<p>That was deliberate. I took the liberty of shortening your name. Was that too forward of me? I thought we were on a more informal, first name basis. :D</p>
<p>^ No worries, red.</p>
<p>Duke finally has a higher PA score than Michigan, watch out Columbia and Chicago! We’re coming for you next. ;)</p>
<p>This has happened before goldenboy. Then you sunk back to 4.4 :-)</p>
<p>RJ, I have the unfortunate task of informing you that your own ranking here has dropped 15 spots on this site. You do have some cupcakes on your schedule over the next week so maybe you can crawl your way back into the Receiving Votes category.</p>
<p>UCBCEG, your status is under committee review.</p>
<p>Interesting, I didn’t know that. I thought academics basically put down the same scores for each school on Good Ole’ Morse’s annual survey since the beginning of time given since, well you know, they have no idea what’s going on at the undergraduate level at all the universities anyway so why not just stick to your guns? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I swear USNWR will start surveying library circulation desk workers next to assess what the best undergraduate institutions are.</p>
<p>^They should survey CCers! Now that would be entertaining!</p>
<p>Why? CCers would just spew their rankings right back at them.</p>
<p>“RJ, I have the unfortunate task of informing you that your own ranking here has dropped 15 spots on this site.”</p>
<p>Considering that this is the Michigan site and almost of the posters here in this thread are not big fans of the school, I’ll take that as a compliment.</p>
<p>RJ, LOL. Don’t see any Michigan haters here. I think I personally moved UMich from #29 to the #16 or #17 spot. You haven’t exactly presented as prestige-free, but if you’re ready to sign a prestige-free pledge let’s do it.</p>
<p>goldenboy, most years, and Duke have identical PAs. Some years (2010 and 2012), Michigan’s is higher, some years (2011 and 2013), Duke’s is higher. Penn usually has identical PA ratings to Duke and Michigan as well. If you look at the last 10 years, all 3 schools would have a PA average in the 4.4-4.5 range. Chicago, Columbia, Cornell and JHU would be in the 4.5-4.6 range while Brown, Dartmouth and Northwestern would be in the 4.3-4.4 range. All of those universities are considered peers according to academe.</p>
<p>I think all the ratings presented put Michigan in at least the top 20 (with the exception of goldenboy who put Michigan in the top 25-which still isn’t an unreasonable opinion.) The top 20 is more generous than many people on CC would place Michigan, and it is a valid opinion, even if you personally disagree.</p>
<p>Like reddog said, I don’t think anyone is hating on or trash talking Michigan, people are just giving their take on the top 25 universities.
I personally think Michigan belongs in the 18-20 ish range just behind Vandy and Rice, but ahead of Notre Dame and Georgetown. But, I have no problem with anyone disagreeing or seeing it differently than me.</p>
<p>jakey, 18-20 is certainly reasonable. But so is 6-9 or 10-17. It really depends on how one rates universities. Most members of academe would rate Michigan among the top dozen universities in the US. Most employers would agree. Are Rice and Vanderbilt better than Michigan? Not according to academe or corporate America. That cannot be denied, from placement rates into top graduate schools to peer assessment scores to corporate recruitment on campus, Michigan easily matches, and in many instances, outperforms, Emory, Georgetown, Notre Dame, Rice, Vanderbilt and Washington U. Very few members of graduate school admissions committees or corporate recruiters will agree that those universities are superior to Michigan.</p>
<p>On the other hand, most high school students would not rank Michigan among the top 15, and many, like yourself, think more highly of Rice or Vanderbilt…and legitimately so as those two are amazing and in some ways, better than Michigan (and many of its peers, including Brown, Cornell etc…). It boils down to what one wants.</p>
<p>Bottom line, some will rate Michigan among the top 10, most will rate Michigan between 10 and 17 and some will rate Michigan between 18 and 20. Few among the powers that be in academe or industry would agree with a rating that places Michigan out of the top 20.</p>
<p>Rankings are entirely dictated by the criteria used to establish them. The criteria USNWR uses is but one take on the components that equate to a good university.</p>
<p>Depending on the criteria used, Michigan could be ranked vastly, anywhere from 5-50. If a ranking stresses peer assessment surveys, consistent excellence across academic disciplines, and graduate school placement, I’d reckon that Michigan would fare very favorably. Alternatively, if a ranking stresses consistent strength among incoming class, average class sizes, 4 year graduation rates, and university selectivity, Michigan would not show as well. </p>
<p>It is up to the prospective student to decide what components make a good university for them personally. For some individuals, Michigan would be at the forefront, for others it wouldn’t even crack the top 3-dozen. </p>
<p>For this reason, I am skeptical that any ranking can objectively and holistically gauge university quality, and USNWR is no exception.</p>
<p>reddog, four year graduation rates are a CC tool used to make a point, but it is hardly relevant. Schools like Caltech, Michigan, Rice and Stanford never do well on that count (all of them have 4-year graduation in the 70%-79% range. That’s not because they are shortchanging their students or lock students out of classes, preventing them from graduating on time, but because they have programs that require over four years to graduate. Michigan’s graduation rate is 90%, and only a dozen or so research universities have higher overall graduation rates, and even those have 6-year graduation rates in the 93-96% range, which is not dramatically higher than 90%.</p>
<p>Selectivity and student body strength is hard to measure since different universities report data differently. But I doubt that 40 research universities have stronger student bodies than Michigan. There is no way Michigan can place as high a percentage of its students in top graduate programs as schools like Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Rice, Vanderbilt and WUSTL if it had a significantly weaker student body. </p>
<p>That is not to say that I disagree with your overall concept that universities can be ranked anywhere within a wide range depending on what one values, but even if you look at Michigan’s biggest weaknesses only (and leave out all of its strengths), Michigan would still be ranked among the top 25. If you mix in its strengths in equal measure, it would probably be ranked in the 10-20 range, and if you only include its strengths and leave out its weaknesses, it would be ranked between #6 and #9. I am in favor of including strengths and weaknesses, which is why I believe Michigan should be ranked between #10 and #20 at the undergraduate level. There is no difference between universities ranked in that range.</p>
<p>I do think there is an array of criteria that, if used, would put Michigan out of the top 25. You need look no further than USNWR to see an example of criteria used that places Michigan out of the top 25. This isn’t unique to Michigan, however. If enough emphasis is placed on criteria that is disadvantageous to a particular institution, that institution simply isn’t going to rank impressively.</p>
<p>Not so allcapella, the USNWR is very flawed. The only three criteria used by the USNWR where Michigan is not ranked among the top 25 are financial resources, faculty resources and alumni dination rates. </p>
<ol>
<li>I am not sure how a university with an endowment of $7.6 billion and $300 million in annual state appropriations can have a financial resources rank out of the top 15. Michigan’s financial resources are equivalent to those of a private university with an endowment of $13 billion. When it comes to financial resources, Michigan is among the top 10 in absolute terms and among the top 20 in relative terms. It makes no sense whatsoever that Michigan is ranked so low on the financial resources rank. Other universities are probably fudging their numbers, or overspending and wasting valuable resources that they will require in the future. </li>
</ol>
<p>When it comes to faculty resources, we all know that student:faculty ratios are distorted by many universities who omit graduate students from their calculations. </p>
<p>And don’t get me started on alumni donation rates. When it comes to the value of donations per alums, Michigan is in the top 20 among research universities. But donation rates mean very little as public universities cannot solicit alums as freely or aggressively as private universities, nor can they apply fuzzy reporting techniques.</p>
<p>Like I said, assuming criteria are measured accurately, consistently and fairly, even Michigan’s weaknesses would be strong enough to land it among the top 25. But that’s assuming one completely ignores Michigan’s strengths. If you include Michigan’s strengths in any methodology, and assuming data is accurately reported and used correctly, Michigan easily makes the top 20.</p>
<p>“This isn’t unique to Michigan, however.”</p>
<p>I think it is unique to Michigan. No school with as high a PA as Michigan is ranked so lowly.</p>
<p>
Alexandre, I don’t believe that on a per capita basis, Michigan places into elite professional programs at the same clip as these schools mentioned though. I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong though.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong though.”</p>
<p>Most insincere comment of the day. Congrats!</p>