<p>My daughter did much better than expected on her latest ACT. She's had her heart set on Michigan but her unexpectedly high score on the latest ACT may have opened up the potential for an acceptance at Northwestern, Vanderbilt or one of the higher ranked smaller schools between the Ivies and Michigan. Do any of them offer a better experience than Michigan? I don't happen to think so. We are in-state and she does not know what she plans to pursue, with medicine or business leading the pack.</p>
<p>Better experience? To some they would, to others they wouldn’t. It all depends on the individual. If cost is not a concern, always go for fit. I personally chose Michigan over Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern and Penn. There are literally thousands of undergrads at Michigan that make similar decisions. It all depends on one’s preferences and priorities. There is no right or wrong answer here. From an academic and reputation point of view, Michigan holds its own nicely against most Ivies and is significantly ahead of Vanderbilt. I am not sure it would be good value for money to leave the state unless (1) your daughter gets an excellent MS or FA package from an OOS option or (2) she gets an acceptance from a school like Harvard, Princeton or Stanford.</p>
<p>Back to original topic, IMHO UMich could be a much better choice for many students than the “lesser ivies” like Cornell, Dartmouth. Columbia and Brown could be comparable and worth considering, depends on major and FA. Same with NW, U Chicago. Generally HYPSM trump Michigan, but the financial aid picture can alter that decision tremendously for in-state students, especially those considering med or law school.</p>
<p>2prepMom, my daughter doesn’t have the starts for the Ivies or Stanford, outside of perhaps Cornell. I am thinking her decision will come down to Michigan vs. one of the following: Cornell, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Georgetown.</p>
<p>The schools are basically comparable. It comes down to fit/money – does your daughter want a large school or a small school? Rural or urban? If UMich is cheaper, then how important is cost to your decision? etc. </p>
<p>From my experience, Cornell, Northwestern, and Georgetown probably have an edge over UMich in name recognition/popular prestige. Vanderbilt might as well, depending on location.</p>
<p>Parent08765, there are plenty of Michigan vs MSU threads that pop up each year. </p>
<p>Also, Cornell CAS and Engineering are as selective as any of the non-HYP ivies. It is pointless to compare the College of Agriculture and Life Science, Industrial and Labor Relations, Hotel Management and Human Ecology admissions stats since no other Ivy offers those programs. </p>
<p>Whether or not it is worth choosing a non- HYP Ivy, Georgetown, Northwestern or Vanderbilt over Michigan depends on academic interests, career goals, fit and finances. Generally speaking, in terms of overall academics, reputation and professional/graduate school placement, all of those universities, including Michigan, are stellar.</p>
<p>If your daughter wants to do engineering, psychology, business or computer science, I would definitely ask you to pick Michigan over any Ivy except maybe Penn (if she wants to do business), Harvard and Princeton (brand name goes a long way). My top choice was Stanford (didn’t get in), because if you have a social bone in your body, you’ll probably love Michigan. Nothing beats the experience of game day at a school that is really good at football. Northwestern is a good choice, but I’d definitely pick Michigan over NU. I myself chose Michigan over Cornell. I’d let you know that Michigan’s LSA (unless you major in Comp Sci) is known to have a reasonably crappy (nonexistant) career placement department. However if she does choose Ross or Engineering, she’ll have the same job she would’ve gotten out of Wharton or Stanford.</p>
<p>tl;dr - Wharton, HYPSM are pretty much the only schools I’d have picked over Michigan.</p>
<p>Washington University in St Louis. It is great for both medicine and business.</p>
<p>Private: Duke, Stanford, MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Georgetown, Northwestern, Rice, U Chicago, Johns Hopkins
Public: Berkeley, UVA</p>
<p>We are not in state Michigan so our decisions don’t include the in-state tuition consideration. My oldest chose Michigan over Northwestern. She wanted the big school experience and absolutely loved Ann Arbor. Younger daughter chose NU over Michigan. Closer to home and put off by large school. If your daughter is truly interested in Business, Ross is hard to pass up. Now, getting into Ross means working very hard Freshman year to get accepted. The upper level Calc classes have dashed the hopes of many aspiring Ross students.</p>
<p>I think the peer assessment score is a fairly accurate measure of a university’s overall academic quality and reputation, in the eyes of academe anyway. </p>
<p>Harvard University 4.9/5.0
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.9
Princeton University 4.9
Stanford University 4.9
Yale University 4.8</p>
<p>California Institute of Technology 4.7
University of California-Berkeley 4.7
Columbia University 4.6
Johns Hopkins University 4.6
University of Chicago 4.6
Cornell University 4.5
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 4.5
Brown University 4.4
Duke University 4.4
Northwestern University 4.4
University of Pennsylvania 4.4
Dartmouth College 4.3
University of Virginia 4.3</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon University 4.2
University of California-Los Angeles 4.2
Georgetown University 4.1
Georgia Institute of Technology 4.1
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 4.1
University of Wisconsin-Madison 4.1
Vanderbilt University 4.1
Washington University 4.1
Rice University 4.0
University of Southern California 4.0</p>
<p>What about Wake Forest!</p>
<p>Wake Forest is an excellent university. I would group it with schools like Boston College and Tufts. If cost is not an issue, and Wake is a better fit than Michigan, assuming one is not intent on majoring in Engineering or Business, I think choosing Wake over Michigan is a perfectly acceptable option.</p>
<p>
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<p>Why the gaps when there are no gaps numerically?</p>
<p>UCB, the gap is based on universities with PAs within 0.2 points of Michigan’s.</p>
<p>On my own preference:</p>
<p>1) Stanford
2) Duke
3) MIT
4) UT-Austin
5) Amherst
6) Swathmore
7) University of Virginia
8) Caltech
9) Georgia Tech
10) UC Berkeley</p>
<p>I don’t get the love affair so many have with UVA. Academically there is almost no area of concentration where it is better than Michigan.</p>
<p>Probably places for better weather. Like Cal, UCLA, GTech, Duke
cities: UChicago/Northwestern</p>
<p>I am a transfer student from Northwestern to the University of Michigan. I personally could not stand the quarter system at Northwestern. I am from Florida and being away from home for my first year was tough, but it was much tougher because of the offset schedule of the quarter system. Having to start school a whole month later than all of my friends and then finish 6 weeks after all of my friends started their summer breaks was very tough for me. Although the quarter system may allow a student to take many more total classes than your average semester student, I still think the cons completely outweigh the pros. Often times I eavesdropped on conversations of students complaining about the quarter system. I personally know many people who wished that they would have gone to a semester school to begin with. </p>
<p>Quarter system classes are designed to shove a ton of material down your throat in 9 weeks. There is never a moment of comfort and it can be quite overwhelming as it feels like you are constantly taking midterms (usually about one per week after week 3 of classes) so students just can’t catch a break. It is especially overwhelming because it feels like you are taking three semesters of classes rather than three quarters (excluding summer quarter). Also, I was bothered by the number of classes that I took my freshman year at Northwestern that used grade deflation to calculate the final grade of the students in the class. </p>
<p>I attained a 3.84 GPA at Northwestern that I am proud of, but my memories at Northwestern consist of me being so stressed, and constantly studying with no time for play. My parents often times expressed their concern that I was not allowing myself any time for fun. I hated feeling guilty for not having fun and I hated that fact that I was not having fun. Weird to wrap your mind around, I know. But I really could not make time. Now that I am at a semester school, I am so much less stressed. I actually can make time to do the things I like to do when I am not studying. Not to say that Michigan is not a tough school. It is indeed very rigorous, but the nature of the semester system is just so much less intense than that of the quarter system. The extra weeks in a semester really take the edge off. </p>
<p>If your child is unsure of what majors might interest her, Northwestern might not be the best move. Northwestern has a relatively small list of available majors compared to U of M. There is also no business degree for undergrads at Northwestern. So if your child is thinking about business especially, Ross is most definitely the way to go.</p>
<p>Also, Northwestern just seemed tiny to me. Evanston is boring, and the classic joke at Northwestern is that nobody ever goes into Chicago even though it’s an hour train ride away. It is so true. Good luck finding time to take a train into the city while you are dealing with your studies. Hardly anyone even has time to go to the FREE football games and I barely had time to leave the library to go to the dining hall each night. </p>
<p>I am much much much happier in Ann Arbor- it’s a much better college town and the camaraderie at U of M is amazing, another area that Northwestern is lacking in. </p>
<p>This is my personal two cents. I can’t offer you any opinion about the other schools you mentioned, but I thought you might be interested in my perspective having attended both schools.</p>
<p>though I hear that Northwestern is highly recruited for consulting/IBD jobs</p>