Imperial College London Vs University of Michigan. Where do I go ? =S

<p>tenisghs, Alexandre,
Chill, man, I’m not referring to financial state of these universities. Of course American universities will have higher endowment, they’re there longer! Anyway, if you look at the absolute BEST universities in terms of academics in the world (and I mean BEST), they don’t have the largest endowment. Tsinghua University, National University of Singapore, Peking University don’t have the largest endowment, but if you’ve been there you know that their students are the ABSOLUTE smartest. Matter of fact their undergraduates do what we consider graduate stuffs.<br>
So a school is only as good as its students, and American schools have a long way ahead to fall, fail and keep falling, failing.</p>

<p>Sharjeel92, one thing; you say that you’ve been accepted at Michigan. To be clear, have you been accepted at the School of Engineering? Something in your post leads me to think you aren’t aware of the distinction.</p>

<p>Any of your US choices will allow you to double major and possibly dual degree. Of course, the requirements of most engineering programs leave limited time for other majors, so as Alexandre said, you will most likely need to stay an additional semester or two.</p>

<p>As for which side of “the pond” to study on, US colleges are known to be far more flexible than their UK counterparts. If that’s appealing to you then I heartily endorse Michigan. </p>

<p>Mathdumb, exactly why are US colleges going to be tumbling in the ranks? Repeating yourself without providing any evidence only succeeds in undermining your credibility. Regardless, for Sharjeel92’s purposes, it is hard envision anything that could appreciably change the reputations of any of his schools, (US or UK), for better or worse over the next 4 - 5 years.</p>

<p>mathdumb – I note you are impressed with the caliber of students at certain universities… which I gather are mostly Asian.</p>

<p>What is your opinion of this Chinese ranking of world universities? Does it show the fall in US universities you indicate in your post?</p>

<p>[ARWU</a> 2009](<a href=“http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2009.jsp]ARWU”>http://www.arwu.org/ARWU2009.jsp)</p>

<p>As I recall it is published by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which I believe is in Asia.</p>

<p>Ooh math and science hurp durp</p>

<p>You don’t get it. Go on a tour of Asia, specifically countries like China, South Korea, and Singapore, and look at their schools, look at their higher education, the materials they study. For example, a below average 16-year-old in Singapore would be enrolled in a “Polytechnic” and would study advanced math like calculus, probability, statistics when his peers of the same age in America would be grasping basic algebraic ideas that they got over with at 13. Now, that’s just the worst students in Singapore. The best students enroll in a national scale gifted education program and take the SATs at 6th grade.
The quality of students in America simply does not match with overseas, particularly in Asia. Now, more of these new generation Asian students will attend and enhance their own institutions in the stretch of four years and the whole landscape will be shaken.</p>

<p>We’re not in the good old days anymore, you may not like it, but the new kids/nerds population of Asians (Asia Asians) will be the ones who will bring this whole system down and establish in Asia what America used to be.</p>

<p>By the way, the only reason that our Universities and the European ones are not overwhelmed already is that the rankings are completely biased towards the West. Even the ARWU rankings, which is supposed to be based on facts, take into consideration cultural factors like number of Nobel Alumni and the frequency of citation in Western academic journals. These rankings are not fair, they’re culturally ignorant, they’re racist. I dare say, and I have proven on my own, that if you take a truly and solely academic ranking of world universities, the tops will be dominated by Asians. Harvard, Stanford, MIT will be replaced by Tsinghua, Peking, and the National University of Singapore. </p>

<p>Let’s wait and see</p>

<p>I have no doubt that students in grades 4-12 in Asia are better prepared than their american counterparts… add in students from Israel, Sweden, UK, Germany, and even some developing countries like Mexico.</p>

<p>We are however discussing the top 1-2% of American students who find ways to self-educate… either through self study AP, community college, or simply out of textbooks, and matriculate into the Top 20 universities and then a % on to Ph.D. study. And of course we see the outside-US education reflected in the Ph.D. enrollments at HYPSM and others being sometimes over 50% students who attended school for the first time in the US at the college level.</p>

<p>but here’s the problem with the early specialization you mention in Asia –</p>

<p>1) the student may reach the age of 20 and realize they hate the specialized subject to which they are now bound</p>

<p>2) the ability to think creatively, to take ideas from architecture and apply them to biology, or from biologic darwinism and apply them to economics, or from philosophy and apply to physics — these are not found in the mechanical methodology that is so often critisized about the asian educational system — great technicians, lousy creative problem solvers.</p>

<p>Yes, we will have to wait and see. From a population of over 1 billion, one would expect there to be 3x as many geniuses in China as in the US. When they go to college, how are they shaped? What is the methodology? What does one do to shape such a person? The US is heavy on cross-training. The results have been pretty good over the past 50 years. We’'ll see if that methodology continues to produce the best problem solvers.</p>

<p>Your first argument is totally invalid because Chinese universities have already adopted the credit system. (like what, 2 years ago?) Recently, I read in the news that it’s either Shanghai or Beijing that will turn the whole grades 6-12 to credit system as well, so flexibility is not a problem.</p>

<p>Your second argument is probably the more powerful of the two, but again as you said, it only applies to that top 1% of Americans who really both take in the books and use their brains. As we are discussing the average situation here, that portion is negligible. The net intelligence, knowledge, creativity, and problem solving skills in Asians is WAY higher than Americans. Far as colleges are concerned, it’s this 50 percentile that determines their competitiveness. You also tried to restrict this argument to the top 20 colleges, which is fatal, because those schools (ivy+mit, stanford I assume) mostly concentrate on liberal arts, are open to athletes of little competitiveness, and mostly (not all) don’t have the infrastructure in place to produce successful new generation engineers. The top universities in America produce artists, writers, and business man fit to work in Wall Street. The top universities in China produce engineers, scientists, fit to give China the best infrastructure and the best future. </p>

<p>By the way, as a side note joke, you know about the high speed rail talk in Washington? While Obama put down 8 billion for high speed rail, China already invested 500 Billion, in USD, like five years ago. When we’re still debating about these things, China, last December, opened the longest, fastest high speed rail from Wuhan to Guangzhou. Now, General Electrics USA was impressed, they are now securing engineers to develop this technology in America, Chinese engineers…</p>

<p>Nice debate. I have no sides, in fact I agree that Eastern universities are probably better academically, but when you take other factor into consideration, like the entirety of a liberal arts education…</p>

<p>I’m just dropping in to say that you can’t measure prestige by endowment. Cambridge, for example, has one tenth of Yale’s endowment. You don’t see people thinking of Yale as better. Well, I mean out in the real world, not on CC.</p>

<p>"The top universities in America produce artists, writers, and business man fit to work in Wall Street. The top universities in China produce engineers, scientists, fit to give China the best infrastructure and the best future. "</p>

<p>America has engineering and science powerhouses too. Just to name a few: MIT, CalTech, Stanford, Georgia Tech, University of Michigan, Purdue, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and Carnegie Mellon.</p>

<p>mathdumb,</p>

<p>While the top Asian countries have better K-12 systems, there is no doubt that the United States has among the best higher education systems in the world. The Asian students that you admire would love to study abroad in America because its top universities have the best faculty/resources AND encourage innovation/creativity.</p>

<p>^ You’re right in that the American education system up to the 12th grade is lacking and that their higher education is more reputed.</p>

<p>I think you’re wrong, though, in that everyone would love a chance to study in the United States. I believe their top top choice would mostly be the best university in their country, UK universities or Australian universities. The whole idea of a liberal arts education doesn’t appeal to most people, they’d rather specialize early because most of them know what they want to do.</p>

<p>“The Asian students that you admire would love to study abroad in America because its top universities have the best faculty/resources AND encourage innovation/creativity.”</p>

<p>Not true, let’s take two case studies- Singapore and China.
In Singapore, there are only three (fourth in construction) large, comprehensive universities that can only accomodate about 10-20% of the population. Therefore, the rest of the students, the 2nd tier ones who couldn’t get in these colleges, are sent overseas on full government scholarship. That said, they won’t even look at anything other than the absolute strongest schools here.
In China, while there is sufficient universities to hold qualified students, there is still a large population that have to resort to junior colleges. These students, who are probably the worst 25-50% of the students, are willing to come to the US for a bachelor’s degree.</p>

<p>So it’s a political and cultural thing, don’t assume that they admire us just because they come. If you just look at their facilities, studying cultures, professors etc you would never have made that statement. </p>

<p>Facility wise, Asian universities have the absolute BEST facilities. Look at any proper university, and you’ll be impressed. Our colleges look like a combination of warehouses and townhouses. Their colleges are modernistic, high tech, and green. Their high schools look like our colleges, their colleges look like our future…</p>

<p>mathdumb, I have a degree from Girton College, Cambridge, and am currently living in Asia, but I’m not Asian (my wife, who went to UC Berkeley, is.) </p>

<p>From what I know, the best students at the best Asian universities “would break an arm” just to get into a top US university. The schools/unis you’ve mentioned are great, great academic institutions. But their topmost students would be extremely be honoured to get into a top US institution. </p>

<p>It’s not true that US institutions are falling and UK unis are rising. You can’t rely on the Times’ ranking. It’s a pretty unreliable league table. Stanford is not #19 in the world, and UC Berkeley is not #20+ something in the world. Imperial is not #4 in the world and UCL is not top 10 in the world.</p>

<p>I didn’t say UK is rising, I said that if US keep falling, Asia keep rising, and UK just remain where it is, Imperial College will pretty soon rank much better than Michigan. </p>

<p>Anyway, your Asian claims seem like myths to me. “would break an arm” looks awfully like an Hollywood’s generalization of Asians as samurais, karates fighters etc. If we’re having a debate, let’s have one based on facts, not myths that obviously don’t apply to all, if any, students in Asia. </p>

<p>And I don’t like the way you claim that you live in Asia, it doesn’t give you the upper hand…</p>

<p>““would break an arm” looks awfully like an Hollywood’s generalization of Asians as samurais, karates fighters etc”</p>

<p>LOL, mathdumb, it’s a typical English idiom that means people will choose without hesitation something they want or desire. It has nothing to do with discrimination against Asians. I don’t think you understand American culture well.</p>

<p>You also underestimate the influence and wealth of the American higher education system. The evidence does not support your claims: </p>

<p>

<a href=“http://www.america.gov/st/educ-english/2009/November/200911181144271CJsamohT0.5228998.html[/url]”>http://www.america.gov/st/educ-english/2009/November/200911181144271CJsamohT0.5228998.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>No I know what he meant. I’ve heard of people talking of Asians the same way, which is why I consider it a stereotype. Even if he didn’t mean literally, to say that an Asian would do anything to get in American college is itself a negative stereotype about Asians. </p>

<p>Secondly, I didn’t comment on the increase of Chinese students in American system. All I said was that top tier students would not come to America.</p>

<p>mathdumb, I cannot provide an extensive evidence to prove my claim. But UC Berkeley’s master’s in financial engineering, for example, gives access to their students’ biodata. There you can see that almost half of the students come from outside the US (international) and many of those international students come Asia. Go check their backgrounds so you can see for yourself that they are amongst the best of the best Asian graduates of those schools you lavishly mentioned: [Student</a> Community - MFE Prospective - Haas School of Business](<a href=“http://mfe.haas.berkeley.edu/current/index.html]Student”>http://mfe.haas.berkeley.edu/current/index.html)</p>

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<p>mathdumb, my wife worked so hard to get into Berkeley and she’s extremely proud to have gone there. She sacrificed a lot to acquire top grades in HS so that she can get into a school like UC Berkeley. She’s 100% Asian. Do you think what she’s done is negative to Asians?</p>

<p>I don’t know enough about Imperial to have an informed view about whether one should choose it or U Michigan. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that America is on a bad path at the moment and a way back to our accustomed role as Global Economic Top Dog is not clear. Not that the UK is any better (I think it’s worse), but if these economic and fiscal trends hold, then all American universities will pay the price in reputation decline and lower marginal ability to attract top students.</p>

<p>Such a gloomy assessment for America and the American schools from one of CC’s prophets. lol</p>

<p>Now my turn: Hell freezes over before Imperial can even catch up with Michigan.</p>