<p>KB, I have no issues with your complaints. I also believe Michigan (like all universities) has room for improvement. My issue is with your telling everybody how peer universities are better than Michigan or how Michigan is overrated even though you have never studied at another university. That's like saying that life in one's own country is best without ever having travelled to any other country. I also don't think you are qualified to rate quality of Michigan's undergraduate student body. Did you meet all 24,000+ undergrads? Are you truly qualified to judge another's intellectual ability and potential? How do you know how intellectuall competent students are at other schools?</p>
<p>that survey did not exclusively tell about percentage of OOS picking UM as first choice, it was the entire student body. I'm just telling how it is from experience. </p>
<p>In summary from reading Alexandre's posts about Michigan:</p>
<ol>
<li>Michigan is a large school, must admit many, therefore there are bad and good students. </li>
<li>If admitted to UM, the education offered by UM is above Cornell, Upenn, Columbia and only Harvard,MIT, and a few others can match it.</li>
<li>Just because there are 25% dumb students at Michigan, doesn't make it a mediocre institution.</li>
</ol>
<p>I understand all your points Alexandre. But, you make Michigan more than what it is. It is a good school, and I think it is a top 20 college, just by the resources alone. However, there isn't a lot separating the top colleges but the few small differences such as endowment per student, undergraduate focus, prestige, average SAT score and admissions rate. You obviously overlooked the small differences, but but by your logic the University of Washington at Seattle, Texas at Austin are both top 20 Universities. I mean their admit rates are only a few percentages higher, SAT scores only slightly lower, top 25% of students there competes with ivy league students too. I am constantly reminded of the constant competition for students with the prestigious Michigan State University</p>
<p>well i don't really believe in all the SAT, GPA, or endowment factors b/c well they rn't really a good prediction. Can you post the percentage of students who get accepted to like Harvard law school, Harvard Medical school and some phenomenonal grad programs? Also i would like to know the percentage of those who work at like Goldman Sachs and stuff like that and Rhodes scholar and some objective features that actually show how the university nurtured those students.</p>
<p>First of all, I never said "the education offered at Michigan is above Cornell or Penn" and I certainly never said Michigan was equal to Harvard or MIT. I said Michigan is on par with Cornell and Penn and that only the Big 5 (H,M,P,S and Y) are better. Secondly, I never said that 25% of Michigan students are "dumb". I said that 25% of Michigan students are not very strong academically. </p>
<p>I agree that endowment and operation budgets are very important. Michigan is #6 and #3 (not including the hospital) in the nation respectively on those fronts. Even per student endowment and operation budget are among the top 20 in the nation...and that's very impressive when considering Economies of scale. I also agree that prestige is very important. We all know that Michigan is considered one of the top 10 or so undergraduate institutions in the eyes of academe. The USNWR peer assessment score of undergraduate universities, Fiske and Gourman all agree. Judging from Michigan's placement into top graduate programs and from the number of students who get dream jobs upon graduation, I'd say that Michigan's prestige is up there with the best of them. Not as prestigious as Harvard and Princeton obviously, but definitely as prestigious as Chicago, Cornell, johns Hopkins, Northwestern and Penn.</p>
<p>Undergraduate focus is a question of perception. Some people will feel like their are well taken care of and will make the most of any situation. Those are called low-maintenance characters. Some people are never satisfied. Those are called high maintenance characters. Low-maintenance people will be ok no matter where they are. High maintenance people will never be satisfied, no matter how attentive their university is. But by and large, all research universities give undergrads little attention, expecting them to find their way though a very challenging academic curriculum. Some research universities, like Princeton and Brown, are better at giving personal attention. Other schools, like Harvard and Michigan, aren't quite as good. But none of them can come close to duplicating the LAC feel.</p>
<p>Finally, you seem to think that Texas is not worthy of a top 20 ranking. Well, let me tell you something, they aren't far behind. Texas has a talented student body, excellent facilities, world-class faculty and top departments accross the board. I agree that they aren't quite top 20 material, but they are top 30. But Texas is not Michigan, just like Michigan is not Stanford. </p>
<p>Imiracle, I am not sure about the exact # of students who landed jobs with Goldman Sachs. I would say that annually, more than 100 Michigan undergrads get jobs with top Ibanks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Lehman Brothers, UCB, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and Merrill Lynch.</p>
<p>Close to 60 undergrads from the Business school alone accepted full time offers from those top 10 Investment Banks and unless things have changed drastically over the last 8 or 9 years, I'd say many students from the college of Engineering and LSA also got jobs with those IBanks. </p>
<p>In 2004, BusinessWeek conducted a survey on the favorite hunting grounds of the most exclusive employers (McKinsey, BCG, Booz Allen, Bain, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers etc...). Overall, Penn was #1, Harvard was #2 and Michigan came in at #3. </p>
<p>As far as acceptance rates into top 5 graduate programs (including Harvard Law), Michigan was 30th in the nation according to a survey conducted by the Wall Street Journal. 30th may sound low, but Cornell, Chicago, Johns Hopkins and Northwestern were all out of the top 20 and there was virtually no difference between #10 and #40. That's because the list included LACs, which made up roughly half of the top 40. Among research universities, Michigan was actuallty #15 or so. </p>
<p>I'd say by all accounts, Michigan does a pretty good job preparing students for the professional world and/or for graduate school.</p>
<p>Alexandre, what about the University of Michigan are you not happy with?</p>
<p>Alexandre you have become so famous that there is an alexandre impostor on xoxo. </p>
<p>I sometimes suspect that Alexandre is an admissions officer at Michigan. He says that he went to Cornell also, it makes me wonder why he never talks about Cornell the same way he does Michigan, even though the schools are very similar.</p>
<p>I had just written an incredibly long post to refute Alexandre's trolling and blatantly false statistics. (He overranked programs such as bio, which is actually ranked 31st in the country and is a really awful department in terms of teaching and relative quality of research.) As a U of M Honors student who is his vaunted top 25%, I will sum up my experience of the university and how it really is a mixed experience for undergraduates. The Honors College is a total sham, with incompetent counselors, limited course offerings with little relevance to the academic interests and long-term career goals of its students and rampant corruption in its policies and treatment of students. At least 70% of the students stop using honors counseling by their sophomore year and with good reason. Their idea of education is antiquated and misguided. If you're wondering about the "program," you take one semester of a Western Civ class called "Great Books" and then try to fit in either honors courses or upper-level courses, which are usually filled by the time most sophomores or freshmen register. Intro classes are horribly taught and succeed in killing interest more than fostering it. As far as the rest of the student body, the engineers are usually very smart, as are the music students. Most of LS&A is peopled with intellectually apathetic students who are more interested in football and greek life than they are in the many cultural offerings of the University and Ann Arbor. They are woefully unprepared for the rigors of college and slow the pace of classes down. Very few also take advantage of any intellectual opportunities either. It's a true public university in how in really maintains a status quo of American society. I can't tell you how many times I have wished that I attended Cornell, Brown, Swarthmore or the other schools I was considering and how many times I've heard that from other friends.</p>
<p>There are wonderful facilities, some truly amazing professors and individual departments such as math, brain and cognitive science, psychology, comparative literature, philosophy, most of the foreign languages and chemistry are top-notch. If you work really hard and find a good counselor or two, this school will prepare you for anything you will face in grad school, from what graduates have said. I truly believe that this school's research caliber is far higher than that of most private schools and that it's evident that the school really cares about good library systems. </p>
<p>I laugh, however when people say that they're coming here to take it easy. It's not, in any way. The undergraduate support system is really weak. There is none of that "nurturing" Alexandre mentions. (I keep wondering what school he was going to.) The classes have no grade inflation, virtually any pre-med or pre-business class will try like hell to weed you out and counselors are rarely helpful. </p>
<p>My advice is that if you have the option of attending any of the top private schools besides U of M, take your loans and go. I made that mistake. You'll be much happier in the long run.</p>
<p>Alexandre, UROP can't accommodate students anymore. Many have to drop out because there is no room for them.</p>
<p>I think Michigan can improve in several areas. </p>
<p>1) Michigan should hire more professors who are passionate about teaching. Like Chicago, Harvard and MIT, Michigan professors are very research oriented. That is not to say that Michigan professors don't enjoy teaching. I'd say that all but a couple of my professors were truly and genuinely interested in teaching, but I think this is one area where most research universities can truly improve. I would like Michigan to keep those amazing researchers, but I think it would be great if Michigan hired a few more professors that like to teach. </p>
<p>2) The University of Michigan is growing when it should be shrinking. In 1990, Michigan had 20,000 undergrads. Today, it has close to 25,000 undergrads. And yet, the state of Michigan has not really grown and the university funding from the state has shrunk. As such, I think Michigan should be cutting back on the # of in-staters it admits. I said it many times that Michigan's optimal size would be 16,000 undergrads, not 24,000. As such, I think Michigan should limit its Freshman classes to 4,000, not 6,000. With a smaller class, Michigan would ensure a slightly more gifted student body at the lower end. </p>
<p>3) Michigan does not do a great job advertizing itself. It should definitely be more pro-active in that domain. Michigan is a top 10-15 universities and yet, it still manages </p>
<p>4) I think Michigan should use some of its wealth and influence to attract students. It is too bad Michigan is not more generous with aid, especially for international students.</p>
<p>5) Reaching out to alumns. Michigan has improved a great deal over the years, but it can do so much more. Schools like Notre Dame, Dartmouth, Harvard etc... really hunt down their alumns. Michigan does not. If it did, you would see a huge surge in donations.</p>
<p>Tha's about it.</p>
<p>I should start studying for my finals.</p>
<p>I think it would be nice if you stopped using erroneous statistics to compare HYP, Dartmouth, Columbia and Chicago to Mich. I'd like to see where you found these rankings. It's also 22nd in the nation in USNews, and not in the top 10-15. Mich will never be any of those schools and in many ways, I'm very glad for that. It really is an interesting mix of people and I have learned so much from many of them and saved myself from the pretension and complacency that surrounds the Ivies. I feel that admissions should cut class sizes to about 3,000 per class, become much more selective and stop worrying so much about GPA and rather examine rigor of courseload and extra-curricular activities. The new application has made a move in that direction and that is heartening. Counseling needs to be revamped (aka most of them need to be fired), intro classes should be taught by the best professors in the department, not every undergraduate class should be geared towards discouraging and weeding out students and there should be more sections offered of classes with consistently high enrollments over a course of semesters. Add that to your 1-5 and I think we might have a Harvard in the making!</p>
<p>Edit: I just read your post on how undergraduate focus is "subjective." I thought that good professors, helpful advising and lots of high-quality classes were important factors to consider and if most people don't feel that they're getting that, something is wrong. I guess some of us are more interested just in how the top 25% of the student body stacks up to Ivies!</p>
<p>Jeffl, I did my graduate studies at Cornell's school of ILR. I still have an active email account. </p>
<p><a href="mailto:act22@cornell.edu">act22@cornell.edu</a></p>
<p>I definitely loved Cornell. It is an amazing university and I often find myself defending it on this forum. But I think Michigan offers a more complete undergraduate experience with a great college town and amazing school spirit.</p>
<p>MichWoman. First of all, Michigan's Biology department is not ranked #31. The only recent ranking of Biology programs was the 2003 USNWR, which ranked Michigan #14. </p>
<p>Secondly, you are right about grade deflation. Michigan is one of those schools that grades harshly. But if you did not like the grade deflation and the lack of guidance at Michigan, you would not have enjoyed Cornell. Cornell's grading and councelling is just as bad as Michigan's. Incidently, most great research universities have mediocre councelling.</p>
<p>Thirdly, did you attend any other university or do you just feel that Michigan did not meet your pre-conceived expectations? You seem to think that other schools like Harvard and Chicago have their best professors teaching Freshmen and that advising at other schools is better than at Michigan. Do you know that for a fact. Have students who have attended both Michigan and other top universities told you that other schools have better advising and better professors teaching undergrads? </p>
<p>Fourthly, a significant portion of undergrads at all universities are intellectually apathetic. Most students at schools like Cornell and Duke and Dartmouth just want to have fun. That does not mean that they aren't serious about their studies.</p>
<p>Michigan is ranked among the top 10-15 according to the peer assessment score. I personally don't care for the USNWR equation. I only look at the peer assessment score. The rest of the USNWR is not that accurate.</p>
<p>Furthermore, I don't care to compare the students at Michigan to the students at other universities. Other posters here were saying that Michigan students are weak and it ewas in response to that that I mentioned the fact that Michigan's student body is comparable to that at most top universities.</p>
<p>I agree about UROP. I think the University should be more careful with the planning of that program. Obviously, Michigan offers great research opportunities, but the university must see to it that it is properly managed. And the fact that Michigan overshot its intended freshman class by 500 or so students two years in a row doesn't help matters.</p>
<p>Finally, I don't think that calling me a troll is absolutely necessary.</p>
<p>I just feel that Michigan does not deliver the undergraduate experience that usually comes with such high out-of-state tuition. Mediocre counseling is everywhere, true. Not downright awful counseling, however. I guess what mitigates it at other schools is counselors are actually faculty who have dealt extensively with undergraduates in a classroom setting. The counselors here would have never been hired as Michigan faculty and thus make unqualified judgments constantly. There's also a complete unwillingness to listen to students and the mantra is that "it's a large school. Deal with it." I know that inexperienced seniors think that a large student body might be an asset and some people still feel that way after leaving this place. As another poster mentioned, a large endowment can feel very small when it's spread over such a large student body. </p>
<p>I also agree that many of the kids who attend Ivies aren't intellectually motivated. With the exception of Cornell because of the state-funded schools and Penn, I would venture to say that the quality of the overall student bodies at the rest of the Ivies far exceeds that of Michigan. This could be due to preparation, better schooling or more intellectual curiosity. Probably combos of all three. No matter what they are, Michigan's student body is just not as great as those schools'. You can't just compare the top quartile or the top half. </p>
<p>I feel that you're giving kids an incomplete and perhaps overly rosy picture and that they're going to be in for a huge surprise. This school is awesome in many ways and overall, I've had a blast. You're right when you say it gives "a complete undergraduate experience." Very few schools offer amazing football, Noam Chomsky giving lectures, drunken parties and Sonny Rollins playing jazz at one of your campus auditoriums all in the same week-with it not being atypical. I just don't know if I would've picked this environment all over again for undergrad.</p>
<p>I think you overestimate the quality of the Ivies. You should see the advising students get at Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, Penn etc... Yikes! And I most certainly think that is is valid to say that 60% of Michigan students being of a certain calibre makes the student body similar to a school where 80% of the students are of that same calibre. It is up to the individual to decide what to do the time and people availlable.</p>
<p>And I do not give kids a rosy picture of Michigan. I always make sure to tell students that if they want a LAC experience, to forget about Michigan. But in general, if you aren't satisfied with Michigan, you aren't going to be satisfied with most major research universities.</p>
<p>Anyway, you had better study for your finals. We both know how the grading is at Michigan! hehe</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think it would be nice if you stopped using erroneous statistics to compare HYP, Dartmouth, Columbia and Chicago to Mich. I'd like to see where you found these rankings. It's also 22nd in the nation in USNews, and not in the top 10-15.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Since you asked where he found them, it's pretty straightforward: Page 80 of this year's USN&WR rankings (the one with the bright green cover). Look at column 2, which is peer assessment. Michigan is a 4.5. I count only 12 institutions with a higher ranking: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Stanford, CalTech, MIT, Columbia, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, Chicago, & Berkeley. </p>
<p>Whether or not you agree with US News or Alexandre, I don't see how you can claim he's making this up. He was quite clear about what he was reporting.</p>
<p>Everything MichWoman said is true about Umich.</p>
<p>Jeffl, I am not debating whether what anybody here is saying is true or not. I am saying that Michigan does it as well as any other university. I always say that Michigan has room for improvement, especially in making the university "smaller" and more personal. But to say that Michigan is not as good as X,Y and Z universities is wrong because overall, Michigan is definitely one of the top 15 universities and arguably one of the top 10. In other words, only a couple of universities can claim to be truly better.</p>
<p>It's a shame there's so many people that attend Michigan who think they're too good for it. I hope it's mainly the people posting on this site who enjoy the anonymity that the internet provides. If I started a conversation downplaying all of Michigan's strengths (like so many people have in this post) with my friends, they would be insulted. I only wonder why the MichWomans out there didn't attend the universities they feel they're more qualified for, and give their spot to the people who desperately want to enroll.</p>
<p>Well, that's the great thing about transfer. Some colleges simply aren't a good fit for people. Hopefully anyone who is truly miserable will do the proactive thing and find a place where they feel better about their choice and the quality of their peers.</p>
<p>Incidentally, I sort of sympathize. I went to a college where the average SATs and GPAs were below what I came in with. I got a nice scholarship, but was taken aback by some of the questions I heard in class or the way some of my classmates struggled with concepts I found easy. I still liked the school, but I got pretty snobbish and smug about it.</p>
<p>My econ professor sent me a letter over the summer (after my first year), saying he recognized my ability and suspected I might fit in better at in ivy-calibre school. But that if I planned to stay, he hoped I'd wake up and realize I had tons to learn--even from the people around me--and would miss out of a lot if I kept up with the attitude that I was better than my peers. </p>
<p>It was like being punched in the stomach, frankly. He had me pegged so right and made me feel ashamed. Best letter I ever got (once I stopped bawling I saw the wisdom of it). I did stay, and learned that some of the "dumber" students were better scholars than I were and had some amazing strengths. And the professor ended up being my advisor. Being there didn't hurt me, either--I went on to grad school in the program ranked #1 in the country for my field.</p>
<p>But that's not the way it should end for everyone--some people, in my shoes, would be better off transferring.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I hope it's mainly the people posting on this site who enjoy the anonymity that the internet provides. If I started a conversation downplaying all of Michigan's strengths (like so many people have in this post) with my friends, they would be insulted.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>LOL.....sometimes I do get the feeling that if I don't toe the party line about Michigan, I'll get beat up. I better watch my back next time I'm walking on S.University at night. And yeah...if people really wanna track me down, my AIM and my Yahoo are posted in my profile, as well as my facebook profile. Feel free to strike up a convo. >-D</p>
<p>Seriously though, why would your friends get insulted. Why is everyone on this campus so afraid of critique? Is it insecurity? Arrogance? What?</p>
<p>
[quote]
I feel that you're giving kids an incomplete and perhaps overly rosy picture and that they're going to be in for a huge surprise. This school is awesome in many ways and overall, I've had a blast. You're right when you say it gives "a complete undergraduate experience." Very few schools offer amazing football, Noam Chomsky giving lectures, drunken parties and Sonny Rollins playing jazz at one of your campus auditoriums all in the same week-with it not being atypical. I just don't know if I would've picked this environment all over again for undergrad.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That is a sentiment shared by a large number of undergrads at this school, including myself. There is nothing sinister about not enjoying this university as much as others. I want people to have a complete picture of what UM is like. Not anything better, not anything worse. I feel like some of us want to play up the good and gloss over the bad, which is unfair to kids who are thinking about enrolling here.</p>
<p>There is a big problem, Alexandre, when high school students ask "should i goto xyz or zyx school?" and you tell them that Upenn and Michigan are of the same caliber. Or that Duke and Michigan are similar schools. THis is NOT true. You always speak of SAT scores being "about the same" with comparable schools, Michigan gives no consideration(or very little) when it comes to extracurricular or leadership positions in the admissions process. There are many applicants to schools like Upenn, Cornell, Columbia who have the high grades/sat but don't have the extracurricular and fail to make the cut. But these students will get in Michigan. THis is why those schools are more selective.
I also find it odd that the moderator of a forum is so biased toward one school, isn't your role to be neutral in all discussions?</p>