<p>The word from several posters is that Michigan has dropped out of the USNEWs top 25 and now sits at 26. As a michigan grad myself, I know there is not much substantive difference between being ranked 25 last year and 26 this year, but psychologically, I think there is a certain cachet amongst alumni, prospective applicants and the general public in being able to distinguish Michigan as a top 25 university. When I was an undergrad, Michigan was ranked around 21. </p>
<p>Many of us may disagree with USNEWs' methodology -- I certainly do -- but none of us can deny the pervasive influence that the USNEWs rankings have. I think that dropping out of the top 25 can certainly influence the potential applicant pool and affect selectivity and peer assessment in the future. In this way, the USNEWs may be a self-fulfilling prophecy if Michigan doesn't address its rankings slide. </p>
<p>What can Michigan do?<br>
I don't know the complete answer. But from 10,000 feet, it seems to me that Michigan should immediately lower its acceptance rate by A LOT. The acceptance rate should drop from the mid-40s to 50% to mid-30s or lower. As a result, the selectivity will go up, the class size will be smaller, the student-to-teacher ratio will go down, the SAT and GPAs will be higher and spending per student will go up. </p>
<p>Also, I know this may never fly in the state of Michigan, but the university needs to cut its in-state quota. That will also increase selectivity, giving the university the flexibility it needs in its admissions decisions.</p>
<p>Michigan's endowment is getting larger and larger every year -- over $8 billion now. It certainly doesn't need 6000 new students every year to for their tuition dollars. It needs to spend that endowment money in the areas that need it rather than horde the money.</p>
<p>I hope Michigan does something. I think Michigan is a great institution, but it needs to realize that this USNEWs rankings game can't be ignored even if, IMO, the rankings are biased against public institutions.</p>
<p>I agree completely tranandy. For a school of Michigan's calibre, the selectivity needs to improve. Compared to the other top 25 schools, I think Michigan has the highest acceptance rate. </p>
<p>From personal experience, while there are many smart in-state students at Michigan, there are quite a few students that don't deserve to be there at all and would be flat out rejected if they were OOS. I also think that Michigan accepts way too many transfer students easily from community colleges and other not so great schools as long as they have a respectable GPA.</p>
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But from 10,000 feet, it seems to me that Michigan should immediately lower its acceptance rate by A LOT. The acceptance rate should drop from the mid-40s to 50% to mid-30s or lower. As a result, the selectivity will go up, the class size will be smaller, the student-to-teacher ratio will go down, the SAT and GPAs will be higher and spending per student will go up.
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<p>When you say that the acceptance rate goes down, I think that you mean that Michigan should stop accepting so many students. Being a public institution, I just don't think this is feasible.</p>
<p>You're right, though. US News' methodology is definitely biased against public schools, and as high-quality as Michigan is, I think this will definitely keep Michigan out of the top 25 unless action is taken. What action to take, though? I'm not sure there are any feasible solutions.</p>
<p>There's no quota, just slightly lower admission standards.</p>
<p>Personally, I don't think University really cares enough about what one ranking system says to change anything. If we did, wouldn't we have started reporting super-scored ACT/SAT scores a while ago? It's clear that the the US news ranking criteria is greatly biased against public schools (none in the top 20), so it would be an uphill battle, and I don't think we'd want to become one of "those" schools that tries to artificially inflate their statistics and rankings. Just remember, Michigan's motto is "Uncommon education for the common man", not "screw over the common man so we can be more selective, have a higher ranking in US news, and have more ways to tell ourselves how awesome and privileged we are".</p>
<p>If Michigan cut the number of people they admitted significantly (say in half), our ranking might go up, what, 3 spots? </p>
<p>We'd also lose a fair amount of revenue from student tuition. We'd have lots of empty classrooms and dorms not being used. Lectures of 300 would become lectures of 150 (not much of a difference). Classes of 30 people with two sections would become a class of 30 with just one section (detriment, because you have less flexible scheduling). Upper level classes with 10-15 people would now have 5-8 people (not much of a difference). Local economy would take a pretty big hit from losing that many students (AA population is ~115k, undergrad population is 26k, so you'd be losing about 10% of the local population). We'd also completely alienate the state, both the government and general population. Plus the plain and simple fact that you'd be denying thousands of students access to a top-level education.</p>
<p>When you look at the things that U-M has control over, I don't really see what it could or should do differently. We attract fine students, we retain freshmen, we graduate them on time, we've got a great faculty, we attract tons of research dollars, we fundraise successfully. That has not changed since last year. We're going to keep it up, and we'll continue to invest in new initiatives and programs that advances the institution. We can't control what other institutions do, or what U.S.News does in what it weighs or how it tweaks its formula. I'd hate to see any institution invest loads of time or resources chasing USNews numbers. </p>
<p>For the record, our ranking in "selectivity" according to USNWR actually IMPROVED for 2009. Selectivity did not contribute to the "drop." I agree with what dilsky is saying.</p>
<p>SBDad--we do not have a quota. The state has imposed one in the past, but rescinded it. It occasionally crops up where some legislator tries to add language that will negatively impact U-M if it doesn't alter its residency mix to admit more in-state students, but it doesn't make it into the final bill. I would say there is a loose "gentleman's agreement" that we'll keep it about 2/3 resident. However, as state support drops, and the state fails to uphold other agreements it has with institutions, there is some question how obliged U-M is to keep that ratio.</p>
<p>Selectivity isn't the problem. Michigan's selectivity ranking is better than Chicago's and Johns Hopkins...two top 15 univerisities. Michigan's weakness is class size and faculty resources, both of which are meaningless when taken out of context, and that's exactly what happens in the USNWR rankings. Unfortunately, Michigan is unwilling to manipulate its numbers.</p>
<p>Michigan's PA will not go down as a result. Cal was ranked out of the top 25 more than once and its PA remained high. And Michigan's selectivity rank will stay among the top 20. But its ranking will not improve as long as the USNWR uses arbitrary statistics completely out of context.</p>
<p>From what I can see (so far), all the movement in PA scores among the top schools has been downward. Statistically that's problematic. Scores may change from one year to the next, but they ought to go up and down. Not all in one direction. </p>
<p>The same thing happened a couple of years ago, but I never heard USNews' response.</p>
<p>Maybe this is an effect of the supposed "boycott" where would-be respondents at more top institutions are refusing to submit it, but I don't really know. I don't even know if people at those institutions are abiding by that.</p>
<p>First, let me qualify my remarks by stating that I am from the suburbs of Detroit, attended U of M freshman year (because I got rejected from Notre Dame) and ended up tranferring to ND after freshman year.</p>
<p>U of M is a great school, but you have to admit that it is becoming eclipsed by a lot of other public schools. According to US News rankings, it used to be just Cal but now it is Virginia as well. In reality, though, if you look at acceptance rates and average ACT/SAT scores, U of M has fallen far behind. An acceptance rate of basically 50%? UCLA is around where Notre Dame is...24%. All public schools have similar quotas for accepting in-state students, so that is a moot point. It is difficult to keep up with the California schools (Cal, UCLA) but North Carolina is even a better school in most peoples' minds (judging by the fact that it is impossible to get into). </p>
<p>My honest advice to any prospective students would be to go to U of M for graduate school because that would be his/her best bet (although, I had a lot of experience with the Masters of Accountancy program at U of M and it is a joke...ranked 17th last year).</p>
<p>Feel free to prove me wrong but I am just putting it out there.</p>
First, let me qualify my remarks by stating that I am from the suburbs of Detroit, attended U of M freshman year (because I got rejected from Notre Dame) and ended up tranferring to ND after freshman year.
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<p>So... this is a post trying to tout ND's superiority? Let me help you - Michigan wipes the floor with Notre Dame academically. </p>
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U of M is a great school, but you have to admit that it is becoming eclipsed by a lot of other public schools. According to US News rankings, it used to be just Cal but now it is Virginia as well.
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<p>This is why I find these rankings laughable. Every once in a while, we get some moron who opens up the magazine and looks at it like it's the Bible. Good thing this poster doesn't go to one of the top-ranked schools in these kinds of rankings, if his school dropped from 1 to 5 he might have to be put on suicide watch.</p>
<p>Sux2BU, it has been Michigan, Cal, UVa, UCLA and UNC for the last 20 years. Those 5 publics have been ranked between 20 and 30 since the early 90s.</p>
<p>Michigan's ranking has not changed much over time, nor has that of any of the other school. Michigan has fluctuated between 21 and 26. Cal and UVa too.</p>
<p>As far as SAT/ACT ranges, Michigan, UVa and Cal all have similar ranges. 1200-1450 and 27-31. And their SAT ranges are unweighed.</p>
<p>No, I'm not trying to tout Notre Dame so we don't need to get into that. This is a Michigan board--and as I was once a student there, and still love the place--so I am not trying to spur a mean debate.</p>
<p>All I was saying is that the numbers don't lie...a 50% admission rate?!?! I don't take the rankings from US News as gospel either (only the Ivies and Stanford-type schools do) but ya'll have been slipping for a while. That is double the rate of the other public schools you "rival". I'm just trying to [respectfully] understand how you justify that. Regardless, Ann Arbor is sweet!</p>
<p>"So... this is a post trying to tout ND's superiority? Let me help you - Michigan wipes the floor with Notre Dame academically."</p>
<p>Sorry but I can't help it...this is for tetrahedr0n ONLY...</p>
<p>ACT Average -
Notre Dame - 32.5
Michigan - 29</p>
<p>SAT Average -
Notre Dame - 1405
Michigan - 1320</p>
<p>Acceptance Rate -
Notre Dame - 24% (even less this year)
Michigan - 50%</p>
<p>Plus, check out Forbe's brand new study of "Colleges That Will Get You Rich"...I'll paraphrase...the list is as follows : Dartmouth, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, MIT, Harvard, Penn, NOTRE DAME.</p>
<p>Any questions? There doesn't need to be any debating about U of M vs. Notre Dame; that was just for tetrahedr0n's sake. Bottom line...they are two VERY good VERY different schools. U of M is much bigger so it will sacrifice in having to admit some students with lesser grades. See ya'll September 13th!!</p>
<p>Michigan Engineering is ranked #7 in this year's rankings, Mechanical Engineering and Industrial Engineering are both ranked #2. I honestly don't understand why there's such a discrepancy between our overall engineering ranking and the individual departmental rankings. </p>
<p>We have so much breadth and depth, should be ranked 4-5. Even our smallest departments like Material Science is ranked 2.</p>
<p>Something new to the usnews rankings this year, is the high school counselor ranking, and in that, Michigan is ranked #20, tied with Notre Dame, WUSTL, UNC, and Rice, with a score of 4.5.</p>