<p>Mikejohnson1342:</p>
<p>The elitist part of yours, and almost all of the posters in the NU forum, is that you don’t consider any public school a peer of Northwestern, save perhaps Cal. Northwestern is a very good school, but it isn’t HYPSM. Its academics are not quite a strong as Michigan on average, but its student body is on average stronger. I consider it a wash and say are they are both pretty much equal.</p>
<p>I can’t speak on behalf of all NU faithfuls, but I can say I personally believe that on academics alone NU and UMich are probably peers. </p>
<p>You do have to realize though, academic discipline rankings are just as subjective and debatable as USNWR at the overall level are. So even if Umich is ranked higher than NU in certain disciplines by an independent ranking, that doesn’t indisputably prove that Umich outdoes NU in that academic area. Just as if NU is ranked higher in a specific academic discipline, that doesn’t conclusively prove it is stronger than Umich in that area. It’s inconclusive and subjective and very much debatable. </p>
<p>Though, as I said my opinion is that academically they are probably peers. Where NU draws ahead, however, is the selectivity and overall strength of the students. This prestige edge to me equates to a slightly more competitive degree and overall a slightly more regarded school.</p>
<p>I would consider consider Cal, UCLA and Umich all peer schools to Northwestern. I just think Northwestern is probably leading the pack in this peer group, maybe alongside Cal.</p>
<p>I never said Umich and Northwestern are on two different wavelengths --they’re not. I just think between the two NU has a slight edge.</p>
<p>Mikejohnson, there is a false sense of elitism among students at top private universities that is validated by the USNWR college rankings. This diminishes among the alums as real life infuses a sense of reality and humility. I personally found it boorish, vulgar and off-putting when I was choosing universities, and I still find it so today. There is no real metric that proves than Northwestern is a better university than Michigan, or that it is more prestigious in the eyes of academe or corporate recruiters. This misplaced sense of entitlement and false sense of superiority exists only in the mind of impressionable teenagers. Once one matures, it usually dissolves. </p>
<p>If you were to ask 1,000 leading faculty at top universities to rate Michigan and Northwestern academically and reputationally, both universities would have very similar ratings. If you conducted a similar survey among leading industrialists and corporate recruiters, you would again have very similar outcomes. Same thing if you conducted the same survey with the intellectual and social elite.</p>
<p>These are interesting little debates…well, maybe not that interesting, but fun. Sort of like pushing your team during the NCAA in tournament.</p>
<p>I see this kind of debate here in New England when folks talk about a school like a Bowdoin or Middlebury. Especially if you are from another part of the country, many won’t know a thing about those schools and certainly won’t instinctively give them their due. And of course you look like an idiot or a narcissist if you then try to explain how good and prestigious those schools are. So, from that point of view, there is a lot going for a Michigan, UNC, Duke, Stanford, Vanderbilt, etc as schools known as strong academically who also are well known as brands athletically I believe probably have some kind of visceral, immediate edge.</p>
<p>Alexandre,
I don’t know if you are right or wrong, but I will say that is an incredibly assumptive generalization. I’m sure in such surveys UMich and NU wouldn’t stray too far from each other, but I definitely can’t declare that they’d be neck and neck with the the same certainty you have. </p>
<p>For the record, I do agree that USNWR is unfair to public schools. In my opinion, Cal should probably be in the top 15. I’d also venture to say Umich should be in the top 20, maybe UCLA too. I think USNWR is making efforts to level the playing field a bit for public schools and I hope they do.</p>
<p>It is not assumptive in the case of academe. Michigan and NU have identical Peer Assessment scores (Michigan 4.5 or 4.4 and NU 4.4 or 4.3). There has not been an accurate survey of corporations in the US or of the intellectual elite, but I doubt they will differ much from that of academe.</p>
<p>“I doubt they will differ much from that of academe.” </p>
<p>While you are certainly welcome to have this opinion, this, to me, is an assumption. There’s no real way of knowing. Academe isn’t the sole factor in what shapes peoples’ perceptions of universities, or the sole factor in what compels employers to favor one school over another for recruitment.</p>
<p>No more than your own assumption that Northwestern is more prestigious than Michigan Mikejohnson. One thing is clear, in academe, Michigan and Northwestern are equally prestigious. So undergrads aspiring to one day apply to graduate school need not concern themselves with prestige where academe is concerned. For the rest, I am sure an reliable survey will be conducted that includes most major US companies in several sectors. Until then, we can each hold on to our opinions.</p>
<p>
<em>clears throat</em><br>
Excuse me, just had to butt in this very intriguing conversation…<br>
“maybe alongside Cal”?</p>
<p>Can someone post up the USNWR program rankings, undergrad and grad for that matter, and see who is leading the pack…? I can tell ya, it ain’t Sam Lee and the Mildcats. :-)</p>
<p>Haha!</p>
<p>^^^Agreed UCB. Berkeley trounces nearly every school ranked above it in all those important rankings. </p>
<p>“I think USNWR is making efforts to level the playing field a bit for public schools and I hope they do.”</p>
<p>Is that why public schools continue to fall, for the most part, in their biased rankings? I don’t see much of an effort.</p>
<p>Hasn’t UCB risen a few spots in the last few years?</p>
<p>If I remember correctly it was 26th on USNWR 2-3 years ago.</p>
<p>Cal has been ranked between #21 and #23 most years since 1990. Michigan has declined from the #21-#24 range to the #28-#29 range. UNC, UVa and UCLA have not really changed much. So no Mikejohnson, the USNWR has not done much to level the playing field. </p>
<p>The USNWR methodology is designed to hurt public universities. The way it lists class size, standardized test scores and financial resources does not distinguish between the way private and public universities report data. At least three private universities have recently admitted fudging data in the first place, but in addition to that, private universities report data very differently from public universities. And then you have the alumni donation rate, which means very little.</p>
<p>Well I know USNWR uses strength of incoming freshmen class as part of their formula. This puts all the publics at a disadvantage when compared to top privates. Publics will simply never have the same GPA and SAT averages that upper end privates do, because Publics obviously accept a disproportionately large amount of students from their own state.</p>
<p>Is this fair? </p>
<p>I do think strength of the incoming freshmen class should be considered in part. To me, the intellectual prowess of the class at large is a big part of what makes a university great. However, I think maybe it shouldn’t be as big of factor as it is currently. </p>
<p>I also think its dumb how USNWR allot almost 25% of the ranking points to subjective reputation surveys. These surveys basically make it harder for up and coming universities to be recognized and improve in the rankings, because the voters have a tendency to score the traditionally prestigious universities the highest. </p>
<p>The thing is though, no matter how the rankings were determined it would never be perfect and I guess there’d always be someone complaining that the rankings don’t accurately reflect their university. It’s not an exact science and in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Actually Mikejohnson, I think that the strength of the incoming freshman class should remain just as it is in terms of importance. The USNWR has virtually eliminated acceptance rate from the equation, which I agree with, and places more weight on classroom performance (class ranking) than standardized testing, which I also agree with. The only area of improvement where strength of students is concerned is to verify the data for consistency and accuracy. Many private universities (and a couple of public universities) report superscored data while the majority of public universities report only the best score in a single sitting. This favors universities that superscore slightly. The USNWR should request that all universities report their SAT/ACT data consistently (either superscored or single sitting). Once the USNWR collects the data, it should be audited for accuracy. Universities like Clarement McKenna, Emory and George Washington have admitted to falsifying data deliberately. If conducted properly, schools like Cal, Michigan and UVa will ranked among the top 20 in terms of student strength, and the difference between them and the majority of the top 20 private universities will be negligible. Even now, Cal, Michigan and UVa have similar freshmen classes as Brown, Cornell and Georgetown. Their middle 50% ACT/SAT is in the 28-32/1260-1460 range, while Brown, Cornell and Georgetown are in the 29-33/1300-1500 range. Classroom performance data are virtually identical at all of those universities. There really won’t be that much of a difference between the top public and the top private universities where student strength is concerned, and it is an important metric to be certain.</p>
<p>I also agree with the weight of reputation. Top universities continue to hold on to their reputation because they are hard to catch to. The very few universities that do catch up in terms of resources and faculty strength will enjoy an improvement in reputation in the mid-long term, but very few universities will catch up in relative terms. Where I think the USNWR has strayed is in the counselor reputation score (7.5%). I find that part of the reputational rating pointless. Most counselors are clueless, and their opinion,quite frankly, does not reflect the quality of universities on a national level. If the USNWR removed counselor ratings from the ranking (they can keep it as side rating, similar to the “best undergraduate teaching rating” for curiousity’s sake) and kept the reputational entirely based on what university leaders thought, the problem would be partially fixed. The other issue I have with the Peer Assessment score is that the rating allocated by university presidents is secret. This lack of transparency will inevitably lead to many presidents either not taking the rating seriously, or assigning unfair ratings to some universities. The USNWR should make the rating transparent to avoid this problem. </p>
<p>I have major issues with the way faculty and financial resources are calculated. In the case of faculty resources, the USNWR needs to make sure that public and private universities report data the same way. Private universities often leave graduate students out of their student : faculty ratios while public universities usually include graduate students. Also, private universities really flood their course bulletins with freshmen seminars, seriously enhancing the percentage of classes with fewer than 20 students. Public universities do not feel that such a practice is in the best interest of the students, nor do they see it as an efficient use of their resources. </p>
<p>Where financial resources are concerned, the USNWR again fails to audit data for accuracy and consistency, and does not take into account that public universities are already highly discounted for the majority of their students as they are residents of the state. As such, public universities will not have to provide undergrads with as much aid as private universities. Also, public universities have gone through major austerity cuts in recent years in anticipation of declining state funding. That does not mean they are shortchanging students, but it does mean that they have eliminated much waste and is common among non-profit organizations and have become far more efficient than their private peers. I the next few years, private universities will have to go through similar cost-cutting exercises. The USNWR needs to evaluate not only how much a university spends, but also how efficiently.</p>
<p>Finally, the USNWR report should not include alumni donation rates in its ranking. This is designed to hurt lare public universities. Public universities have strict rules on how they can engage alums, basically tying the hands of their alumni offices behind their backs. Private universities can pursue alums for donations far more aggressively. Besides, large public universities have far larger alumni bases than private universities, and reaching out to such a large group (often in the half million range) is much harder than it is ro reach out to a smaller group of alums (often in the 100,000-250,000 range). Also, private universities have been dependent on alumni giving for centuries, while public universities have been fully self-sufficient thanks to state funding until the 1980s. As such, private universities’ alumni offices have developed far better practices when it comes to receiving donations, and those in turn leads to higher donation rates. There are also differences in reporting styles. Some private universities have very “creative” ways of reporting donations, such as breaking a donation into different years by agreeing with the alum that the donation will be split into 5 or 10 years. Public universities do not resort to such tricks. Bottom line, alumni giving rates are not telling and should not be used as a criterion for ranking universities.</p>
<p>Basically, there are many flaws with the USNWR, most of which favor private universities and cripple public universities, that need to be remedied. If they are fixed, I am fairly certain that publics will be ranked much higher.</p>
<p>Im curious, Alexandre, in your estimation, where would you personally rank Umichigan on overal rankings at the undergraduate level?</p>
<p>
I don’t believe it’s because of large amounts of students from their own state, but rather publics accept and enroll a larger cohort of students vs. smaller privates. As the student population becomes larger, statistics will say that average SAT scores will start to trend towards national medians.</p>
<p>Yeah, you’re right. That is probably partially to blame, too.</p>
<p>“Im curious, Alexandre, in your estimation, where would you personally rank Umichigan on overal rankings at the undergraduate level?”</p>
<p>Good question Mikejohnson. I am in favor of grouping universities rather than ranking them. Group 1 would include Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale. Group 2 would include a dozen universities; Brown, Cal, Caltech, Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Northwestern and Penn. Within that group, I personally believe that Cal, Caltech, Chicago and Columbia are a slight notch above the others. So, if I had to give a conservative estimate, I think Michigan belongs in the 10-17 range.</p>
<p>^^^^^Rice, Vandy, Wash U, Carnegie Mellon, Emory, UVA, UNC, Rochester, Wake Forest, Brandeis, UCLA, Southern Cal…???</p>
<p>Williams, Amherst, Swat, Pomona, Midd, Bowdoin, etc???</p>
<p>Notre Dame? I’m sure I’m missing a few.</p>