<p>Good call bearcats! This plan makes sense to me. And if you are offered admission into any of these colleges, check them out thoroughly before turning them down. In fact, does Hotchkiss have an alum network? If accepted, you might talk to alums who were in engineering and went to these schools. BTW, you must know that Columbia does not offer business undergrad. They do have a great economics department and opportunities to petition for graduate-level work in many departments plus the opportunities to take courses at Columbia College and Barnard. Also, if you are interested in getting some work experience there are many NYC firms that recruit at Columbia for the summer or project work. Good luck!</p>
<p>Agree with lefty...I'm glad to hear you've kept an option or two open, particularly if you're getting vibes from the parental units that that would be wise. Trust them. I'm not suggesting that you must do all that they say up and down the line, but on big time life decisions like this...even long after you're out and on your own...you'll do well to honor their voice.</p>
<p>Good decision, bearcats—you've gotten into and accepted your top school, and now you can see if you still feel the same way once you've heard from the remaining schools. My guess is you will!</p>
<p>In the winter of 1981 I was all set to go to my first choice school ... a small friendly college south of Boston: Stonehill. It was cozy, close to home, affordable and my best friend was going there. I had been rejected from the other higher level schools (Holy Cross, GT) and felt that this was my best option. I was all set to attend Stonehill College. </p>
<p>Then .. very very late in the process I was accepted to Boston College. My parents and I were suprised, because BC admissions was on a par with HC at that time, and we had expected a rejection letter. </p>
<p>What to do. I consulted with my parents, teachers at school and especially the admissions advisors of my High School. They "guided me" very carefully through all of the options. I revisited BC. Talked with potential roommates and eventually decided on attending BC. The opportunity of the better school became crystal clear. Stonehill is a very good school. But BC offered more .</p>
<p>Don't know if this story helps you at all with your decision regarding Michigan, but in my case (25 years ago) patience paid off, and I rcvd a first class education from one of the finest schools in the country and was later able to attend Harvard. Michigan is a world class school .. but to pass on a chance at an Ivy League education ..... hmmmmm. </p>
<p>Education is sooo important, and it is the one thing that can never be taken away from you when you enter the working/business world. Select the school that will train you for the profession you seek, but also factor in the reputation and resources of the schools. </p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Michigan? Boston College? You guys are slaying me.</p>
<p>D'yer, start at the beginning. :D Bear is going to Mich, but the other person was talking about going to BC and how she/he had been in a similar situation.</p>
<p>You mentioned M.I.T. before on that list. Why not there? I grew up living practically next door. Fantastic courses in the fields you wanted to pursue.</p>
<p>Hey D'yer Maker. Glad to see that ND is finally back on our (BC) football schedule. We missed the easy 'W' for a few seasons. </p>
<p>See kids ... this is what it is all about ... school pride !!!</p>
<p>You're right, BC has had our number. Especially when we've been ranked #1. What pests you are! At least next year we'll be like 7-4 and when we lose it won't hurt nearly as bad as the times when you dropped us from the national championship game.</p>
<p>That's great, bearcats. It's good you kept your options open. You're getting the best of both here. :)</p>
<p>Glad to know that you are reconsidering. Good luck.</p>
<p>Hey Bearcats! Michigan U huh. You'll meet a ton of Singaporeans from RJC! About 101 get accepted there every year- how many go? I don't know :P</p>
<p>It's definitely a good school, but compared the the Ivies, it proabably loses out in terms of prestige. However, if you are so clearly set on it, then good for you. Most others would have waited for the decisions from the Ivies etc.</p>
<p>But still, it's always good to keep your options open- you never know.</p>
<p>meh..i m going for engineering/business... none of the ivies can match that besides cornell engineering and wharton business...</p>
<p>i think the two things i have learnt here that i would never understand if i were at the school back home is "fit" and "choose the program, not the school"...i was talking to my friend about this girl at my school who's got in harvard EA trying to major in engineering.. LOL..last time i checked, harvard engineering is ranked around 40th</p>
<p>Whoo. 40th?? Dear me!</p>
<p>Edit: Nopes, not 40th, but 21. Low enough considering it's HARVARD!</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Massachusetts Institute of Technology </p>
<ol>
<li>Stanford University (CA)
<ol>
<li>University of California–Berkeley<br></li>
<li>Georgia Institute of Technology<br></li>
<li>Georgia Institute of Technology<br></li>
<li>University of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign<br></li>
<li>Purdue University–West Lafayette (IN) </li>
<li>University of Michigan–Ann Arbor<br></li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon University (PA) </li>
<li>University of Southern California (Viterbi)<br></li>
<li>California Institute of Technology<br></li>
<li>Cornell University (NY) </li>
<li>University of California–San Diego (Jacobs)<br></li>
<li>University of Texas–Austin<br></li>
<li>Texas A&M University–College Station (Look)<br></li>
<li>University of California–Los Angeles (Samueli)<br></li>
<li>University of Maryland–College Park (Clark)<br></li>
<li>University of Wisconsin–Madison<br></li>
<li>Princeton University (NJ) </li>
<li>Pennsylvania State University–University Park<br></li>
<li>Columbia University (Fu Foundation) (NY) </li>
<li>Harvard University (MA)</li>
</ol></li>
</ol></li>
</ol>
<p>yale engineering is even lower LOL, not to mention dartmouth,penn and brown; plus i get 20k per year scholarship from the engineering school...i dont think passing up 20k at michigan for any other school would be a wise choice anyway.. considering that I am not RIDICULOUSLY wealthy like some of my friends here</p>
<p>...I think bearcats was referring to the Associated Press Coaches' Poll. Or maybe it was the Sagarin Computer Rankings or the Dunkel Index.</p>
<p>Rankings are absurd.</p>
<p>Rankings ignore mission statements (by assuming that there's a universal and uniform basis on which schools may be judged relative to each other). They inevitably feed on the premise that "perception is reality" and, by doing so, they foster inertial forces that perpetuate favoritism towards pre-existing prestige which, yes, does make it surprising that Harvard is ranked below 20 in anything. Worst of all, nearly everyone who looks to rankings is clueless about the underlying basis for them: </p>
<p>FOR EXAMPLE, the above list was probably determined by assigning scores to every school and ranking them in descending orde. But for all anyone knows the calculation of those scores went something like this:</p>
<p>Raw Score = Volumes of books in the library X number of published articles + the ratio of students attending grad school and the students obtaining a $75K/year or more starting salary X .38 divided by the natural log of the quality of the cafeteria food + or - the square root of the number of times the football team won a televised football game all to the power of (Pi + how hot the chicks are).</p>
<p>In all seriousness...if one ignores the ridiculous mathematical operations...my scoring system may very well be a more accurate statement of the data sets that (male) students are looking for than anything that USN&WR has come up with over the years.</p>
<p>And then, the ranking process itself skews results. Even assuming the data sets are a perfect match and the weights assigned dovetail perfectly with what I might think is best...for all I know there's a .0000003 difference in scores for schools ranked 1-12 (making them basically all on a par with each other) and a marked drop off and gap between scores for schools ranked 13-17, with 17 - 20 being in a virtual tie, separated only by the tie-breaker of inches of precipitation per school year. I might give up a scholarship to #11 because I'd rather attend #3...which is ranked 8 spots higher and yet not meaningfully "better" than #11.</p>
<p>It's always pretty funny when people pull out rankings and toss around that information as though it means something when there's really little apprehension of the data relied on and the weights assigned to the data as to each school. </p>
<p>I say this here only because this information ISN'T being bandied about in a serious manner and I'm not so likely to be raining on anyone's parade.</p>
<p>um...no... it's based on peer assessment ranking by the college professors, deans and presidents rating each other's program...</p>
<p>Then I'll repeat:</p>
<p>Rankings ignore mission statements (by assuming that there's a universal and uniform basis on which schools may be judged relative to each other). They inevitably feed on the premise that "perception is reality" and, by doing so, they foster inertial forces that perpetuate favoritism towards pre-existing prestige which, yes, does make it surprising that Harvard is ranked below 20 in anything.</p>
<p>In fact, while you have a general idea of what the data sets are for the rankings...it's not always clear what data sets go into the opinions and peer assessments. So instead you're just another level removed from understanding what the data sets are. </p>
<p>But while you appreciate what the rankings are based on, I'm sticking to the entire post...particularly the part where I claim my selected data sets do a better job relating to what most (male) high school seniors are looking for from a college. And ditto for the failure of rankings to demonstrate the margin between each ranking step. And, most of all, the way most people using them are clueless, letting others do the thinking that they really ought to do themselves.</p>
<p>Industry rankings, and peer assessment (and sadly ivy league status); are the most common standards that recruiters and employers use to make their preliminary hiring and interview offers, according to our family friend who's the head recruiter of JP Morgan Hong Kong Chapter</p>
<p>My parents are not billionaires, nor do I have a trust fund that can feed me till i die. So yes, I gotta think realistic about my future too. Otherwise, I would have chosen USC (" I claim my selected data sets do a better job relating to what most (male) high school seniors are looking for from a college")..wherethey are supposed to have better looking girls than those in U Mich in general :p</p>