<p>
</p>
<p>The OP is an international student from the Philippines. So when he refers to “our senator”, he was referring to his sensator in the Philippines.</p>
<p>The OP is not (yet) a student at Michigan, and likely not even a citizen of the USA. It would be odd for him to refer to a Michigan senator as “our senator”.</p>
<p>Wow, ring<em>of</em>fire, your post #170 was full of highly debatable claims and inaccuracies. </p>
<p>“Michigan does NOT do well with 4. For a university of Michigan’s size with a giant business and engineering schools, losing out on a TOTAL NUMBER basis by almost 2 times to Duke and by almost 4 times to Dartmouth is not something you should be proud of, considering you think Michigan and Dartmouth are “peers”.”</p>
<p>Actually ring<em>of</em>fire, Michigan does very well in placing students in IBanking internships. A list from one intern at one investment bank is no basis for comparison whatsoever and is in fact completely inadmissible. Those alledged numbner of interns from various universities are not validated by any authorized or legitimate source. Furthermore, even if those figures were somehow validated, it still remains one office at one bank. You would have to look at at least 6-8 IBanks to get any sort of comprable data. If you want to make comparisons between universities in terms of internship or full time placements, either use data released by:</p>
<p>1) The universities you are comparing
2) The companies (top 10 or so) in the industries you are referring to</p>
<p>From Ross alone last year, over 60 undergrads had internships at 9 major IBanks: </p>
<p>Citigroup: 9
Credit Suisse: 8
JP Morgan: 8
Bank of America: 7
Deutsche Bank: 7
Morgan Stanley: 7
UBS: 7
Goldman Sachs: 5
Lehman Brothers (RIP): 4</p>
<p>Another 71 Ross undergrads landed full time jobs with those 9 (now 8) major IBanks.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bus.umich.edu/pdf/EmploymentProfile2008.pdf[/url]”>http://www.bus.umich.edu/pdf/EmploymentProfile2008.pdf</a></p>
<p>That does not include other Investment Banks that also recruit undergrads at Ross. </p>
<p>Now those figures are just from Ross. Engineering and LSA each place similar number of students as interns and graduates in full time positions at top IBanks each year. I majored in Economics. My GPA was slightly under 3.5. I managed to land jobs with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan on wall Street and at Lehman Brothers in London before I even graduated. Many of my fellow Econ majors were placed in similar IBanks and Consulting firms. </p>
<p>Speaking of consulting firms, regardless of what personal annecdotes and experiences we each have had, major consulting firms really like Michigan. According to a study conducted by the Vault back in 2003, the 6 main consulting firms (which happen to be the 6 most admired Consulting firms according to a 2009 Forbes Magazine study of the most admired comapnies in the US), 3 of the top 6 consider Michigan among their select few “core” schools. McKinsey only has 7 core schools according to that study, and they are Harvard, MIT, Michigan, Penn, Princeton, Stanford and Yale. Michigan also made the “core” list of BCG and Bain. That’s 3 of the top 6 consulting firms. Penn does better than Michigan, but Brown and Cornell do not. </p>
<p>[Undergraduate</a> Recruiting at Vault’s Top Six Consulting Firms: Vault Management and Strategy Consulting Career Information](<a href=“http://www.vault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=252&article_id=14364421&cat_id=1085]Undergraduate”>http://www.vault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=252&article_id=14364421&cat_id=1085)</p>
<p>Ironically, I currently work for one of the 3 that does not list Michigan as a “core” school! </p>
<p>Again, the heavy recruitment does not only take place at Ross, although Ross documents and publishes the figure far better than the College of Engineering or LSA.</p>
<p>And ring<em>of</em>fire, Ross may be a giant in the world of Business education (top 5 BBA program and top 10 MBA program), but size-wise, with roughly 350 students per class, the program can hardly be described as “giant”. Stern and Wharton each have classes of 550-600, and even those are considered to be mid-sized. Same goes for Michigan Engineering, which graduates roughly 900-1,000 undergrads each year. It is large to be sure, but giant? </p>
<p>Furthermore, Engineers at Michigan tend to stick to Engineering as a career. Roughly 10% go for a PhD in Engineering and another 50%-60% start their careers as Engineers and remain Engineers throughoout their careers. I would say that another 25% start their careers as Engineers and then switch to management within their own industry or move to another industry either as senior managers/executives, consultants or quantitative analysts. Only 15% or so start off in Consulting or Investment Banking. At the end of the day, Michigan Engineering students tend to be hard-core engineers. </p>
<p>“Are you kidding me? Brown, Cornell and Penn are better in Michigan in ALMOST EVERY way.”</p>
<p>I actually am an alumnus of Cornell, so I am in a better position than you to compare it to Michigan. And no, Cornell is not better than Michigan is most ways. Yes, it is better in some ways, just as Michigan is better in others, but overall, they are roughly the same. Brown and Penn are also roughly the same.</p>
<p>You wrote:</p>
<p>"They have…</p>
<p>1) higher selectivity"</p>
<p>Yes, Brown, Cornell and Penn are more selective than Michigan. This was never contested by any body here. We all fully acknowledge that Brown, Cornell and Penn are more selective than Michigan. Penn is the 6th most selective university in the nation, Brown is the 9th most selective university in the nation and Cornell is the 14th most selective university in the nation. Michigan is the 18th most selective university in the nation. With a class 1.8 times larger than Cornell’s, 2.5 times larger than Penn’s and 5 times larger than Brown’s, I would expect Michigan to be slightly less selective. But the selectivity differential is not sufficient to make those schools better. Like I said, Michigan is one of the 20 most selective universities in the nation, so it does not exactly lag in this domain. Washington University is more selective than Stanford, but most people would say that Stanford is better than WUSTL. Caltech is slightly more selective than MIT, but again, few people would say it is better.</p>
<p>“2) stronger student body”</p>
<p>Again, nobody is arguing against that. Brown, Cornell and Penn have slightly stronger student bodies than Michigan. The average SAT score at those three universities is 1430, 1400 and roughly 1420 respectively. 50% of the students at those three universities score over 1400-1430. At Michigan, 25% of students score over a 1430 on the SAT. 75% of the students at Brown, Cornell and Penn score over 1320, 1300 and roughly 1310 respectively on the SAT. At Michigan, 50% of students score over a 1330 on the SAT. So, as I have stated several times on this thread, Michigan’s student body is indeed not quite as strong, but the difference again is not sufficient to draw any conclusion on the quality of the institutions compared. The top 50% of the students at Michigan are equal to the top 75% of the students at Brown, Cornell and Penn and the top 25% of the students at Michigan are equal to the top half of the students at those three Ivy League schools.</p>
<p>“3) more prestige nationally”</p>
<p>Obviously not according to all the polls conducted on adults. The peer assessment score assigns virtually identical scores to Brown (4.3), Cornell (4.5), Michigan (4.4) and Penn (4.5). The gallup poll suggests that among the masses (of adults), Michigan is at least as well regarded as Brown, Cornell and Penn and that among educated adults, Michigan is actually slightly more highly regarded. The Peer Assessment score asks university Preseidents and undergraduate deans of admissions to rate universities SPECIFICALLY for their undergraduate academic excellence. The Gallup polls are asking participants to rate universities OVERALL, not just graduate programs. </p>
<p>“4) stronger alumni networks”</p>
<p>Although this is certainly a debatable issue, I would have to say that Michigan’s alumni network is very strong. From my experience, it is stronger than Cornell’s. I have not had any experience with Brown or Penn’s alumni networks, so I have no basis for comparison there. I have known students who were alumns of both Michigan and Notre Dame and they felt that the alumni network of those two schools were comparable, so I doubt there are many universities that have stronger alumni networks that Michigan. </p>
<p>“5) more financial resources per capita”</p>
<p>If you look merely at endowment per capita, then yes, Brown, Cornell and Penn are indeed slightly richer. However, if you include the $300+ million Michigan gets from the state annually, I would say Michigan’s financial resources are quite possibly more plentiful, especially when you consider economies of scale. And Michigan’s endowment is growing at a much faster pace than Brown’s, Cornell’s or Penn’s. I remember when I was considering those 4 universities back in 1991 (I was in fact accepted into all four of the schools we are discussing here), Michigan’s endowment stood at $550 million. Brown’s was a little lower at $450 million, but Cornell’s and Penn’s were significantly higher at $1 billion each. By 2008, Michigan’s endowment had hit $7.6 billion, Penn’s stood at $6.2 billion, Cornell’s was at $5.4 billion and Brown’s was under $3 billion. Michigan’s endowment is obviously outgaining those schools. It is only a matter of time before Michigan matches those schools on a per capita basis. But like I said, per capita figures are not all that matter. One must take into consideration the total size of the endowment because at the end of the day, projects funded by endowments tend to be costly and require large endowments on an absolute scale to fund them. One must also take alternative sources of income, such as state and federal funding, where Michigan clearly beats Brown, Cornell and Penn. Finally, one must factor in economies of scale. $1 with a school of 41,000 students will go further than $1 with a school with $8,000 students.</p>
<p>“6) great service/study abroad opportunities”</p>
<p>First of all, I must say that I think most study abroad programs are a sham. A total waste of time for the most part. Maybe it is because I have lived in so many countries and travelled to over 30 countries in total, but I think study-abroad programs are gimmicks. It is just an excuse for students to travel. Students can be just as well served by travelling on their own on a frequent basis. Of course, there are exceptions, such as students majoring in some sort of International Studies program or Foreign Language. At any rate, I would never rate a university based on study abroad programs. This said, Michigan provides a great deal of study abroad opportunities to its students. Most Americans I knew at Michigan actually spent one semester (many as much as one year) in study abroad programs. And for the record, Brown, Cornell and Penn are not known for their study-abroad programs. I have done a great deal of research on this particular subject and found that among the Ivy League, only Columbia has truly exceptional study-abroad programs across the board. </p>
<p>“7) smaller class sizes(except maybe Cornell)”</p>
<p>Depends at what level. At the underclassmen level, I certainly agree. Intro-level classes at Michigan generally have 100-150 students (over 300 in popular majors). At Cornell and Penn, intro-level classes have classes with 70-100 students (over 200 in popular majors). At more advanced levels, classes tend to be roughly the same.One thing is certain however, classes at Michigan are never too large for the material not to be effectively delivered. The university always seems to provide more than enough resources to students, even when the classes are large. Friends of mine at schools like Columbia and other private elites often complained of Freshman classes with over 300 students in them. Intermediate Econ classes at Columbia and cornell are just as large as intermediate level Econ classes at Michigan.</p>
<p>“8) better advising”</p>
<p>Again, I am not in a position to compare, but Michigan’s advising is indeed an area of improvement. I would be shocked in Brown were not better in this regard. I am not sure about Cornell or Penn though. I have yet to meet a student at Cornell who was impressed by the advising. Several of my very good friends attended MIT and Stanford and they too were not impressed by the advising. In fact, in our many conversations, it was clear that advising at those schools was practically non-existant unless a student REALLY made the effort, which sounds like par for the course at ALL major research universities. I have yet to see any top 10 university (overall, including faculuty quality, research quality and graduate school programs) that has a strong advising angle. From the limited research I have conducted on this subject, it would appear that the more research-focused the university, the worse the advising. If that is the case,then Brown is probably the only school in this discuss that does better than Michigan in advising. Cornell and Penn will probably be lacking in this domain too.</p>
<p>"9) more cohesive career centers"s</p>
<p>If you mean more centralized, then you are correct. Michigan’s College of Engineering has its own career office, Michigan’s Ross has its own career office and LSA has its own career office and not of those career offices are working well together. However, individually, they are doing very well. The College of Engineering and Ross place students into top companies at a rate that is comparable to any university in the nation save perhaps Harvard and Wharton. LSA is harder to track but I know that several high profile companies such as Goldman Sachs and McKinsey recruit LSA students very heavily (more so than Engineering or Ross students). </p>
<p>“Besides departmental rankings, which are derived from graduate school excellence, how is Michigan comparable to the Ivies at all?”</p>
<p>For individual students, Michigan is comparable to most Ivies in every way,from education provided to overall undergraduate experience to quality of life and to corporate/graduate school placement. Student X will have the same quality educated at Michigan as she/he would at most Ivies and will have a similar undergraduate experience and equally abundant opportunities upon graduation. </p>
<p>“Basically, you are denial that Michigan grads on average get paid less. The geographic domain argument doesn’t work with Duke anyhow Alexandre. While a large portion of Michigan grads settle in the Midwest, a large portion of Duke grads settle in the South and an equal proportion of grads at both schools settle in the NE and the West.”</p>
<p>I am not in denial. I just don’t think salary surveys are telling unless they are specific and accurate. For example, starting salaries for Ross students is in fact as high as starting salaries for Wharton and Sloan students. Starting salaries for Michigan Engineers are among the highest in the nation. LSA does not publish a report on undergraduate placement or starting salaries. So obviously, Michigan does a good job placing its recent graduates. From there, salaries are impossible to track. </p>
<p>“Furthermore, Michigan and Duke are almost equally pre-professional(Michigan has a school of engineering, nursing and business so it might be more so than Duke). So, don’t give me this BS that Michigan grads don’t care about “pay” and pursue lower-paying jobs because we both know that’s not true.”</p>
<p>Engineering and Business majors combined make up 20% of the entire student body at Michigan. That’s hardly a large percentage. Michigan is not known for being a major pre-professional school and many of Michigan’s preprofessionals are interested in fields such as Education, Music, Nursing, Pharmacy, Public Policy, Social Work etc…, most of which make decent but not impresive incomes. </p>
<p>“Just admit it, Duke grads are more successful down the line than Michigan grads because they went to a better school. All I want is this simple concession.”</p>
<p>Duke grads are not more successful than Michigan grads and Duke is not a better school than Michigan. But again, I am not sure why Duke is in the picture at all. Duke is not a member of the Ivy League.</p>
<p>“No, because this is false information. You are purposefully misleading Michigan applicants into thinking they are applying to a pseudo-Ivy League school when they are not.”</p>
<p>If anybody is misleading, it is you. First of all, Michigan does not attempt to be a pseudo-Ivy League, nor do its alums wish it to be. Michigan’s identity is precisely what we love about our alma matter. Only private universities seem to aspire to being members of the Ivy League. But your claims that schools like Brown, Cornell and Penn are much better than Michigan are very misleading. And your presence on this particular forum realy baffles me. You are not a student at Michigan and you do not attend an Ivy League.</p>
<p>I read this forum everyday now and this thread is telling. My Parents(From Africa), for example think that the best schools are the Ivy League Schools. They are unaware of the prestigious public universities that are available in the United States. I applied to Ivy league schools knowing that I wasn’t going to get in because my parents wanted me to. The Ivy League mentality is very inaccurate. They don’t have the best undergraduate experience. Ivy League schools are comparable to the best state universities in terms of undergraduate experience. On the graduate level, they are more competitive, but schools like Michigan are peers in the graduate sphere of graduate learning to schools like Cornell, Brown, Penn, and Columbia. For example when it comes to Medicine, Michigan is #11. Cornell is # 14, Penn is #3 and Columbia is #9. As far as medicine is concerned, Michigan does an excellent job in this department. Producing very renown doctors such as Ben Carson(My inspiration) and Dr. Sanjay Gupta(Potential surgeon general pick). Average GPA for Michigan medical school is 3.74 and average GPA for Harvard is 3.76. Not that much of a difference there. Same goes with the MCAT scores. Harvard is slightly higher. Michigan is a very good public university and I wish others can realize that the quality of education that public schools have. I believe Michigan is comparable to the Ivy League because it is very sports oriented and provides a great social and academic experience something that the Ivy League probably lacks…</p>
<p>
You do a very convincing job of playing up Michigan Alexandre, but ultimately it still fails to impress.</p>
<p>FYI, Duke has had between 20 and 30 hires on a yearly basis from Goldman Sachs alone.</p>
<p>[Career</a> Center :: Employer Home :: Recruit at Duke :: 2008](<a href=“http://career.studentaffairs.duke.edu/employer/recruit/stats/2008.html]Career”>Duke Student Affairs)
[Career</a> Center :: Employer Home :: Recruit at Duke :: 2007](<a href=“Duke Student Affairs”>Duke Student Affairs)
[Career</a> Center :: Employer Home :: Recruit at Duke :: 2006](<a href=“Duke Student Affairs”>Duke Student Affairs)</p>
<p>According to the most recent statistics, 48% of Duke graduates in the Class of 2008 went into either banking/consulting. That’s about 700 students in the class who went to the two industries and roughly 450 joined investment banks.</p>
<p>Based on the information you provided, Duke sends as much as 5 times as many students to the top investment banks and consulting firms than Michigan DESPITE being about five times smaller and DESPITE having no business school.</p>
<p>Quite simply, Duke and its peers in the Ivy League are simply on another level in comparison to Michigan when it comes to pre professional placement.</p>
<p>Not really ring<em>of</em>fire, Duke (and other Michigan peers such as Brown, Cornell and Penn for that matter) is no more effective than Michigan at pre-professional placement. I have been involved in high level campus recruiting activities since the fall of 1996, when Lehman Brothers sent me back to Michigan (from London) to recruit undergrads at the Michigan college of LSA. They also sent me back with a team of recruiters in the fall of 1997 to recruit students from the College of LSA. In the fall of 1998, it was Goldman Sachs (I switched from LB to GS with my boss) who sent me back to Michigan to recruit students from the College of LSA. In each case, we hired a couple (2-3) students, and that was only for the London office. I know the NYC offices hired far more.</p>
<p>The links you provided prove nothing and your projections are TOTALLY unrealistic. It is not 48% of all Duke students who end up working in Consulting firms and IBanks. It is 48% of students who accepted jobs and actually reported them to the Duke Career Center. How many of the 1,400 Duke graduates go straight to graduate school? 35%? How many Duke graduates don’t report their placement because they did not fill the form or did not yet land a job? Another 35%? Those self-reported job placements at most universities seldom apply to more than a third of the entire student body. As such, the 48% placement into IBanks and Consulting firms apply to 500 Duke graduates not to all 1,400. 48% of 500 is 250, not 700 as you would suggest. And how many of those 250 are placed into top 9 IBanks and top 6 Consluting firms? 150? Obviously, Duke does not have an exact number, just like LSA and the College of Engineering at Michigan do not. Ross, however, does have exact figures.</p>
<p>According to the Ross website, 55% of its graduates REPORT being placed in IBanks and Consulting firms. If I were to go with your technique, roughly 200 of Ross’ 350 graduates are placed into IBanks and Consulting firms. That’s just from Ross mind you. According to the Engineering career office, 17% of its graduates REPORT being placed in IBanks and Consulting firms. Again, using your system, that would mean another 200 out of 1,100 Engineering graduates join IBanks and Consulting firms. And in the cases of Ross and the College of Engineering, 90% (in the case of Ross) and 85% (in the case of Engineering) of undergrads actually hit the workplace immediately, so the figures would at least be telling. Although LSA does not publish placement records, it is safe to say also 15%-20% (let us say 17.5% for argument’s sake) of graduates would REPORT joining IbanksIBanks and Consulting firms. Of course, LSA does not keep track of professional placement. However, if it were, I would estimate that only 30% of LSA students hit the work place immediately upon graduation and report back to Michigan about it. A significant number (35% or so) would state that they are going straight to graduate school and another 35% will either report that they are still looking for a job or simply not fill the report. </p>
<p>[Employment</a> Profile - University of Michigan Business School](<a href=“http://www.bus.umich.edu/EmploymentProfile/ByIndustry.htm?StudentType=BBAGrads]Employment”>Error 404! Page Not Found. - iMpact Web Portal)</p>
<p><a href=“http://career.engin.umich.edu/annualReport/Annual_Report0708.pdf[/url]”>http://career.engin.umich.edu/annualReport/Annual_Report0708.pdf</a> (page 8)</p>
<p>I would estimate that in total, 250 or so Duke undergrads join IBanks and Constulting firms each year. I would estimate roughly the same number of students from Michigan land jobs with IBanks and Consulting firms. </p>
<p>I will agree with one thing ring<em>of</em>fire; a far larger percentage of students who enroll at Duke and who graduate from Duke intend on pursuing careers in IBanking or consulting than at Michigan. At Michigan, I would estimate that fewer than 10% of non-Ross students have interest in pursuing such a career path. At Duke, I would be surprised if fewer than 25% of students intended on pursuing careers in Consulting or Investment Banking. In this regard, Michigan has a lot more in common with schools like Brown, Chicago, Cornell and Northwestern. Schools like Dartmouth, Duke and Penn attract a much larger ratio of students intent on pursuing careers in IBanking or Consulting.</p>
<p>To sum up, both Duke and Michigan campuses are recruited as heavily by the same IBanks and Consultants. Qualified students from both universities will be treated equally. If you think otherwise, you are delluding yourself.</p>
<p>
My figures are not unrealistic Alexandre. It is you who has too little faith in a university’s ability to collect self-reported career survey data. According to the Class of 2007 statistics, 1146 out of 1426 graduates of Duke reported their postgraduate plans, which is approximately 80% AND NOT merely a 1/3 like you claimed. Extrapolating this self-reported data percentage to the 2008 information, ~550 students(.48*1146) get job offers at investment banks or management consulting firms.</p>
<p>Based on the data you presented for Michigan, it appears that about 500-600 students end up in finance or consulting(including Ross, LSA and Engineering). This is all well and good but MICHIGAN HAS ABOUT 6,500 UNDERGRADS so on a per capita basis, it’s not even close.</p>
<p>Duke: 550/1435= ~38%
Michigan: 550/6500= ~8.5%</p>
<p>Like I said before Alexandre, Duke is far superior to Michigan with regards to professional placement in business. This occurs as a result of the combination of a stronger quality student body, a better prepared career center(more interview workshops/resume help/etc.) and a much more concentrated and powerful alumni network on The Street.</p>
<p>The data indicates that only the very top percentage of Michigan students have access to the type of job opportunities that Duke students have. You can’t use the argument that Duke is more pre-professional than Michigan because UMich actually has A BUSINESS SCHOOL and a LARGER engineering school.</p>
<p>The truth is that all Michigan students in the Engineering school and Ross would love to be in a ibank/consulting firm, but the opportunity simply isn’t available to them because they go to a worse school.</p>
<p>Michigan is a fantastic, world-renowned institution but it is a step below the top schools like Duke/Stanford/Ivies/Chicago/MIT.</p>
<p>
Come on Alexandre, Michigan had nearly a 50% acceptance rate not too long ago. The truth is that Michigan is a backup school for the majority of the nation’s top high school students and will remain that way. The student body that Michigan enrolls is significantly inferior to Cornell, Brown and Penn.</p>
<p>I agree that Michigan’s large public school status hurts its selectivity, but that’s not an excuse since I think Michigan should privatize. Public schools will always be inferior to private universities because of their low selectivity and massive size.</p>
<p>
That 25% difference is ENORMOUS Alexandre. If I were to use the same logic, Duke would only be slightly weaker than Harvard and Clemson would only be slightly weaker than Michigan. Brown, Cornell and Penn has significantly stronger student bodies than Michigan.</p>
<p>
People in my generation, who will be calling the shots in the future, see Michigan as being a step below the Ivies/Duke/Stanford. Those Gallup polls are completely flawed and those academics don’t have enough knowledge about other universities in the country to accurately judge them. Michigan benefits by having phenomenal graduate programs and its undergrad program simply rides the graduate school’s coattails.</p>
<p>Some university presidents are no longer participating in the Peer Assessment survey.
[Moravian</a> College Withdraws From U.S. News Peer Assessment Survey](<a href=“All News Releases and Press Releases from PR Newswire”>All News Releases and Press Releases from PR Newswire)
“Moravian College joins with other members of the higher education
community who feel the use of this highly subjective and highly manipulated
instrument undermines the college selection process and does not contribute
to the common good,” said Christopher M. Thomforde, president. “We agree
with the criticisms that this survey provides inaccurate information and
distorts perceptions of the quality of instruction found at America’s
colleges and universities.”</p>
<p>
Michigan grads are a dime a dozen Alexandre. I’m sure many companies have multiple Michigan grads vying for the same positions so the Michigan connection will matter less. Alumni are less likely to go out of their way and giving new graduates a helping hand at Michigan like they are at Dartmouth, Duke or Princeton.</p>
<p>I will address your remaining points tomorrow.</p>
<p>I guess as a rookie, (This is my first post!) I would like to ask what school I should go to to give me the best chance at becoming an investment banker. My first choice had been NYU because of it’s strong finance program and location in New York City (Of course Upenn is up for consideration as a reach). After reading through this behemoth thread it seems Michigan is a strong candidate. I would love opinions around the table.</p>
<p>^^^^My suggestion is to start a new thread for this in the “business major” section of CC.</p>
<p>I can answer your claims with counterclaims ring<em>of</em>fire, and neither one of us is going to change his mind. There is sufficient data out there to support both our claims convincingly. There is even data that can convincingly support the notion that Michigan is superior to Duke.</p>
<p>AminAS, Michigan Business, Economics, Engineering and Math majors have excellent placement success in IBanking. Don’t feel like you must major in Business to land a job as an IBanker. Most Econ majors I knew at Michigan who graduated with 3.4+ GPAs got jobs with employers of choice, whether in Consulting, Investment Banking or Manufacturing. </p>
<p>Going to NYU will not open more doors than Michigan. Wharton is in a league of its own. Only Harvard and maybe Princeton can match Wharton.</p>
<p>The nice thing about Michigan is the non-academic, non-placement excellence. Obviously, academics at Michigan are hard to match. Placement into companies and graduate schools is also impresive. What separates Michigan from many of its peers is the environment, both on and off campus.</p>
<p>i think the duke guy needs to realize there’s consulting firms and then there’s consulting firms. Most duke guys going to Consulting goto places like Accenture, Deloitte, IBM. NOT MBB.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Similarly, there’s investment banking and then there’s “finance/banking.” Ring<em>of</em>fire seems to be operating under the impression that everyone at Duke in the “finance/banking” category works at a top investment bank, when that’s far from the case, especially in this market (even for Harvard graduates, let alone Duke grads). More likely, they are doing things like fortune 500 corp finance, non-front office roles, stuff like capital one or american express, corporate banking, or random less prestigious banks.</p>
<p>Also, am I interpreting the survey wrong, or doesn’t that 48% only apply to people who are going into the workforce after graduation? Or does less than a quarter of the student body at Duke end up going to some form of graduate school immediately after undergrad? That seems kind of low.</p>
<p>Finally, I have no idea what ring<em>of</em>fire is trying to prove here, or what his motivation for being on a Michigan board (he doesnt go here) posting in a thread comparing the school to the ivy league (which he is not a part of).</p>
<p>“The truth is that all Michigan students in the Engineering school and Ross would love to be in a ibank/consulting firm, but the opportunity simply isn’t available to them because they go to a worse school.”</p>
<p>Really? I know plenty of engineers who’d rather work at google or amazon or whatever fancy high tech jazz they want to get into. For a high percentage of the engineers who want to get into finance, they want to do trading, not IBD. I dont know how you can speak for everyone. In fact, one of the smartest guys in EECS want to be a professor…lol what a waste…</p>
<p>In response to umich2010. I think it’s a combination of a few things in regards to the comments by ring<em>of</em>fire. Buyers remorse that he way overpaid for his college education, inferiority issues into not being accepted into any of the so called “upper ivies,” and his general disdain for the state of Michigan. People like him can’t fathom the thought that a great public university can be as good, or better, than a great private university. To make himself feel better about his educational experience, which wasn’t quite what he was hoping for, he has to belittle comparable institutions to overcome his feelings of inadequacy. Naturally he’ll completely deny every accusation that I have leveled at him, which will ultimately just go to prove that my assertions are correct. There is no other reason for him to be on this board constantly other than the fact that it has become a self therapy session for him.</p>
<p>
You missed out the portion of Duke grads who are unemployed and with GPAs too low to go to any form of graduate schools…</p>
<p>
I know that but the same can be said of Michigan or any other school. Obviously it is very hard to get placement into M/B/B, which is probably why no one at the University of Michigan got an offer from The Boston Consulting Group last year.</p>
<p>
According to the statistics available for the Class of 2007, 77% of Duke grads either went into finance/consulting/engineering/education/hospitality. I would imagine about another 15% went to grad schools(law/med/PhD programs). In this economy, people don’t want to pay more than they have to for higher education, so it seems logical to me that fewer Duke students are going to grad school when they have job offers lined up.</p>
<p>
I’m trying to prove that Duke and the lower Ivies are a step above Michigan.</p>
<p>
Oh, you’ve got me all figured out. Quite the psychologist aren’t you? Oh well, I can now take my “feelings of adequacy” and cash them in the bank for a six figure salary yearly from here on out. If there’s a therapy session available for people who make far too much money, then I will be needing it very soon.;)</p>
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Oops, I think you have the wrong school here. This isn’t Michigan. The bottom 25% of the student body still succeed in life.:rolleyes:</p>
<p>if you realized that, why are you constantly touting consulting/finance as this great job/career that other people envy, which you claim all duke students are able to get?</p>
<p>The reality is that there’s lots of very boring consulting jobs out there, and to be honest a pretty overrated career unless you work for the top firms, 40% of Duke graduates go on to work for Deloitte/Accenture doesn’t impress me. One of my coworkers is a summa cum laude graduate from Duke, who didn’t even get an interview with MBB, and he was a computer science major. He thoroughly enjoyed his Duke experience, and he doesn’t trash other people’s schools. You come off as extremely elitist, and probably not representative of the typical Duke student.</p>
<p>Cleary R of F didn’t take the “Making Friends and Influencing People 101” class at Duke. Perhaps that’s only available at vastly inferior PUBLIC universities 
Hi ho.</p>
<p>I don’t see “Making Friends and Influencing People 101” on the curriculum at Duke or UMich kmccrindle.
So I guess you clearly didn’t take it at all, which that puts you at a equal level as ring<em>of</em>fire.</p>
<p>Oh, but I did take MFAIP 101…it taught me to web wink! See </p>
<p>Now, if I could just master “quote message in reply” I would draw your attention to the comment:
“Oh well, I can now take my “feelings of adequacy” and cash them in the bank for a six figure salary yearly from here on out. If there’s a therapy session available for people who make far too much money, then I will be needing it very soon.”</p>
<p>I don’t think Ring of Fire would appreciate you putting me at an equal level. First of all, I have suffered a public education at the hands of well-meaning socialists, which apparently means I’m completely unemployable despite my former employment at just precisely the kind of consulting firm discussed here (one of the big 4, and yes, it CAN BE BORING : ). Secondly, despite this extreme social disadvantage, I don’t exactly consider six figures “far too much money” (it depends on what the figures are : ) and thirdly, I am of the mind that whether one attends Duke or U of Mich is pretty much moot. If you have to rely on a brand name to create yourself, you’re in for tough times ahead.
Ahoy.
So please, cdz, allow me my levity : ) (Note: Smiley is also from MFAIP 101!)</p>