>I think Cal, Duke and Michigan have broader appeal for specific reasons (Cal with the civil rights and hippie movement, Duke and Michigan thanks to their athletic tradition), but that’s only among the masses. Where it really counts, among the highly educated and in senior corporate circles, all of those universities have equal footing, depending on personal experience and preferences.</p>
<p>I think Michigan should be top 20, and Berkeley top 15. I think tufts is a bit underrated too. You never hear much about Tufts, because it’s often overshadowed by the many powerhouses around it, but it is a great school. I also think Northwestern is slightly underrated and Duke is slightly overrated.</p>
<p>Overrated:
UChicago (bottom of top ten, should not be ahead of Stanford or MIT lol)
Emory (mid to late twenties)
Notre Dame (mid twenties)
Georgetown (mid twenties)
USC (high 30s)
Wake (30+)</p>
<p>Underrated:
Berkeley
UCLA
UVA
Umich
UNC
all of these should be about 5 or more spots higher</p>
<p>literally all the top publics are underrated.</p>
<p>My two cents…</p>
<p>Michigan should be in top 20.</p>
<p>Duke WAS underrated and now is where it belongs.</p>
<p>Tufts is not underrated.</p>
<p>G’town and Notre Dame overrated.</p>
<p>Vandy underrated.</p>
<p>Wash U about right but maybe 2-3 spots overrated.</p>
<p>Wake Forest overrated after years of probably being underrated.</p>
<p>Rochester underrated.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon about right to slightly underrated.</p>
<p>Emory a little overrated.</p>
<p>Hopkins about right.</p>