<p>posterX-
I would just like to note that we are assessing graduate programs, not undergraduate programs, so weighting by number of undegraduate majors shouldn't be a factor.
Also, do you have any links to rankings for the arts programs. I am aware that I was unable to include those.
The sciencewatch data are interesting, but they only deal with the sciences (as far as I can tell), so they are limited in scope if we hope to address quality across disciplines</p>
<p>Also, I am aware that the rankings are out of date, however I know of no other recent composite rankings, assessing more than one factor. US News only looks at peer rating, while Sciencewatch only examines impact of published articles, while the NRC has ratings that are much more complete</p>
<p>I don't want to start a flame war, but it seems that there are a great many posters in here who automatically assume or posit that Michigan is a lesser institution than Berkeley or less "world-class."</p>
<p>Berkeley is indeed world-class, but Michigan is at least comparable to Berkeley and world-class in its own right. </p>
<p>Here are just a few measures:</p>
<p>Michigan is a top public feeder school to elite grad schools:
<a href="http://wsjclassroom.com/college/feederschools.htm%5B/url%5D">http://wsjclassroom.com/college/feederschools.htm</a></p>
<p>Michigan is the top public feeder school for Supreme Court clerkships (Boalt had 11 in same period):
<a href="http://www.law.umich.edu/currentstudents/careerservices/supreme-court-clerkships.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.law.umich.edu/currentstudents/careerservices/supreme-court-clerkships.htm</a></p>
<p>Michigan has an elite medical school which Berkeley does not.</p>
<p>Michigan is top 11 in US News Grad Rankings in the 5 major professions - business, law, med, education, engineering.</p>
<p>Michigan's endowment is $4.9 billion (as of 06/05), nearly as big as the entire UC system (5.2 billion).
<a href="http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/23/nacubo%5B/url%5D">http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/01/23/nacubo</a></p>
<p>Michigan's network system is 425,000 alumni -- one of the largest, wealthiest and most loyal alumni base in the world.</p>
<p>tranandy- I never meant to imply that Michigan is not a top-notch institution. We are, however, discussing quality of PHD programs, not undergraduate, professional, or pre-professional programs, which is what the statistics you provide deal with. In those areas you are certainly right that Michigan holds its own, but in PHD programs, it is slightly weaker (though certainly very good).</p>
<p>Here we go again, I thought UCLA was supposed to be number 1......
The methodology for national uni's is skewed, does anyone complain about that? If you're an undergrad at Harvard being taught by TA's, and ranked number 1, there's a problem.</p>
<p>PosterX- I'm not talking about undergraduate at all. Yale has arguably the best undergraduate college out there (so does Princeton, btw).</p>
<p>Princeton gets little funding because its programs are tiny. I'm speaking only of quality.</p>
<p>Svalbardlutefisk-</p>
<p>I looked up Michigan and you're right. Sorry about that.</p>
<p>The NRC is best except for philosophy (philosophical gourmet is excellent and more up-to-date). PG's philosophy boosts Yale substantially with minor cuts for Chicago and Princeton. NYU, which wasn't even ranked in NRC, now has the best department in the world.</p>
<p>One problem is that NRC splits biology and english into sub-disciplines, which heavily favors Yale. Life sciences is one area where USNews somehow manages to be helpful. Yale's overall life sciences are at, I believe, 12. Very good, but Yale's dominance in a few subdisciplines (a la Duke lit crit) gives it extra top-ten programs. Princeton gets this back with engineering. Yale also benefits from the division of English. Princeton does not have a second multiplication of top programs from the splitting of, to take a program that can easily be divided into substantial subcategories, physics. This is getting to hair-splitting though, so I won't take it into account in the following. just something to throw out there.</p>
<p>In the subjects in which both Princeton and Yale rank, Princeton wins 15 to Yale's 10. The two schools also have the same number of top-5 programs as one-another. It would appear that Yale and Princeton are closer than I thought, or were ten years ago. I still think that princeton has the edge. I'll revise the list:</p>
<p>Stanford/Harvard
Berkeley
Princeton/MIT
Yale/Chicago</p>
<p>Don't really know what to do with Caltech.</p>
<p>danielvojtash-
I can live with those rankings. Princeton turned out to be slightly better than I thought (though incidentally, when I counted, Princeton was ahead 17 to 14 in top 10 programs in which both ranked, perhaps you accidentally missed a section), so I can agree that Princeton and MIT both deserve to rank slightly higher than Yale.
As regards Caltech, you are absolutely right. It is extremely difficult to know how to rank a school that is arguably the best (at least one of the very top) programs in the sciences, but has essentially no other programs. Perhaps all that can be done is to list Caltech separately stating how good it is in the sciences, but that it can't be ranked since it lacks programs in other areas.</p>
<p>I enjoyed this discussion greatly: I certainly feel that I'm better informed than I was before.</p>
<p>We might be using different sites. I'm not using the nrc site, it's some grad ranking program that uses their data.</p>
<p>You responded with exceptional civility to my strongly worded but unsubstantiated statements. I'm very impressed.</p>
<p>Come on...Purdue more international than say Georgetown...ridiculous.</p>
<ol>
<li>University of Minnesota Twin Cities<br></li>
</ol>
<p>Can someone just tell me why the heck minnesota is ranked that high?</p>
<p>"Michigan has an elite medical school which Berkeley does not."</p>
<p>I think you could say that Berkeley has UCSF, one of the world's best medical schools, although it is not on the central campus like Mich's is.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think you could say that Berkeley has UCSF, one of the world's best medical schools, although it is not on the central campus like Mich's is.
[/quote]
Do the profs from UCSF and Cal do collaborative research on regular basis? Do they have profs jointly posted at both schools? Can Cal's undergraduate and graduate students do research at UCSF facilities and under the guidance of UCSF faculties for credit and/or thesis? If not, then it's not the same ... 'cause it's what they do at Michigan.</p>
<p>There is a discrepency with the print edition and the online edition. I picked up the magazine in London and there is a three way tie between Penn, Duke and Princeton at 13 and a two way tie at 14 between Tokyo and Imperial. Toronto is ranked 15th in the Magazine edition and Mcgill 37 not 18 and 42 respectively like the Online edition. Anyone know what happened?</p>
<p>Umich is overrated and comparable to publics like Penn State and William and Mary for Ugrad. For grad it is quite another story. This is the absolute truth and I don't need a Umich troll with 1 post to tell me otherwise (AKA GOblue's alias).</p>
<p>PSU and WM are not very comparable for undergrad so your whole point is BS. Umich is certainly as good as NYU for undergrad.</p>
<p>Good enough. Cal > Umich = NYU.</p>
<p>Sternman,
Aren't you in the wrong thread? This thread is about ranking the world's global universities. The methodology clearly states that "highly-cited researchers, articles published, and library volumes" are part of the contributing factors. Thus this is a ranking of the reputation of the whole university, not just for undergrad education.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Umich is ... comparable to publics like ... William and Mary for Ugrad.
[/quote]
I suppose I should take it as a compliment ... that you are comparing Michigan to W&M for undergrad focus.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Umich = NYU
[/quote]
No, this poll ranks Michigan 11th and NYU 39th. If you are interested in undergrad ranking, US News ranks Michigan 24th and NYU 34th. That's not equal.</p>
<p>p.s. Troll? I thought it's quite obvious where my alliance lies.</p>
<p>What do you think the USN&WR is doing by publishing an annual ranking? (LOL) These are all commercial academic polls, people. To my knowledge, the only non-commercial academic poll in existence is the NRC Report, and that evaluates the grad programs. Every single commercial academic poll has its share of critics. That would even include the USN&WR with a blatant bias toward the smaller private undergrad programs. </p>
<p>There are good and bad points to all of these polls. All of the schools listed at the top are great schools in the Newsweek poll. Also it's nice to see top public schools like Berkeley and Michigan getting credit for their strong academic programs across the board. Like all international academic polls, this Newsweek poll is an overall ranking of the colleges. That would include graduate as well as undergraduate education.</p>
<p>It's ok, Sternman. One day NYU might be half as good as Michigan. LOL. No matter how many times you write it, this isn't going to change the fact that Michigan outranks NYU in every major academic poll I've seen. NYU is a good school. It just doesn't have all of the highly regarded programs, departments, & schools across the board that Michigan has. NYU is more of a recent up-and-coming school that is highly overrated IMHO.</p>
<p>I think it's a fine ranking, I don't know why it's had such a harsh reaction. The methodology is quite clear in stating it has nothing to do with the quality of undergrad education. Its primary focus is research</p>