is UofM really going to do this?!

Colleges & Universities A-Z University of Michigan
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<p>EAD, remember that you are now a guest on the Michigan forum. Expect the posters here to be supporters of the University of Michigan and you should respect that. You won’t see us going to the Duke forum and direspect your university.</p>

<p>This said, I do not see how you can say that Duke provides better job placement than Michigan. Do you have proof of that? Can you prove that certain recruiters who recruit at Duke do not recruit at Michigan? Can you prove that companies that recruit on both campuses give preferential treatment to Duke students? Do you have evidence that a student at Duke will be chosen over a student at Michigan, all other things being equal, just because of the name of the university? </p>

<p>Furthermore, how can you say Duke is “clearly better” than Michigan in BME or that, when it comes to BME, “there is no comparison at all between Duke and Michigan.” Duke is ranked #2 and Michigan is ranked #9. Granted, Duke is better than Michigan in BME, but it is not night and day. </p>

<p>Finally, can you please show me evidence that Duke has better overall name recognition than Cornell or Michigan? The peer assessment score begs to differ and I have not seen any rating conducted on real-world sentiment, but I would assume it would resember academe’s point of view.</p>

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<ol>
<li><p>[QS</a> Top Universities: Top 100 universities in the THE - QS World University Rankings 2007<a href=“Duke=13,%20Cornell=20%20and%20UMich=38”>/url</a></p></li>
<li><p>[url=<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1natudoc_brief.php]USNews.com:”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/brief/t1natudoc_brief.php]USNews.com:</a> America’s Best Colleges 2008: National Universities: Top Schools](<a href=“http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2007/overall_rankings/top_100_universities/]QS”>http://www.topuniversities.com/worlduniversityrankings/results/2007/overall_rankings/top_100_universities/) (Duke=8, Cornell=12 and UMich=25</p></li>
<li><p><a href=“wsjclassroomedition.com”>wsjclassroomedition.com; (Duke=6, Cornell=25 and UMich=30)</p></li>
<li><p>[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)
[Big</a> Ten Conference Career Expo - Employers](<a href=“http://www.bigtencareerexpo.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2&Itemid=3]Big”>http://www.bigtencareerexpo.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2&Itemid=3)</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Michigan is a fantastic school and if you want to work in the Midwest, the university’s reputation and academic resources are tough to beat. However, it does not have the national and international appeal that a school like Duke has, especially in major urban areas like New York City. Goldman Sachs was THE TOP EMPLOYER of Duke University students who graduated this year. As far as engineering recruiting goes, Duke obviously excels seeing how IBM, Microsoft, Accenture and Cisco are often among the top 20 employers. I’m sure recruitment of Michigan Engineering students are just as good so people who on this board who have claimed that Michigan Engineering is overall “much better” than Duke Engineering are totally wrong. I stand by my claim that there is a sizeable difference between BME at Michigan and Duke not becuase of disparity in educational resources between the two universities in this area of study, but rather because of Duke’s location in The Research Triangle. Duke BME students are right in the presence of a plethora of companies who specialize in biomedical technology and scientits who are performing cutting-edge biomedical research, which makes getting high-quality internships and research opportunities for Duke students SPECIFICALLY IN BME extremely easy. I concede that Michigan Engineering has more depth and breadth than Duke Engineering.</p>

<p>This will be my last post on this thread. I feel no need and don’t want to be seen as denigrating UMich, a university I have always respected and hold in extremely high regard.</p>

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<p>I have always agreed that on a per capita basis, Duke wins in recruiting for Consulting firms. As in… Bain might hire slightly more people from Michigan in a given year total, but percentage wise, Duke gets hired more, simply because Michigan is a larger school.</p>

<p>If you have a 3.3 GPA from Duke, you can probably kiss that Bain analyst job good bye, just as you would if you had a 3.3 from Michigan. </p>

<p>I actually work for IBM’s Consulting practice and in our office there’s a fairly large number of Duke recent grads, and from our conversations, they didn’t believe Duke was very good in recruiting, and many of the folks with 3.7+ GPA in Econ didn’t even get an interview with Bain/BCG/Mckinsey. Now, that’s purely anecdotal, but the point I’m trying to make is that, these jobs are so hard to come by, and they recruit so little from undergrads, that this statistic is not representative of the entire pool of graduates, going to one school over another is not really going to help you land these jobs, unless it’s Harvard/Wharton/Princeton/Stanford.</p>

<p>It’s funny that you posted Big Ten Conference Career Expo… I didn’t even know there is one. LOL.</p>

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<p>EAD, none of this proves that Duke has a better reputation either in academe or in the real world. You have built a very weak argument. </p>

<p>1) If you are going to mention the Times, you should also mention the Shanghai Jiao Tong University rankings and the Newsweek Global Universities ranking. All three of those measure international prestige and none of them is that reliable. </p>

<p>SJTU Rankings:
Cornell #12 (#10 in the US)
Michigan #21 (#18 in the US)
Duke #32 (#25 in the US)</p>

<p><a href=“http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007_Top100.htm[/url]”>http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2007/ARWU2007_Top100.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>NEWSWEEK GLOBAL UNIVERISITIES:
Michigan #11 (#9 in the US)
Duke #14 (#12 in the US)
Cornell #19 (#14 in the US)</p>

<p>[chris</a> uggen’s weblog: newsweek top 100 global universities](<a href=“http://chrisuggen.blogspot.com/2006/08/newsweek-top-100-global-universities.html]chris”>Chris Uggen's Blog: newsweek top 100 global universities)</p>

<p>Clearly, the Times, SJTU and Newsweek all think very highly of the three schools and rank them roughly equally. But their rankings are all VERY flawed.</p>

<p>If you ask me, the best gauge for academic reputation and prestige in the “Academic community” in the US is the Peer Assessment score of the USNWR. </p>

<p>Cornell: 4.6/5.0 (tied with Chicago, Columbia and JHU at #8 in the US)
Michigan: 4.5/5.0 (tied with Penn at #12 in the US)
Duke: 4.4/5.0 (tied with Brown at #14 in the US)</p>

<p>All in all, those three schools belong to the same peer group, no matter how you slice it.</p>

<p>2) The WSJ placement rating is not surprising really. Duke has one of the most pre-professional student bodies among elite universities and its student body is, on average, admitedly stronger. Furthermore, Duke students are more likely to want to attend East Coast graduate schools than Michigan, and the WSJ feeder rating has a heavu East Coast bias. That does not mean that Duke students are favored over Michigan students of the same calibre. </p>

<p>3) I am not sure why you compared the Duke Career Fair to the Big 10 Career Fair. That is not a fair or accurate reflection of what the corporate world thinks. There is no reliable rating of academic institutions by industry. From my experience at 2 of the top 5 IBanks, 2 of the top 5 MCs and at 2 of the top manufacturing companies, Cornell, Duke and Michigan are on equal footing. However, if you want to see who recruits at Michigan (not the Big 10):</p>

<p>College of Engineering (refer to pages 10-14):
Most major companies I can think of recruits at the CoE.</p>

<p><a href=“http://career.engin.umich.edu/annualReport/Annual_Report0607.pdf[/url]”>http://career.engin.umich.edu/annualReport/Annual_Report0607.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Ross (refer to pages 7-19)
Page 7 lists the most active recruiters and pages 13-19 lists all the companies that recruit on campus, detailing whether they recruit BBAs or MBAs or both. </p>

<p><a href=“Error 404! Page Not Found. - iMpact Web Portal”>http://www.bus.umich.edu/pdf/EmploymentProfile2007.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>LSA:
Although LSA does not have a detailed recruitment activity log, LSA recuitment activity is as great as those at the CoE and Ross.</p>

<p>Even though there isn’t a corporate rating of universities, I doubt Duke has an upper hand when it comes to on-campus recruitment or overall reputation.</p>

<p>Like I said, most of the evidence seems to suggest that the academic and corporate worlds think of Duke and Michigan and peers. If you have a concrete rating, like the Peer Assessment score, that clearly rates Duke FAR ABOVE Michigan, please, share it with us. Otherwise, let us just agree to disagree.</p>

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<p>EAD I got your back.</p>

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<p>EAD, stop it already. The fact that Goldman Sachs is the top employer of Duke students this past year means nothing other than a lot of Duke students wished to work in that field. But it doesn’t mean that Duke is “better” than anyplace else. Frankly, it’s depressing to think that all some people care about is working for GS and similar places. In the real world, Duke and Michigan are both incredibly well respected, and the decision comes down to personal fit and preference and little more. I think you’re going to be very surprised when you get out there and people don’t bow down to your Duke-ness like you think they will. The first day of your first job … where you went to school won’t even matter anymore.</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl, I think you’re absolutely right as long as you feel the same way about Harvard as you do about Duke and Michigan and “the decision comes don to personal fit and preference and little more”. If you differentiate between Duke and Harvard, then we must differentiate between Duke and Michigan. Othwerwise, I do agree with the notion that all top-tier schools(Michigan and Duke included) provide students with a fantastic education and the success of an individual at this point is more dependent on his or her personal characteristics.</p>

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<p>Well, I wouldn’t really differentiate between Duke and Harvard. All else being equal, if I had a student who got into both of them, I’d say (in the absence of a specific program offered by one and not the other) choose whichever of the two you personally feel more comfortable at and fits you better. I certainly wouldn’t automatically say Harvard. </p>

<p>I read something once about how it’s not that the Mona Lisa is necessarily the best painting in the world, but SOMETHING has to have the name of the best painting in the world, so it might as well be the Mona Lisa. I think the same could be said to some extent about Harvard. Which is not to denigrate Harvard one bit! But I just don’t think it’s the Golden Thing That Outshines Everything Else.</p>

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<p>Pizzagirl, it makes me really happy inside to know that people like you exist.:)</p>

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<p>Michigan sociology and as well as some other programs top Duke’s.</p>

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<p>Notice how EAD came back to this thread when he heard someone who somewhat agrees with him. I am sure there are many programs at Michigan that are rated higher than those at Duke. I’m sure it works the other way too. The point here is that Duke and Michigan are academic peers. Both schools are very good. However, that said, Harvard does indeed have the wow factor that both Duke and Michigan lack. I know EAD hates to hear that, that’s why he constantly disparages Michigan. He thinks that his school is held in the same esteem as HYPSM. I’m sorry that his school isn’t quite as prestigious, but that’s the reality that exists.</p>

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<p>Actually Novi, Michigan is rated higher than Duke in almost every single discipline. With the exception of Biology (Duke #12, Michigan #15) and English (both tied at #12), all departments at Michigan are ranked higher than at Duke, generally by 10 or more spots. By all departments, I am including Anthropology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, Foreign Languages, Geology, History, Mathematics, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Public Affairs/Policy and Sociology.</p>

<p>However, that’s for graduate programs. In terms of undergraduate education, department rankings only matter if a student intends to delve deeply into her/his chosen field. For undergraduate education, Duke is every bit as good as Michigan…but not better.</p>

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<p>I knew that actually Alexandre. Just wanted someone like you to confirm it. ;-)</p>

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<p>My wife and I are both Duke graduates. We love the school. And our daughter goes to U of M - a great choice for her - and she chose it over Duke and others. U of M has a particular program that is among the best in the country - and that above all else was the reason to go. She is doing well there - and I have no doubt it was the right choice. </p>

<p>And while money for travel might be a factor, you can’t make this decision without visiting each place. Durham is clearly a Southern town (although Duke is not Southern), and it is much more dangerous from a crime perspective than when I attended. (I used to run all over town, something I would not do now). You need to be aware of the crime, and the general dislike of Duke students by the townies -and it is a negative factor. Ann Arbor is one of the best college towns in the country, in contrast. Classes are likely smaller at Duke - one can find ways to avoid the big survey classes, and for those that need that feel to stay motivated (I did when I was young), that is a plus factor for Duke. Bear in mind that many BME’s don’t stay in BME - my nephew is one such fellow - and that you really have to look at the school’s other programs to see if you like them. Michigan has many more majors - and their vocational utility may be a plus - but Duke has many departments and finding your way within them is a gratifying plus. Wherever you go, be prepared to put studies first - they are both tremendous opportunities and the key is not so much where you go but what you make of it. This attitude is a must.</p>

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<p>Alexandre, Michigan is rated higher than Harvard in most departments as well so I don’t see your point in bringing this up. It’s a graduate research powerhouse and I fully concede that it is far superior to Duke in many graduate disciplines. However, like you said, at the undergraduate level this is irrelevant since most students are just learning elementary concepts in classes. Duke has smaller classes, smarter students on average and its professors are more undergraduate-focused. These are all facts backed up by statistics, not opinions. I think all of those different factors contribute to a environment that is more conducive to learning. However, I definitely feel that the UMich Honors College community is on par with the Duke student body in terms of strength so that’s definitely a great option for UMich students who are interested in a more intellectual environment.</p>

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<p>Not quite EAD. Harvard is ranked above Michigan in most of those departments. Only in Anthropology, Computer Science, Engineering, Geology, Psychology and Sociology is Michigan ranked above Harvard. In all other fields (including Biology, Chemistry, Economics, English, Foreign Languages, History, Mathematics, Political Science and Public Policy/Affairs, Harvard is ranked higher than Michigan. </p>

<p>And EAD, you dismiss the opinions of those who actually know universities as if it were our opinion. I grant you that our opinions mean nothing. We are ignorant. We are not worthy of passing judgement on universities. But the mean and women who make up the peer assessment score are qualified. They know exactly how good each university they rate really are. </p>

<p>Duke is not better than Michigan in any way. It has never been and it will never be. Duke is Michigan’s peer. It is one of the top 15 universities in the country, but it is not one of the top 5. All the statistics in the world cannot change that. Just ask WUSTL. They have been trying to become a top 15 university in the US for decades. And even if the USNWR formula has made that a reality, how many people would really consider WUSTL a top 15 university?</p>

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<p>Alexandre, could you link to those grad discipline rankings? Thanks.</p>

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<p>“Duke is not better than Michigan in any way. It has never been and it will never be.”</p>

<p>Um, if this isn’t a little elitist it still stands out as one of the more drastic overstatements I’ve read on this site. Call me crazy but I propose that Duke may be better at basketball than U of M (just ask Ekpe Udoh)…</p>

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<p>Hehe! Touche! Ok, so Duke is better than Michigan in some things. But I was referring to the overall institution.</p>