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<p>Well at my instate school, people don’t have that attitude at all. It’s more similar to the attitude of the Boston school you went to.</p>
<p>"Going to a more prestigious college will help you get that better job "</p>
<p>That’s the self-fulfilling prophecy in the state of Michigan…if most people aren’t prone to being impressed by a school’s reputation, then having gone to to U of Michigan instead of Northern Michigan won’t really help you get a job. People seem to have trouble grasping how much of an academic-snob-free zone most of Michigan is (there certainly are pockets of academic elitism, but they are relatively small).</p>
<p>Schmaltz - there are U of Mich students who are actually thinking of employment outside of Michigan.</p>
<p>I’ve seen this forum too long not to comment. </p>
<p>First, off I would like to thank the University of Michigan for being in Michigan and helping the state. Plus Ann Arbor is by far the best city in Michigan. Now you might think that I go/went to U of M, no I just graduated from GVSU. But, I am not what Sparty likes to call a “Walmart Wolverine” since my dad graduated from U of M Engineering back in 1979. Anyway, the reason that I give UMich so much credit is due to their admission standards and how they help other colleges/universities in Michigan. Every time Michigan cracks down on admissions, they reject even more qualified in state students who end up at MSU, GVSU and various other schools in Michigan. Just this past year GVSU applications increased about 24% from 2010, and the amount of applications is almost 15% higher than their peak year of 2007. There were a lot of reasons for this: more scholarships, people seeking value, GVSU increasing their name recognition, and various other reasons. I would say one thing that helped a lot was the fact that U of M cut the freshmen class down to roughly 5700 and therefore they had to cut the amount of freshmen in state students to about 3400 roughly instead of 3800-3900. There was less space, and most likely more applications to MSU, GVSU, and other Michigan schools. By U of M being more selective, they are increasing the selectivity of schools “beneath” them in the admissions game. That’s why I would love to see U of M decrease their freshmen class size to about 5000 or so, and have about 2900-3000 in state freshmen per year. Any word if that will ever happen Alexandre/MLDWoody?</p>
<p>I would call it the “Trickle Down” effect of Michigan colleges.</p>
<p><a href=“2”>quote</a> It would never occur to MOST people in the state that one’s value or prestige would be significantly affected by going to this college rather than that college. It might be affected by not going to college at all, but… In other words, prestige is based on your car, your house, your looks, your job, your boat, your lawn, your ability to fix a car engine or shoot a deer, etc. Usually NOT that you went to a certain college. In fact, having gone to a fancy out-of-state college would make a lot of people think you are pretentious and don’t have the common sense to know how to spend your money (“He paid $40,000 per year at Colgate to learn the same things he could have learned at Western Michigan U. for $10,000” would be a typical reaction).
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<p>As someone who returned to the state more than a decade after high school…This one’s a keeper although my youngest bleeds blue like generations before him.</p>
<p>And yes, the past decade has caused an large trickle down effect which is good for State as well as GVSU and others I would guess. As my kids say “peace out.”</p>
<p>Has admissions data been released for Michigan and MSU for this past admissions cycle?</p>
<p>Schmaltz… going to a prestigious college going to help me get a job.</p>
<p>Idk if you’ve ever been to a career fair at the College of Engineering for Umich but companies are all over the place looking for Umich engineers to hire. Its not going to be that much at MSU</p>
<p>Also i am an OOS student and don’t plan to look for a job in Michigan. If the general Michigan population doesn’t think prestige matters it doesn’t really matter to me.</p>
<p>Finally, i love the guy asking Alexandre/MLD Woody. Haha… I’m an expert now or something? Id stick to Alexandre</p>
<p>If you want to work outside the state of Michigan (which I would assume to be the case for most Mich students), Michigan will serve you much better than any other MI school. It’s the only school in Michigan with a national reputation.</p>
<p>“i am an OOS student and don’t plan to look for a job in Michigan. If the general Michigan population doesn’t think prestige matters it doesn’t really matter to me.”</p>
<p>Except…the whole purpose of this thread wasn’t to identify why out-of-state applicants go to U of M, it was to identify why people in-state don’t always obsess over entry to U of M (over other in-state options, specifically MSU) like some people would think, given its perceived academic superiority to in-state options.</p>
<p>“Well at my instate school, people don’t have that attitude at all. It’s more similar to the attitude of the Boston school you went to.”</p>
<p>Right, and I mentioned that there are a few small areas where there would be high schools like that…the Grosse Pointes, about one-third of Oakland County, Ann Arbor, and not much else.</p>
<p>Schmatlz, although the point of this thread is not entirely designed to determine the appeal of Michigan over MSU purely for OOS students or for students who wish to work OOS after graduation, those are two concepts that need to be taken into account. The primary purpose of college is to get a good education, but a close second is to better position oneself for the future, be it for graduate school or for career development. </p>
<p>As you pointed out, many companies in the state do not necessarily give preferential treatment to Michigan students. However, some do. I remember at Ford, Michigan students were typically given slightly higher starting salaries than students from other universities in the state.</p>
<p>Futhermore, although medical and law schools claim to only care about GPA and test (MCAT and LSAT) scores, there are way too many more (by a factor of 15 or so) University of Michigan alums enrolled at Michigan Law and Medical than there are MSU alums. So the University of Michigan graduate programs certainly give preferential treatment to its undergrads.</p>
<p>This said, I agree that in the state of Michigan, students tend to be less likely to differentiate between the quality of in-state institutions. Your two points are perfectly valid, but I would add two more:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Loyalty to MSU. Michigan, as the saying goes, is a state divided. I have known so many students from “Spartan households” that would never have considered going to Michigan because they were raised to dislike the school and simply cannot bring themselves to go there for college.</p></li>
<li><p>This point touches somewhat on your first point. Residents of the state do not often realize how strong the University of Michigan really is and take it for granted. That is in part because people in Michigan do not often care about concepts such as prestige. In places like NYC and Silicon Valley, Michigan is generally regarded as an exceptional university, but in the state of Michigan, it is not always seen as such.</p></li>
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<p>Let’s just put it this way. As an OOS student looking to go to college, I never once considered MSU.</p>
<p>Or when I’m in Ohio and people ask me where I go to college, I can say “Michigan” and they know I mean the Unniversity of Michigan</p>
<p>I am in the same boat as MLDWoody. I Never considered Michigan State either and most of the people from my high school didn’t either.</p>
<p>Sent from my iPhone using CC</p>
<p>Exactly. OOS, nobody would really consider MSU but we get a fair amount of people applying to Michigan. I don’t really know how each school is perceived in Michigan, but UM is really the only school there with Nationwide appeal.</p>
<p>Dare I say… even International</p>
<p>can i just say that if i wanted to go into education there is no way i would pick michigan over msu. msu is the teaching college of michigan, it kills michigan at this. that said, i am instate and did apply to michigan and not msu because msu’s math program isn’t that strong.</p>
<p>And yet, Michigan’s school of Education is ranked higher than MSU’s!</p>
<p>I have intimate “inside” knowledge of both schools’ education depts. The word I get is that MSU actually cares about undergrads and training future k-12 teachers. Whereas at Michigan the name of the game is making a name for yourself doing research and possibly hopping to an even more prestigious university.</p>
<p>Alexandre, you yourself have argued that rankings do not actually mean anything. I have never seen anyone, instate this is, pick uofm over msu who wants to be a teacher. it just doesn’t happen in michigan. i do also have to say that i know a lot of people who would never even consider michigan because of the rivarly, but i do live like 30 min from msu</p>
<p>“i do also have to say that i know a lot of people who would never even consider michigan because of the rivarly”</p>
<p>This really is true. In some households, even some with lots of brainpower, UofM simply is NOT an option. Period.</p>