MIT vs UMICH engineering

<p>To Amused - yeah, that's exactly my point. If we are only talking about the very smartest of the poor, and there are very few such people around, and if the public-schools are really out to help the poor, then those public schools should have absolutely no problem in matching the aid packages that those top private schools are offering to those students. After all, we're only talking about a small number of students that are going to be help, so why is it really so hard for the public schools to provide this match? The fact that they don't want to do this tells me that public schools aren't really out to help the poor, because if they were, they'd be matching. </p>

<p>Alexandre, let me put it to you this way. You say that Businessweek is the most respected. Yet according to that ranking, Harvard is only ranked 5th. In particular, Chicago is ranked 2nd. Honestly, give me your gut feeling, do you really think that Harvard is 3 places behind Chicago? I think you would agree with me that more people would turn down Chicago for HBS than vice versa, but why would people do that, if Chicago really is better? And in fact, in the history of the Businessweek rankings, Harvard has never ranked #1, not in a single year of those rankings. It is those sorts of things that seriously calls the Businessweek rankings into question. Whatever you might say about the other rankings by USNews, I think that it has the business-school rankings more or less correct. </p>

<p>Not that I'm trying to tout HBS, but I think it's hard to make a case that HBS isn't top-ranked B-school in not just this year, but in practically every year. Not when HBS tends to poach far more students from other B-schools than get poached from it. Not when HBS graduates make more money, on average, than other B-school grads make. Not when HBS consistently outyields every other B-school. Name any business-school in the country, and on an apples-to-apples comparison (i.e., if location and financial aid/cost are held equal), and if an applicant is admitted to both HBS and that other B-school, that applicant is probably going to choose HBS. Not guaranteed of course, but the odds are in the favor of HBS. Yes, we can all come up with some rare people who got into HBS but chose to go elsewhere, but I'm fairly certain that when you factor out things like scholarships or location, and we are just talking apples-to-apples, those people are in the minority. Alexandre, I think you would have to concede that this is probably the case. But that of course begs the question of why is that, if HBS is really only the #5 B-school in the country, as Businessweek claims? I think this calls into question the very validity of the Businessweek ranking system.</p>

<p>You also say that Harvard has lots of money and can therefore afford to have large professional programs. I'm afraid that doesn't really answer the question. Harvard is indeed significantly richer than Michigan is, yet Michigan has about double the total students (undergrad and grad) than Harvard does (graduate and grad). Nor is Michigan the only public school that does this. Almost all major flagship public universities have more total students than does Harvard, and yet none of them have even close to the kind of money that Harvard does. Certain other big state universities enroll even more students than does Michigan despite having less money than Michigan does. Hence, money doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do with how many total students a school chooses to enroll. </p>

<p>And to continue the discussion of graduate schools, particularly professional schools, I have to question whether it really has anything to do with 'need'. Take doctors, for example. When was the last time you looked around and said to yourself "This world really has too many doctors"? Just in the US, there are millions of people, particularly in the rural countryside, whose access to doctors is intermittent at best. And what about all the billions of people in the world who may never see a doctor in their whole lifetime? Even within the state of Michigan, I would argue that there are plenty of people whose access to doctors is inadequate at best. </p>

<p>Hence, I would seriously question the notion that state medical schools like UM Medical do not "need" to get larger. Tell that to all the rejected medical school applicants at UM and other state medical schools in Michigan - many of which, I'm sure you would agree, would make for perfectly serviceable and adequate doctors, yet they can't get into med-school. Obviously not all of these rejectees would have made for serviceable doctors, but many of them would have. I think every med-school adcom officer tells the story of having to reject many highly qualified applicants every year for simple lack of seats. Tell all the people in Michigan or throughout the world who can't get access to proper medical care that these medical schools have no need to get larger. </p>

<p>You know and I know that these state universities could easily expand med-school seats if they wanted to, they just choose not to. For example, what is the largest med-school in the state of Michigan? Is it UM? Nope - it's Wayne State Medical. Yet we both know that Michigan has far far more money than does Wayne State. So why is it that Wayne State, with far less money, runs a larger med-school than UM does? Or let me put it to you this way. Michigan, if it wanted to, could easily shift some of its money from its undergrad program to its medical school. Just think about it from a cost and benefit standpoint. Does the state of Michigan benefit more from producing one more doctor, or one more Communication Studies student? </p>

<p>I know, I know, you're going to say that the reality is that med-schools, including state med-schools, are basically having to erect barriers to entry with the real purpose of keeping physician salaries high. Yet is that the way it should be? Med-schools don't exist (or at least, in my opinion, aren't supposed to exist) for the benefit of existing doctors. They are supposed to exist for the benefit of the consumers of medical services - namely, patients themselves. At the end of the day, it's supposed to be about curing people, not about keeping doctor salaries high by artificially restricting the number of doctors out there. Yet that's precisely what med-schools do by rejecting boatloads of qualified students who would make perfectly serviceable doctors. </p>

<p>When it comes to state med-schools, it's perfectly fine to set standards such that the truly unqualified don't get in. It may also be understandable if you experience a 'flash-flood' of lots of highly qualified applicants in 1 year, and you simply cannot accomodate all of them. Fine. But it's quite another to have this 'flash-flood' be happening every single year, where every year, you have to turn down highly qualified applicants who you know would be able to graduate if they were admitted, and then refuse to increase the number of seats to accomodate this "permanent flash flood". This tells me that state medical schools aren't really interested in producing enough doctors to cure the world, but are more interested in keeping the number of doctors low enough to keep salaries high.</p>

<p>Sakky, first of all, Harvard is not necessarily worthy of being #1 or #2 in Business (in my opinion that honor goes to Wharton and Kellogg). Harvard's case approach is not the best at building business accumen. In fact, HBS graduates are proven to be technically less competent than most top MBAs. I find Businessweek's ranking very valid. Why should USNWR's ranking that never had Wharton or Kellogg at #1 be more respected? And by the way Sakky, chosing one school over another does not necessarily make that school better. Most students would pick Stanford over MIT for Engineering. Would you say that Stanford is better than MIT in Engineering? University of Chicago has one of the lowest yield rates. Does that make it a bad university? Popularity and quality are not related.</p>

<p>As for state universities, like I said, a state school should provide state residents with the best possible education. That means placing some restrictions. Besides, at this rate, schools like Michigan are almost no longer state funded. Over 90% of Michigan's budget comes from the State. Michigan give back to the state much more than it gets from the state.</p>

<p>Yet you did say that HBS was within your top 3. Yet, what ranking did Businessweek give HBS? You also say that Chicago is not within your top 2, yet what ranking did Businessweek give Chicago? Yet you continue to say that you believe that Businessweek is the most respected ranking, yet you yourself have admitted that you don't really agree with it. </p>

<p>Don't get me wrong - I am not saying that the Businessweek ranking is completely invalid. Indeed, I also consider Businessweek to be a fairly good ranking. I simply question whether it is really considered to be the MOST respected ranking. You yourself don't really seem to believe its ranking. </p>

<p>I would also challenge the notion that most students would pick Stanford over MIT for engineering. For humanities and the social sciences, of course it is true that people would pick Stanford (but then again, if you wanted to study the humanities, then you probably wouldn't have applied to MIT in the first place). But for people who want to study engineering? I don't think there is any serious advantage either way in terms of yield. </p>

<p>And I would argue that, particularly when it comes to business school, popularity and quality are indeed related. If the University of Chicago was indeed the acknowledged best business school, then more people would turn down other schools to go there. If everybody thought that Chicago was better than HBS, then lots of people would turn down HBS for Chicago. We know that is not happening. </p>

<p>I don't think you actually meant to say that popularity and quality are not related. I think what you mean to say is that other factors come into play. And I don't deny that other factors come into play. But that does not invalidate the simple point that if your school is good, it will inevitably become popular. Popularity and quality are indeed correlated. Given the choice between an elite school and a no-name school, all other factors being equal, most people are going to choose the elite school.</p>

<p>Here is the information on the 'Group of Seven' elite B-schools. The article doesn't officially call it the Group of Seven, but that is, for all effective purposes, what it is.</p>

<p>"...the deans of Harvard, Kellogg,
Sloan, Stanford, Wharton, Columbia and Chicago, meet regularly to share benchmarking
information, and generally consider each other to be peer schools."</p>

<p>Here is the rationale for possibly cutting off Columbia and Chicago when you are talking about the top 5.</p>

<p>"The reason that
Columbia and Chicago are generally not considered top 5 is because they are just slightly
less prestigious, as reflected in a couple of key statistics. Columbia used to have a 46%
acceptance rate just 8 years ago, far higher than any other top school, letting in nearly 1
out of every 2 applicants. Meanwhile, Chicago even now has around a 50% yield every
year – in other words, nearly half of the people offered admission to Chicago choose not
to attend. Nonetheless, these two schools are considered among the most prestigious after
the top 5, and are even ranked in the top 5 in some finance-heavy rankings."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.geocities.com/topmbaprograms/top5mba.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.geocities.com/topmbaprograms/top5mba.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Sakky, I do not believe any ranking is 100% accurate. But for MBA programs, Businessweek is far and away the most accurate. In my opinion, they never rank a program more than 3 or 4 spots away from its rightful place. And sakky, I disagree when you say that popularity and quality are related. They seldom are. Most people are shallow and superficial. They would rather say they go to a school that is impossible to get into than go to a school that is excellent just so that they ccan brag about having gotten in.</p>

<p>Well, if you look at what you have considered to be the top B-schools, I think you will find that the USNews ranking provides a closer mapping to your own personal ranking than the Businessweek ranking does. Hence, it seems to me that according to your own personal rankings,, the Businessweek ranking is less accurate than the USNews ranking. Case in point - Harvard is in your top 3, but is #5 in BW. Chicago is somewhere between 5-10 in your ranking, but is #2 in BW - ranked higher than both HBS and Wharton. Cornell is nowhere to be found in your top 10, but is ranked #7 in USNews. I know you're a proud Cornell grad, and Cornell is a fine B-school, but I think that even you must admit that to have the Cornell B-school be ranked higher than MIT-Sloan or Columbia is a bit sketchy. </p>

<p>And back to the whole popularity vs. quality issue. This all gets back to the old issue over whether the students make the school. You say that they don't. I say that they do. The fact is, a great bulk of the education that you will get from a particular school is from the students around you. If the students around you know a lot, then you will tend to learn more. If they know less, then you will learn less. This is particular true of business-schools where, as you know, many classes hinge on class participation and case discussions. In many such classes, the prof barely says much at all - it usually boils down to the students saying things. If the people in your class express interesting and thoughtful ideas, then you learn more. If they do not, then you learn less. Hence, a business-school that is highly popular then necessarily increases its quality, because it is then able to get a better class of students, which increases the quality of the overall education. The point is that education is not just about the physical resources the school brings to the table. The students themselves are an integral part of the education. </p>

<p>And besides, if a school is known for high quality, then it inevitably becomes more popular. That is why Michigan is more popular than, say, Michigan State. That is the other way that the two factors are linked.</p>

<p>MIT is better IMHO :)</p>