Northwestern vs. Michigan

kazz · February 16, 2007, 12:38pm

[quote]
kazz,
I'm not sure what SAT comment you are referring to. I actually agree with you that there is much more to consider than SATs in comparing schools and posted as much in Michigan's defense on another thread comparing Michigan to Boston College. Also, I think that anecdotes have very little value in making a judgment about the overall quality of an institution.

[/quote]

Well, one of the judgements you make in regards to Northwestern being a better undergraduate institution is that of the quality of the student bodies...

Am I right or am I wrong, you would've judged my friend to be an inferior student relative to those at Northwestern or especially Harvard?

Of course you would.. prima facie, one would think so. But indeed, that isn't the case. and I'm inclined to believe Michigan is more likely to attract students like my friend that at face value, would appear less capable academically but in reality are very capable.

In terms of the quality of the institution, I try to look at placement into jobs and graduate programs... in either case, Michigan is indubitably on-par with Northwestern. A student that does well at Michigan will have the same prospects as one at Northwestern... and ultimately, regardless of the statistics you have in front of you, this is what matters beyond personal fit and experience.

and from this I also infer that, despite a lower mean SAT score, Michigan students are more or less equal to those at Northwestern, and likewise the education provided by either school to be relatively equal.

Perhaps the very bottom of Michigan's classes aren't as qualified academically, but less conventional academic programs afforded by Michigan's size would have to account for some of that, as they're admitted via a different means than normal students.

Regarding other statistics like financial resources and such... I don't see Michigan lacking financially (top 5 endowment) and I'm not sure how important/relevant such numbers are and how they translate to educational quality. Class sizes aren't THAT different, both have world-class professors and facilities... both schools admit talented student bodies, and feed their graduates into top jobs and graduate programs... it seems to me, and I'd argue anyone that really matters recognizes little if any difference between Michigan and Northwestern at the undergraduate level.

k_amp_s · February 16, 2007, 12:59pm

Alex - **"K&s, only in your little world do firms approach campuses according ot mean SAT scores. Only to you (and other misguided undergraduate students) is intelligence measured by mean SAT scores. Do you realize that the mean SAT score of CEOs and Presidents is well under 1300 (under 1400 if you recenter the scores)? Besides, you say that 18,000 Michigan students have sub 1400 SAT scores? So what? Well over 7,000 Michigan undergrads have scored 1400+ on the SAT. At Northwestern, that number is well below 5,000.

But that doesn't matter. Employers know SAT scores as reported by universities mean very little. They know that in some schools, the numbers are skewed by students who took a bunch of SAT prep-classes and by the way the university chooses to report scores. Private universities add a good 40-50 points to their means and ranges with that gimmick alone."**

You would be right if my "little world" consisted of the majority of the big Ibanks (and many boutique firms as well), large consulting firms and even a no. of retail banks like Capital One.

Taken from a no. of articles -

"Apparently some people do. Since Ms. Chan started looking for an entry-level job in financial services more than a year ago, she has repeatedly stumbled over a common requirement for many of these positions: a combined SAT score of at least 1300 out of a maximum 1600. Ms. Chan's combined score on the math and verbal tests fell "somewhere in the 1200s," even though she earned a 3.9 grade-point average in college while getting a degree in computer science with a minor in math.

<h2>A number of ads placed by recruiters and staffing firms set clear SAT goals. Consider this recent ad on HotJobs.com for an entry-level, investment-banking position: "Minimum expectations include an overall score of 1350 on the SATs....You will be required to provide official scores and transcripts, so please do not respond if you do not meet the aforementioned requirements."</h2>

<h2>"Getting a job on Wall Street is a very arduous process. Hundreds of people compete for each trading or corporate finance job, going through multiple screens and interviews along the way. Each screen and interview is designed to weed out prospects. Many years ago, when I was an associate at Morgan Stanley, we used candidates' SAT scores to cut 10,000 college student resumes down to 500. Four-year-old SATs were not relevant to anything Morgan Stanley was doing with new hires, but we needed some way to get a handle on the onslaught of applications."</h2>

"Harvard University senior Zachary Podolsky has every reason to feel good about the record he has compiled in college. A classics major with a GPA above 3.8 and a writer for the Harvard Crimson, Mr. Podolsky is also well informed about financial markets.

But when he applied to several dozen Wall Street firms, most of them asked for a bit of ancient history: his SAT scores.

The practice is not necessarily new. When asked how long Goldman Sachs has requested high school test scores, Aaron Marcus, head of campus recruiting, quips, "How long have they been around?" Mr. Marcus says they interview about 4,000 to 5,000 undergrads per semester, which doesn't leave a lot of time to ask detailed questions about how many calculus courses each one took.

k_amp_s · February 16, 2007, 1:07pm

<hr>

hoedown · February 16, 2007, 1:18pm

I don't think it's a nomenclature issue at all. Nomenclature is naming.
This was just a misunderstanding about ordinal nature of modifying adjectives. Thanks for clarifying your meaning.

barrons · February 16, 2007, 1:23pm

I believe it would be illegal for any firm to use SAT scores as a sorting method as the CEEB does not approve that use of the data and the test taker has no right to distribute that data. I'd love to see a class action lwasuit on that. They would be free to offer their own tests.

k_amp_s · February 16, 2007, 1:25pm

Cont'd -

For someone who has worked on Wall St. and is presently working in human resources, you seem to be awfully IGNORANT of a fairly common practice (really, how can you not be aware of this?).

And the "arguments" that you bring up are pretty superfluous.

Yes - there are many Presidents and CEOs who don't have the best SAT scores (they have other talents - such as being a political animal), but do you think employers such as Ibanks are going to care (or even be able to discern such a trait) when they are looking to hire for jr. analyst positions?

No - IBanks (and other like businesses) have tons of resumes to go through - and one way of weeding them down to a somewhat more manageable level is to have a cut-off for SAT scores (plus, these firms love to quantify stuff)

As for the nos. of students with such scores at UoM and NU, respectively, once again - the top UoM students don't have any problem in this regard.

Nevertheless, the fact that almost 3 quarters of UoM students don't meet the threshold many of these firms do have does have an impact (do you really think these employers are blind to the fact of the overall "quality" of the student body at NU and UoM?).

If an aforementioned employer was to pick an employee purely on the basis of a degree - chances are the employer will pick the person with an NU degree, since there is a significanly higher chance that a NU grad will meet their threshold requirements (this really isn't a difficult concept - employers everywhere use schools as a method of prescreening).

Alex - "In the real world, employers approach campuses according to the overal quality of the university. Can you tell me how many Northwestern undergrads were actually hired by Wall Street firms last year? 30? Maybe 40? Keep in mind that of all of NU's 1,800 or so undergrads who graduated last year, only 500 or so landed full time jobs."

You, of all people, should know that statistics mean nothing w/o the proper context (and oh, btw, I think we have established who has been living in the "real world").

Let's take a look at your statement that "only 500 or so [NU grads from 2005] have landed full-time jobs."

Hmmm - well, that statement doesn't take into account those who are pursuing a post-graduate degree, those who are in military service, those who have elected not to work, etc.

You seem to have missed that** "only" 219 grads (or 17%)** are unemployed and actively seeking work (biased, are we?).

Now, let's take a look at the statistics for another school - say... Princeton (for the class of 2005).

<a href="http://web.princeton.edu/sites/career/data/surveys/CareerSurveyReport2005.html%5B/url%5D">http://web.princeton.edu/sites/career/data/surveys/CareerSurveyReport2005.html</a>

Hmmm - it seems for the Princeton class of 2005, 365 or 32.5% are employed full-time (by your criteria) and <a href="gasp!">b</a> 249 Princeton grads or 22.2% were unemployed and seeking employment.**

That certainly puts the NU figures in perspective doesn't it?

Unfortunately, UoM doesn't seem to have compiled the same type of data for its class of 2005 - but would you care to wager as to whether the % unemployed UoM grads is higher/lower and whether their average salary is higher/lower than those for NU grads?

[Btw, this selection of employment data from ONE year is rather a weak attempt by you to try to argue that UoM grads are equal to NU grads in certain respects - first of all, it's ONE year and employment figures can vary wildly depending on the strength of the overall economy and second, you don't give any other data to set up context and purely on the basis of what you see for NU grads - you attempt to impugn my argument and NU (rather futilely, I might add).]

Alex - **"Of those 500 or so, I am sure a sizeable number went into Engineering, Journalism and teaching. How many of the remaining students landed jobs in Wall Street? Like I said, it is probably well under 100, most likely under 50.

<h2>From Ross alone, 80 or so undergrads were hired by Wall Street's top firms last year. That's just the top companies like Goldman Sachs, Lazard, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche, JP Morgran, CS First Boston, UBS, McKinsey, Bain, BCG and Booz Allen. Altogether, about 150 (40%) of Ross' 350graduating undergrads landed jobs on Wall Street."**</h2>

Well, University of Indiana sends a large no. of grads into I-banking as well (one year, Ind. is reportedly to have sent the 3rd or 4th largest nos. of grads into analyst positions) - while, Ind. is a fine school (and esp. their undergrad bus.), a person with an Indiana degree, in general, is going to be looked at differently from a person with a degree from an Ivy, Stanford, UoC, NU (and yes, UoM).

Alex - "At any rate, it is pretty clear that Wall Street hires hundreds of Michigan undergrads annually. Hundreds as in over 200. Maybe NU has equally impressive numbers, but I somehow doubt it."

I guess you are basing this on what you have been pretty much everything else on - pure conjecture.

hawkette · February 16, 2007, 1:40pm

kazz,
I am not an admissions director, but you're probably right that, if left to me, I would likely have denied your friend. I suspect that virtually every highly selective college in the country would have made the same decision. Remember, Admissions people have a responsibility to admit the highest quality class that they can. That's not me-that is the way it is at Northwestern, at Princeton, at Stanford, at Rice, even at Michigan. Admissions is not charity work (unless you are talking about athletes or development admits). While I am happy for your friend and his success, the anecdote means nothing on an institutional level.

On endowment, can you provide a source for your claim that Michigan's endowment ranks in the top 5? I did some quick checking and learned that Michigan does have a nice endowment. But I am certain that it is not in the Top 5 and probably not even in the top 15 nationally and is definitely MUCH lower on a per capita basis. According to the Michigan website, the endowment is $5.7bn (as of 6/30/06) for a total school population of 40,000. By comparison, Northwestern's website indicates that its endowment is $5.9bn (as of 8/31/06) for a total school population of 14,000. And this is a relevant number as it speaks to a school's ability to invest in itself with new facilities and in attracting the best people (highly talented faculty and students). I'm not sure what weight you want to give this number (the reader can decide that), but it does have some importance for every college. There is a reason that capital campaigns are going on at virtually every college in the land.

There has been a lot of talk in this thread about placement work and several statistics have been thrown into the discussion, particularly involving Michigan's undergrad business school. I am at a disadvantage for most of the specifics, but if my math is correct about the record of 150 Ross grads finding jobs on Wall Street, what does that mean for the other 6000+ undergraduate students who also graduated that year? Good for those Ross grads who landed those jobs as I am sure that they are good and worthy students, but what about everybody else?

barrons · February 16, 2007, 1:46pm

Yes and UM's capital campaigns have been far larger and more successful than NU's.
NU did not break the top 20

Top Fund Raisers, 2004-5
Top institutions in total support
Stanford University $603,585,914
University of Wisconsin at Madison $595,215,891
Harvard University $589,861,000
University of Pennsylvania $394,249,685
Cornell University $353,931,403
Columbia University $341,140,986
University of Southern California $331,754,481
Johns Hopkins University $323,100,408
Indiana University $301,060,946
University of California at San Francisco $292,932,382
Yale University $285,706,955
University of California at Los Angeles $281,552,472
Duke University $275,815,542
University of Minnesota $265,498,507
University of Washington $259,118,639
University of Michigan $251,353,272
New York University $247,126,717
Massachusetts Institute of Technology $206,007,428
Ohio State University $204,598,172
University of California at Berkeley $198,863,654

UM's endowment is currently 9th overall. NU is 12th in the 2006 NACUBO official data. $5.65 B vs $5.1 B

UM is currently close to ending a $2.5 Billion capital campaign
The University of Michigan, $2.383-billion as of December 31 (increase of $56-million in the last month); the goal is $2.5-billion by 2008. Nu has nothing going on. Both did $1.5 Billion campaigns in the last 10 years.

The data on UM hires into Wall St. is only out of the 250 or so grads from Ross. That's pretty good odds. Others come from econ, eng. math, etc but there is no data source for that.

hawkette · February 16, 2007, 2:03pm

barrons,
Thanks for the data. There is some disagreement about Northwestern's numbers as the NU website indicates a value last August of $5.9bn and I think that most investment markets have gone up since then, right? In any event, the difference between the two is relatively slight in absolute terms.
In per capita terms, however, there is a huge difference:

Michigan endowment: $5.65bn
Michigan student enrollment: 40,000
Endowment per capita: $141,250

Northwestern endowment: $5.1bn ($5.9 acc to website)
Northwestern student enrollment: 14,000
Endowment per capita: $364,286 ($421,429 acc to website)
Advantage per student for Northwestern over Michigan: $223,036 ($280,179 acc to website)

barrons · February 16, 2007, 2:21pm

When NU starts getting $400 Million a year in state funding and the state of Illinois starts paying for NU buildings we will worry about per capita endowment $$$. UM also gets far more research funding $800 Million to about $400 Million and a substantial amount of that goes to the school's general fund for overhead--typically 30-40%.

k_amp_s · February 16, 2007, 2:27pm

People are really grasping at straws here.

Endowment campaigns for fiscal 2004-5?

First of all, funds raised in a year (or a no. of years) can vary wildly due to the vagaries of when a certain school has instituted a major fund-raising campaign.

Second, the connection btwn a school's endowment and the quality of its students is pretty far down the line. UT has a significantly large endowment than UoM, more than double that of UoM at $11.6 billion+ - does that mean UT students are that much better qualified than UoM students (and what about students at Dartmouth and Brown - which have rather piddly, in comparison, endowments)?

Third, once again - context people. With the no. of people who graduate from UoM every year, I sure hope UoM raises more $$ than considerably smaller schools (esp. since that endowment has to take care of a considerably larger no. of students).

Really, rationality seems to have escaped some people.

hawkette · February 16, 2007, 2:41pm

I am not a Michigan resident and don't know the specifics of your argument and the financial impact of state funding and research funding. Also, what is the status of state funding in Michigan? Has it been declining in recent years? What is the outlook? If you want to add in all the sources of funding for both schools, then fine.

State funding for Michigan: $400mm
Research funding for Michigan (40% of $400mm difference vs NU): $160mm
Total extra funding for Michigan: $560mm
Michigan student enrollment: 40,000
Total extra funding for Michigan per capita: $14,000 annually

Nice, but pretty sure that it still keeps Michigan at a deficit to Northwestern and Michigan's state funding is likely under pressure (and who knows about the research funding). It's a good thing that the school is raising a lot of money because it is going to need it to keep up with the Joneses (and Northwestern).

barrons · February 16, 2007, 2:49pm

I really don't think NU is a school UM worries much about. In the world of big-time research universities NU is a mid-tier player and UM is in the big leagues.

You know how much endowment it takes to produce $14,000 annually for 40,000 students? Over $10 Billion.

hawkette · February 16, 2007, 2:54pm

^^^Hopefully, the geniuses at Michigan can generate more than 5.6% annually in investment return. If not, then I don't think that UM is a school that NU worries much about as UM is sure to be sent to the minors soon.

k_amp_s · February 16, 2007, 3:02pm

barrons - I really don't think NU is a school UM worries much about. In the world of big-time research universities NU is a mid-tier player and UM is in the big leagues.

Now you have lost what little semblance of credibility you had left.

Yes - UoM is a big-time research university (as are many of the UC schools, UT, UNC, UVA, pretty much all of the B10 schools and a no. of other large state schools).

Schools like NU, Duke, Brown, Dartmouth and the top LACs either don't have the resources or aren't as focused on graduate research.

But gee, I wonder which student bodies - employers, generally, have more confidence in?

barrons · February 16, 2007, 3:13pm

hawkette--you are exposing your lack of knowledge. Nearly all endowments for colleges have spending rates in the 5% range of total assets. Actually UM earned 14.6% last year.

As to research--Duke is a player, Stanford is a player. They are schools similar to NU in size etc.

dstark · February 16, 2007, 3:19pm

k&s, so are you screwed if you go to Indiana's business school?

Should you try to go to a higher ranked school?

atomicfusion · February 16, 2007, 3:22pm

another joke Michigan thread.... why???

Let's just compare Michigan to any school that's a step higher!!

Michigan vs. Duke
Michigan vs. Chicago
Michigan vs. Cornell

right?

Or better yet, compare Michigan to OSU. Michigan can't seem to find a way to beat them over the last few years... I guess it's because Michigan is 100% loaded with brainiacs...

barrons · February 16, 2007, 3:29pm

dstark--IU's placement data speaks for itself. Top students are welcome at Ibanks if that's your goal. Lots of people go to Big accting, regular banks, and industrial firms. All good jobs for different types.

Sam_Lee · February 16, 2007, 3:33pm

barrons,

Overall, Duke is no bigger player (in different league) than NU in research; in fact, if one takes away the medical-related ones, NU is probably a bigger player in "academic" research. By the way, if you judge a school by R&D expenditures, then I guess schools like Yale and Princeton must be mid-tier also. Harvard is then worse than UCSF and Baylor School of Medicine. Hopkins is the king of all! lol!

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