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Actually Bescraze, there is no proof of the opposite either. As a matter of fact, most in-state undergrads I knew at Michigan never prepared one iota for the SAT or ACT.
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No proof of the opposite does not mean something is true and neither does some personal examples. I know plenty of kids applying to Columbia, Penn and Gtown that never did prep either and still scored well on the SATs. I very much doubt that Michigan does not care about the SATs or that kids were "pounded" from a young age to know that since none of my many friends who applied or are applying to Michigan have ever heard of such a thing. Also those kids who did not prep for the SATS had no idea that they would be accepted to Michigan and thus if they truly were top students would have prepped to apply to other top schools. Your theory is unverifiable and doesn't make sense. I seriously doubt kids applying to Michigan are any different than those applying to Berkeley in regards to Sat Prep standards. </p>
<p>I understand you chose Michigan over a host of other top schools, but you are definitely not in the mainstream on that decision. I never questioned Michigan's academic excellence or rigor, but simply its reputation in regards to other top notch schools. Many people do consider Duke a peer to some of the ivies, especially in the South and its high USNWR ranking is also quite helpful. Whatever the reason in regards to prestige, Duke beats out Michigan.</p>
<p>ALso to the OP I would recommend Columbia, very politically oriented and very fun and active (NYC)</p>
Oh please, you're out of your mind. How is Michigan "obviously" the better university in terms of academics? You're fooling people into thinking Michigan is a better school than Duke when it is clearly not. Undergraduate rankings of specific departments mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. It's just a function of how much research is done in that field by the professors and the TAs as well as their qualifications. It is is no way indicative of the actual teaching quality of the professor.</p>
<p>Seriously, can anyone explain to me what the difference between the #50 Mechanical Engineering program and the #5 ME program? Does it even matter? Does the higher ranked program draw stronger recruiters from that area to the school? I don't think so. Duke supposedly isn't as good as Michigan in Engineering but yet all the top engineering firms that students are interested in actively recruit at Pratt like Google, Cisco, Medtronic, etc. etc. Pratt is WAY SMALLER than UM COE so obviously not as many companies total will come because it would be a waste of their time since the students aren't interested, especially since 2/3 of Duke engineers go into Banking/Consulting anyway. There are maybe like 40-50 kids at Duke who are interested in serious engineering jobs and maybe less than a half dozen who are interested in graduate study in an engineering field. THAT'S A HUGE ADVANTAGE for these specific individuals. There are basically a handful of kids who get access to the full resources of a top 10 university. Pratt is very interdisciplinary in nature and a lot of people double up their engineering degree with a liberal arts degree like Economics. Successful engineers today also need to have creative thinking skills, verbal communication skills, a global world view, etc.</p>
<p>How can a numeric ranking of a program even begin to delve into the actual learning experience classes in that program in a school offer? Engineering classes are a lot smaller at Duke so you will have more personalized attention here. Also, there are a plethora of research opportunities for students to get involved in research at the university. BIGGER IS NOT BETTER. Smaller is better.</p>
<p>Even by the faulty PA ranking, Duke and Michigan both stand at 4.4. So, they are absolute academic equals anyway you look at. As far as international reputation, Duke's exceeds that of Michigan among those who are knowledgeable. Who are you trying to impress here? Members of a mariachi band or famous physicists who work at CERN? I guarantee you the CERN physicists will consider Duke in a higher light than Michigan and in the same breadth as other schools like Stanford, Penn, Columbia, MIT, etc.</p>
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It's just a function of how much research is done in that field by the professors and the TAs as well as their qualifications. It is is no way indicative of the actual teaching quality of the professor.
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Hmmm...wouldn't the qualifications of the profs and TAs have an impact on teaching quality?</p>
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Undergraduate rankings of specific departments mean ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
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Heh...that's because when measured on this basis, your school performs relatively poorly. You're saying that out of convenience.</p>
<p>Believe it or not, international reputation is based primarily on research (i.e. which schools are famous in what fields, etc., with emphasis given to math, science, and engineering) and not on teaching quality. That's why the LACs are virtually unknown overseas.</p>
<p>In addition to all the things mentioned there, we have a summer REU program that for each of the past 7 years has sent 7-17 Michigan physics students to go work at CERN. I don't know how long it's been going on, but last summer I got an e-mail about a summer project for Michigan students to work on the data systems that are going to be used to store/distribute the results of the LHC experiements.</p>
<p>Which one do you think the CERN physicists are going to think more highly of?</p>
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I very much doubt that Michigan does not care about the SATs ... Your theory is unverifiable and doesn't make sense.
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Here's proof. Michigan used a points system for admission not too long ago (prior to the Supreme Court decision in 2003), which clearly shows that test scores count very little in the admission process compared to GPA:</p>
<p>The Michigan Points System was widely published and well known by all Michigan school counselors. In-state kids who are in the mid-50 percentiles have little reason to prep for the ACT if they have high enough GPA. Michigan could have easily raised the ACT range of the in-state admittees a couple points by shifting the test score/GPA emphasis somewhat but they chose not to do so.</p>
<p>I agree Michigan's admission policy has likely changed since they adopted the holistic approach in 2003, however, there is no reason to believe that they have completely diverged from their previous philosophy of placing more emphasis on GPA.</p>
<p>p.s. I'd second your recommendation of Columbia for the OP.</p>
<p>I went to a top public school in Michigan (think: Andover, Troy, West Bloomfield, AA Pioneer, etc.) so I have a pretty good idea of the type of students that applied to UMich and are currently attending there. They generally fell into these categories:</p>
<p>1) super smart kid who was using Michigan as a safety: these individuals usually applied to a plethora of top private schools but either got shut out by all of them or decided that paying like 20k extra for Cornell wasn't worth it, they generally had ACT scores above 33, GPA's above 3.8 and SAT scores at 2200 or above but simply didn't have the "it" factor to get into an elite private so they had to settle for Michigan (40% of the kids in my HS class who go to UMich fall under this category)</p>
<p>2) reasonably smart kid who considered UMich a match: these individuals rarely applied anywhere but MSU and UMich and had ACT scores from 28-32, never took the SAT and had at least a 3.7 GPA, generally got into Michigan but were somewhat rare at my school (maybe 10-15% of my HS class)</p>
<p>3) stupid kid who took easy classes and gamed UMich's admission system: these were the majority of the kids in my school who went to Michigan, they had near 4.0 GPAs and TERRIBLE test scores (ACT under 26) because they just aren't very smart and took only easy classes to keep their GPAs high (40-45% of my HS class)</p>
<p>To conclude, my argument here is that the majority of students at Michigan are either in-state private school rejects who did prepare for the SAT/ACT and did reasonably well or were in-state kids whose dream school was Michigan and only took the ACT and did miserable on it but secured a high GPA with a blowoff courseload. The out-of-state kids DEFINITELY PREPARE for the SAT because they often apply to at least several out-of-state private school in addition to UMich and Berkeley. Their scores usually help the Michigan average.</p>
<p>So basically, what I'm saying is that Michigan students either prepared a lot for the SAT/ACT and did well or did poorly on the tests because of their inability to challenge themselves and no amount of test prepping would have yielded them good test scores.</p>
<p>Far more people fall in to the second category than you think. I go a school that's not considered one of the very top schools in Michigan, but still sends 40+ people here per year. Most of them are best described by the second category, except there's always a couple each year smart enough to get into what you'd consider "better" schools but didn't apply anywhere else.</p>
<p>Let's say you want to go into engineering. You know you'll be accepted to one of the top 5 or so engineering programs in the country. It'll most likely be much cheaper than any school of comparable quality. Unless you have some strong aversion to staying in-state...why would you need to apply anywhere else? Choosing a college isn't always a tough decision.</p>
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stupid kid who took easy classes and gamed UMich's admission system: these were the majority of the kids in my school who went to Michigan, they had near 4.0 GPAs and TERRIBLE test scores (ACT under 26) because they just aren't very smart and took only easy classes to keep their GPAs high (40-45% of my HS class)
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Let's do the math. About 40-45% of your graduating class were stupid kids who took easy classes and graduated with near 4.0 GPA. I presume the smarter kids who took the same classes also got A's.</p>
<p>The question is then did all these classes give out 70-80% A's? And you must have a bunch of classes like these in your high school for all the core curriculum.Talk about grade inflation at your high school!</p>
<p>If you are applying to Duke and Georgetown, are competitive and are out of state, Michigan is your safety. Enough said, you will be accepted.</p>
<p>Given hawkette's data it should be pretty easy to differentiate Duke and Georgetown from Michigan. If you would like to pay private school tuition for a big state school atmosphere in the midwest don't even bother applying to Duke or Georgetown, because only Michigan combines that with good academics. </p>
<p>Duke v. Georgetown is a much tougher decision as they are a lot more alike in terms of size and student body... but If you want a degree in business administration it's Georgetown, if you want engineering it's Duke, and if you want econ it's a toss up. </p>
<p>If Duke and Georgetown are more appealing to you because of the selectivity, location, more intimate atmosphere, unique undergraduate experiences, and lower slacker/student ratio, good luck with your applications and consider Michigan your very excellent back-up.</p>
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lag many of the publics, eg, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara both score more highly than these colleges.
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<p>UC schools are not a good illustration, because UC schools essentially have to estimate their Top Ten % number and the result is something I wouldn't want to compare outside of the UC system.</p>
<p>There might be other issues with the Top Ten % (for example, elite schools which take a lot of students coming out of prep schools are likely to have kids who didn't make the Top Ten % -- but match or exceed the qualifications of Top 10% students at many public high schools). But the UCs are pretty unique, so they're not a good illustration of why the metric has to be taken with a grain of salt.</p>