<p>“Hell, I can give you an example of the ridiculousness of the peer assessment surveys. University of Virginia is ranked higher than UNC-Chapel Hill and UCLA, despite the latter two having much stronger graduate programs and having similar student bodies. That alone should cause you to question its credibility.”</p>
<p>They are all below Michigan in PA scores. :-)</p>
<p>@rjkofnovi </p>
<p>Way to completely miss my point and ignore the evidence I just provided you with.</p>
<p>You’ve been refusing to provide evidence for your claims and ignore the support I provide for mine. When I challenged you to show me how the large number of Asian-American students at UCLA somehow affects its reputation rankings with college ranking authorities, even ones that are British and not Asian, you failed to do so by ignoring my challenge to support that claim. You know what they say…claims that are made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. </p>
<p>You also ignored the legitimate criticisms of the PSNWR peer assessment surveys I mentioned earlier. It’s a shame, really. The sources online that detail such criticisms make for valuable reading in my humble opinion. You didn’t even try to explain or justify the strange fact that some schools on that the PA survey are higher ranked than others despite having substantially weaker graduate programs than some of the schools they are higher ranked than.</p>
<p>I mean, if you’re not going to debate in good faith, as I’ve tried to(I readily acknowledged Michigan’s superiority in business, law, and engineering as examples), there’s really no point in carrying on this discussion with you. See you later. </p>
<p>As a Bruin, I say “Go Blue!” to all of you.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Think about it this way, if your collegetown was only 40 mins away from a major city like Philadelphia, SF, or Atlanta wouldn’t you want to be there at least twice a month? A larger city has more attractions, entertainment, etc.</p>
<p>It’s no secret that although Berkeley is nice, many of their students still flock to SF on the weekends. </p>
<p>@ForeverAlone </p>
<p>Well, even if Berkeley students have San Francisco and Michigan students have…Detroit, Ann Arbor seems to generally be considered one of the best college towns in the nation.</p>
<p>And I don’t think Ann Arbor has the crime problem that Berkeley does, lol.</p>
<p>The only reason I can see UCLA being ranked higher than Michigan is the fact that it is harder to matriculate. </p>
<p>Actually rjk, the reason why UCLA is ranked slightly higher than Michigan is because it is ranked higher in the Faculty Resources and Financial Resources categories. Don’t ask me how a university with an endowment one third that of ours can have a higher Financial Resources rank! ;)</p>
<p>RE rjk’s post as to difficulty of matriculation</p>
<p>UCLA is said to be a better school, and that may be so. One measurable dimension should be academic attainment of matriculating students. Per fatsquirrel in a prior comment: “UCLA received over 100,000 applications this year and UCB had just over 90,000. Michigan had ‘only’ about 50,000 apply.”</p>
<p>I’ve already noted, above, that California has a population that is 4 times the size of Michigan, which should provide a clear edge to the Cal system given the common application. Note that whatever the input population, the resulting enrollments are nearly identical in size/numbers at both the undergraduate and graduate level.</p>
<p>Now, let’s look at the common data sets for enrolled students (NOT ACCEPTED, BUT ENROLLED) for the 2013-2014 cycle (Michigan) and the "Fall 2013 cycle (UCLA). These figures appear to be the latest cycle published:</p>
<hr>
<p><a href=“http://obp.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/pubdata/cds/cds_2013-2014_umaa.pdf”>http://obp.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/pubdata/cds/cds_2013-2014_umaa.pdf</a></p>
<p>This page is a free standing .pdf with no “toggle” required, hence no source error as to year possible</p>
<p>C9 25th Percentile 75th Percentile:
C9 SAT Critical Reading 620 720
C9 SAT Math 660 760</p>
<p>Michigan’s above interquartile range (old scale) is 1280-1480 on the SAT.</p>
<p>ACT Composite ACT English ACT Math for the population bucket above the Ivy 25th percentile is a composite of 63.1%:
C9 30-36 63.1% 68.9% 57.3% composite/English/Math
The Michigan interquartile composite ACT is 28-32</p>
<p>GPA above 3.75 is 76.2% of the enrolled population. </p>
<hr>
<p><a href=“http://www.aim.ucla.edu/profiles/cds.aspx”>http://www.aim.ucla.edu/profiles/cds.aspx</a></p>
<p>This page has a “toggle switch” which I triple-checked to be equal to “Fall 2013) and witch appears to be the most recent set of figures available.</p>
<p>80,522 applicants, so “over 100,000” appears a bit exaggerated (again, this is cycle dependent, so applications may indeed be up 20% cycle over cycle). </p>
<p>The SAT interquartile range is
1170-1440 on the old scale, thus lower than Michigan at both the lower bound (a full standard deviation) and upper bound (nearly one half standard deviation).</p>
<p>25th Percentile 75th Percentile
SAT Critical Reading 570 690
SAT Math 600 750</p>
<pre><code>25th Percentile 75th Percentile
</code></pre>
<p>ACT Composite 25 32
ACT Math 26 33
ACT English 25 33</p>
<p>The composite interquartile ACT is 25-32. The ACT composite above the Ivy 25th percentile is 48.9% of the population, far smaller than Michigan’s 63.1%</p>
<p>ACT Comp ACT Math ACT English
30-36 48.9 % 46.3 % 50.3 %</p>
<p>GPA above 3.75 at 94.2% is nearly 20 percentage points larger than Michigan
Percent who had GPA of 3.75 and higher 94.2 %</p>
<p>It seems to me to be reasonable to summarize the numbers thusly: 1) despite experiencing an application edge of roughly 30,000 additional applicants, UCLA enrolls a cohort which has systematically lower and upper bounds for the SAT; 2) a systematically lower percentage of the population in the ACT bucket at/above the Ivy 25th percentile; 3) a far lower lower bound at the 25th percentile for the ACT (which seems congruent with the lower SAT bound); 4) systematically more students with higher GPAs; 5) I assume that the SAT and ACT are nationally standardized. As to GPA, I know that Michigan calculates a so-called unweighted GPA, but don’t know how UCLA calculates its GPA. </p>
<p>It seems reasonable (not definitive) to assume that given the clear edge which Michigan has relative to board scores, that either Michigan students are lazy, or UM emphasizes aptitude (board scores) over achievement (GPA) or UCLA presents GPAs which are somewhat inflated by regional factors or internal weighting practices. A final thought is that the size of the UCLA higher-GPA-cohort may benefit from the larger cohort applying, but it seems hard to argue that in light of the clear Michigan edge in board scores.</p>
<hr>
<p>In conclusion, UCLA is said to be the better school: 1) despite a far smaller endowment and research budget (I believe these numbers contribute to “faculty resources” in the words of the ranking publication); 2) despite a somewhat weaker undergraduate student body attained from a far larger cohort than UM; 3) despite graduate programs – IN AGGREGATE – which are lower ranked than UM graduate programs – IN AGGREGATE; 4) despite UM having a more highly decorated faculty (major awards and teaching prizes; citatations; patents). I don’t have a link for this last item but believe it to be true from tracking these figures over the years.</p>
<p>So while UCLA and Michigan are probably roughly comparable schools, I don’t see justification (using the admittedly narrow set of metrics above as to inputs) for a #23 (UCLA) to #29 (Michigan) ranking spread. Check out Berkeley at #20 versus Brown, Dartmouth, Northwestern…absolutely ludicrous. Berkeley is a highly decorated and highly ranked research school and the privates listed aren’t even in the same galaxy. </p>
<p>In sum, whether or not UCLA=Michigan, we can say that the rankings are f’ed.</p>
<p>^ You know UC has a different way of GPA calculation. Not sure if that is the reason.</p>
<p>It seems that I was wrong about UCLA matriculating higher ranked students.</p>
<p>@blue85 </p>
<p>The scores you’re quoting are for freshman applicants who were admitted and <em>decided to enroll.</em> I know you know that, but that may be worth emphasizing because UCLA <em>is</em> in a state that essentially has two flagship public universities, the other being UC Berkeley. I imagine that UCLA’s slightly weaker enrolled cohort is weaker because it has to fight for the stronger students with UC Berkeley, but I may be wrong. I do know, however, that the University of Michigan doesn’t have to deal with cross-admit battles with another public university in the state of Michigan with a similar degree of prestige.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, here’s the numbers they report for Fall 2014 admitted freshman <em>in general</em>(These include scores from applicants from the link I provide here: <a href=“http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof14.htm”>http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof14.htm</a></p>
<p>SAT CR 25th/75th percentile scores: 620/740</p>
<p>SAT Writing 25th/75th: 640/760</p>
<p>SAT Math 25th/75th: 660/770</p>
<p>ACT Composite 25th/75th: 28/34</p>
<p>ACT Math 25th/75th: 28/34</p>
<p>ACT Reading 25th/75th: 28/34</p>
<p>UC Berkeley reports almost exactly the same scores for the students it admitted; they’re actually not higher than UCLA’s at all, but the scores of those who enroll at Berkeley are a little higher. I think that’s because UCLA loses cross-admit battles to Berkeley by a small margin and that perhaps some of the better students go to Berkeley. This may explain why UCLA has a slightly weaker student body than Michigan does. UCLA’s yields are also worse IIRC.</p>
<p>I suspect that the scores for those merely admitted to Michigan are about the same as Berkeley’s and UCLA’s. Michigan doesn’t have to deal with another public flagship that’s competing for its students. :P.</p>
<p>Also, take this with a grain of salt, but I’ve read that UCLA doesn’t emphasize test scores as much as it does grades because minority students and the poor tend not to do very well on standardized tests. I can’t verify that, but it seems to make sense.</p>
<p>Also, UCLA did in fact have 100,000 applicants this year, if you can’t transfer applicants. Roughly 20,000 transfer students(Including myself!) and roughly 80,000 high school students applied this year.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m wondering the same thing Alexandre!</p>
<p>As I’ve argued in the past, and will argue again here, while UMich has stronger business, medical and law schools, UCLA has an extremely strong hospital. It’s hospital is ranked among the top five for honor roll hospitals, and has been the best on the west coast for like thirty years.</p>
<p>So, how hard is it to be an honor roll hospital?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://health.usnews.com/health-news/best-hospitals/articles/2014/07/15/best-hospitals-2014-15-overview-and-honor-roll”>http://health.usnews.com/health-news/best-hospitals/articles/2014/07/15/best-hospitals-2014-15-overview-and-honor-roll</a></p>
<p>So, how hard is it to get a top-tier hospital? Well, Stanford’s been trying for years to get a top of the line hospital. It even recruited a top faculty away from UCLA to try to run it. But even after doing that, Stanford fell off of the elite honor roll rankings this year. And if a top-tier university like Stanford can completely fall off of such a prestigious list, it gives you a pretty clear idea how steep the competition is.</p>
<p>As another example, three of the top five hospitals in the honor roll rankings are exclusive hospitals. The only other university affiliated hospital in the top five is Johns Hopkins. So, UCLA’s hospital outperforms other health science beasts including UCSF and Penn.</p>
<p>As a final point, hospitals aren’t just programs. They’re multi-billion dollar complexes. I forgot if Michigan had an honor roll hospital at some point, but if it did, it’s not on there anymore.</p>
<p>As usual, I agree with Alexandre that Michigan and UCLA are pretty identical. I would disagree that Michigan has a ‘slight edge’ over UCLA, but that’s been the result of my very limited experience. FWIW, the current president of my company is affiliated with the University of Michigan. But he was originally hired by his boss, who is affiliated with UCLA! So it really just depends. Both are excellent universities.</p>
<p>With @beyphy and I here, I sense an impending war between UCLA and UMich on this forum, lol</p>
<p>Are hospitals even included in graduate school rankings?</p>
<p>" I imagine that UCLA’s slightly weaker enrolled cohort is weaker because it has to fight for the stronger students with UC Berkeley,"</p>
<p>Not sure how much of a factor that would be in a state that has four times the population of Michigan. There should be more than enough top students to fill up both schools. </p>
<p>Hospitals, unlike medical schools, are not necessarily connected to universities. So they’re not included in graduate school rankings because you can be a hospital and not be part of a school. That being said, at least ten of the hospitals in the honor roll list are affiliated with universities. And many top medical schools use these hospitals as teaching hospitals. (Some) doctors at hospitals do research and publish papers, so it’s not much of a stretch to include university hospitals (especially honor roll ones) in the rankings of universities.</p>
<p>EDIT: there was a mistake in my last post. UCLA is actually one of three university hospitals in the top five. I didn’t know Massachusetts General Hospital was affiliated with Harvard.</p>
<p>EDIT 2: and apparently Brigham and Women’s Hospital is affiliated with Harvard too…</p>
<p>Therefore beyphy, your comment about UCLA having a highly ranked hospital really isn’t germane to this discussion. </p>
<p>Cayton: several thoughts…</p>
<p>0) The scores which I presented above are an apples to apples comparison based on each school’s official data for ENROLLED students as captured by their common data sets (CDS). As I understand it, the CDS is “official” and not readily subject to “marketing” manipulations to put a gloss on the figures. The data which you present below appears to be “aspirational”, that is the students UCLA wished it had enrolled. Unfortunately, one of the reason’s UCLA’s yield is not 100% is partially due to the fact that stronger students who were admitted did not attend. This is true for all schools including Michigan, yet I’m not prepared to provide a comparable unofficial adjustment and therefore necessarily arbitrary adjustment to the Michigan figures;</p>
<p>1) “The scores you’re quoting are for freshman applicants who were admitted and <em>decided to enroll.</em>” </p>
<p> I’m not clear on the import of this statement, inasmuch as it is true for all schools. Unfortunately, you have to measure your class by the people who actually enrolled, not the people who you wish had enrolled;</p>
<p>2) “I know you know that, but that may be worth emphasizing because UCLA <em>is</em> in a state that essentially has two flagship public universities, the other being UC Berkeley. I imagine that UCLA’s slightly weaker enrolled cohort is weaker because it has to fight for the stronger students with UC Berkeley, but I may be wrong. I do know, however, that the University of Michigan doesn’t have to deal with cross-admit battles with another public university in the state of Michigan with a similar degree of prestige.” </p>
<p> anecdotal evidence suggest that it takes 5MM of population to support a national quality research university. Michigan has 9.9MM population and California has 38.34MM. Michigan can support 2 such schools and California 7 such schools. UCLA is ranked roughly 3rd in the rankings of the California schools (ignoring Caltech due to size) and should have zero trouble attracting a very strong cohort. Much has been made of Michigan being in a recession/depression, yet UM continues to draw in students;</p>
<p>3) “For what it’s worth, here’s the numbers they report for Fall 2014 admitted freshman <em>in general</em>(These include scores from applicants from the link I provide here:<a href=“http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof14.htm”>http://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/adm_fr/Frosh_Prof14.htm</a></p>
<p>SAT CR 25th/75th percentile scores: 620/740</p>
<p>SAT Writing 25th/75th: 640/760</p>
<p>SAT Math 25th/75th: 660/770</p>
<p>ACT Composite 25th/75th: 28/34</p>
<p>ACT Math 25th/75th: 28/34</p>
<p>ACT Reading 25th/75th: 28/34”</p>
<p>Unfortunately the figure for ADMITTED students which you present above is not worth much for several reasons: 1) the page clearly states that the % enrolled is n/a because they are kids who are NOT enrolled, merely, as you note, those admitted; 2) as I note above, there is a VERY LARGE negative spread at both the lower and upper boundary between the kids admitted and the kids ACTUALLY enrolled; 3) this negative spread probably occurs at all schools to a greater or lesser degree and makes a strong argument for the CDS as a somewhat “official” and therefore comparable yardstick;</p>
<p>The reason to use the common data set is that: a) the CDS includes kids who are enrolled and thus not hypothetical but actual students; b) all schools probably admit a more qualified class than those who actually attend. As indicated, for UCLA, the ENROLLED interquartile range is 1170-1440 on the old scale, thus lower than Michigan (1280-1480) at both the lower bound (a full standard deviation) and upper bound (nearly one half standard deviation); c) it is therefore true (using “b”) that 1300-1530 SAT range which you depict looks very little like the actual enrolled cohort; c) likewise the 28-34 ACT composite that you show above (91th percentile to 99th percentile) is a gross over-estimation of the actual 25-32 ACT (80th to 98th) which the actually enrolled class evinces. </p>
<p>In other words if we rank, in part, by input, then the ACTUAL class enrolled would seem to be a valid input because all schools have aspirations which get tested when students actually pay deposits and actually enroll. It doesn’t make sense to rank schools based on where they wished they should rank with classes they don’t actually matriculate. Using the actual figure, UCLA displays what you’d expect from a large school (however high quality) a long left tail…hence the 80% figure which actually exists at the 25th percentile rather than the aspirational 91st percentile hoped for at that level;</p>
<p>4) “Also, UCLA did in fact have 100,000 applicants this year, if you can’t transfer applicants. Roughly 20,000 transfer students(Including myself!) and roughly 80,000 high school students applied this year.” </p>
<p> using your own page, the number of applications (not yet firmed up, but the best official estimate) was 86,537 before applications from transfers, which the official numbers may or may not include (this issue is not addressed by your link). </p>
<p>UCLA did receive +100k applicants. You can read about it here:</p>
<p><a href=“UCLA sets records with more than 100,000 fall 2014 applicants - Daily Bruin”>http://dailybruin.com/2014/01/17/ucla-sets-records-with-more-than-100000-fall-2014-applicants/</a></p>
<p>Interesting. The mid 50 ACT for UCLA is so wide (28-34). The admission mid 50 ACT for UMich 2014 is 30-33.</p>
<p>@blue85 </p>
<p>I don’t deny the CDS information you’re posting here, but I must ask this question: given that you think UCLA should have no problem attracting a stronger cohort of students than it currently has, and given that its admission standards are similar to Berkeley’s and likely similar to that of Michigan’s, <em>and</em> that its level of prestige is similar to these two other schools, <em>why</em> do you think UCLA’s cohort is a little weaker, with regard to SAT/ACT scores(Don’t know about GPA), than Michigan’s?</p>
<p>I’ve already provided a possible explanation, and you’ve rejected it, which is fine. But out of genuine curiosity, what do you think is causing this phenomenon?</p>