<p>Man, Mich graduates are sensitive. Seriously, though, I am not interested in discussing obvious things with blind fanboys. I hope there are some parents here, who like me, will have to make a decision and spend serious money.</p>
<p>Yes, by the way, SAT scores have no meaning. That’s why all the top schools have also top SAT scores. Total accident, while the poor test scores at Mich are just test anxiety, which happens only to Mich students somehow. Another total accident. Sheesh, guys.</p>
<p>yeaabuddy,</p>
<p>Even with “weaker departments”, NU still produced more Marshall and Gate Cambridge Scholars and just as many Goldwater and Fulbright Scholars, despite having a lot less students. NU also sent just as many students to HLS, despite having significantly less prelaws. What good are those “stronger departments” if they don’t translate to better undergraduate education/outcome? Until you can prove that, maybe you can take that “stronger departments” promotional elsewhere.</p>
<p>NU= 3 nobel prize winners/ faculty included= 8
Michigan= 7 nobel prize winners/ faculty included= 19</p>
<p>These figures are meaningless really. Since when does the number or award recipients translate to the quality of undergraduate education? All this translates to is that yes NU has a similar if slightly stronger student body as compared to Michigan. The extraordinary will be extraordinary no matter where they are.</p>
<p>Ratio, ratio, ratio! Remember Michigan is 3x bigger for undergrads. </p>
<p>I thought you said Michigan has just as many high scorers in sheer numbers. Actually, I think they have more because of its size. The point is more of them still don’t translate to more winners. You get my point now? That’s just one of the matrix. I am not saying more winners necessarily mean better eduation. But so far, I haven’t seen anything tangible that shows all those “better departments” translate to better outcome. If you got nothing to show regarding that, it’s pointless to keep trolling here that NU has weaker departments.</p>
<p>Actually what I said was that probably somewhere around 40% of the student body at Michigan is competitive with the student body of NU. This translates to roughly 11k undergrads, slightly more than NU. The number of extraordinary students in each cohort is variable by year but usually Michigan does produce slightly more scholarships such as fulbright as well as more nobel laureates. Like i said though neither of these things can really represent the university seeing as if any of these individuals went to a school with even average research facilities they would excel.</p>
<p>Michigan doesn’t produre more scholars; look up Cambridge Gates and Marshall. Get your facts straight too buddy.</p>
<p>Still waiting for you to show us how “better departments” translate to anything relevant.</p>
<p>By the way, when you have only 7 nobel winners out of 1000000000000000000 alums, you don’t use the word “usually”. If you are trying to imply that colleges got anything to do with nobel, such as nonsense like nobel winners being “inspired” by professors in one undergrad class like by God, that somehow would lead to their nobel-winning research MUCH LATER DOWN THE ROAD, well, let me say, even if that’s not entirely bs, those “mentors” you give so much credits to are mostly dead by now. I guess relevance is not what your posts are about.</p>
<p>I looked up both those and couldn’t find comprehensive numbers for either. Bottom line is Michigan produces the most fulbright scholars every year (by varying amount annually) and this is generally what i was alluding to.</p>
<p>No, that’s not what you said. You said more scholarships “such as Fulbright”. Be specific and honest with your words.</p>
<p>If you want me to find another scholarship I can find another because I’m pretty sure there exists more than one where Michigan outplaces NU. However now you’re simply playing semantics.</p>
<p>“Mich kids are relatively weak since they score significantly lower (300 points) on sat, which speaks to raw ability and nothing else.”</p>
<p>300 points lower on the SAT is not accurate. It is closer to 165 points out of 2400. Below are the latest figures from both Michigan and NU’s 2011-2012 common data sets:</p>
<p>Michigan: 650 CR, 700 M, 670 W = 2020
Northwestern: 720 CR, 740 M, 725 W = 2185</p>
<p><a href=“Office of Budget and Planning”>Office of Budget and Planning;
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/northwestern-university/1464229-northwestern-vs-umichigan-8.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/northwestern-university/1464229-northwestern-vs-umichigan-8.html</a></p>
<p>It should be noted that Michigan has historically deemphasized standardized tests and does not superscore. </p>
<p>At any rate, there is no doubt that Northwestern’s undergraduate student population is strong consistently across the board, while at Michigan, you have less consistency. I would estimate that 80% of NU undergrads are extremely strong, compared to 50% at Michigan.</p>
<p>Sam Lee, while I do not think it is accurate to judge a university by the number of awards their students win, Michigan has produced slightly more Rhodes (26 vs 16) and Truman (21 vs 12) scholars. I do not have to totals for Fulbright, but since 1990, Michigan has produced 344 scholars to NU’s 200. As you point out, NU does better on the Marshall count (18 vs 16). I am not familiar with the Cambridge Gates. Obviously, Michigan is three times larger than NU, so it is not surprising that it does a little better on some of those scholarship counts, but like I said, it is unwise to compare universities on this measure. Neither one of the universities is a world beater in this regard.</p>
<p>Alexandre, you hand wave a HUGE reason those numbers skew heavily in favor of NU. Per capita NU demolishes Michigan.</p>
<p>Alexandre,</p>
<p>Cambridge Gates is the most generous awards out there, even more so (more flexible duration) than Rhodes/Marshall. The number is 17 vs 7 in NU favor.</p>
<p>As for that 26 Rhodes for Michigan, well, 23 of those were before 1986.
<a href=“http://www.k-state.edu/media/achievements/scholarstop10of5pub.pdf[/url]”>http://www.k-state.edu/media/achievements/scholarstop10of5pub.pdf</a></p>
<p>The point is NU “weaker departments”, as so-called by yeaabuddy, haven’t stopped our students from matching or even outperforming Michigan’s in winning those scholarships. I am still waiting for yeaabuddy to show us how mostly insignifcant differences in graduate rankings matter to the undergrads. If he/she can’t, he/she should stop ■■■■■■■■ on our own board how Michigan has “better departments”.</p>
<p>Sam Lee could you please stop editing your posts after responses have already been made. By doing so it is somewhat dishonest in that new readers will read my posts as well as Alexandre’s believing that we did not fully address you. I understand that it does say edited on the post but I doubt most will read this. If you think of a new point please post it but don’t go back and edit the old, it’s misleading.</p>
<p>Thanks buddyy</p>
<p>Oh you posted again in the meantime. Well for the department thing that’s simply USNWR as well as ARWU and the like. Also, I do recall stating the departments thing was personal opinion. Personally I don’t believe I am trolling but rather defending my school in a rather one sided “comparative”. Maybe I shouldn’t have used the word “better” to describe the departments but to refer to NU students as smarter than Michigan students as a whole, well that just reads as ignorant. I don’t know how exactly you want me to show strength of department besides for ranking and graduate output because those are the only tangibles (seeing as the ug teaching rank is not accepted by most). Also considering when you edited the above to trash the nobel prize #'s, I would just like to state that I qualified my post on that by stating that the numbers were meaningless as they didn’t accurately reflect student body.</p>
<p>^So you just rely on the graduate department rankings blindly and have nothing to add as far as undergraduate education goes.</p>
<p>^So you and the rest of this forum rely on anecdotal evidence blindly.</p>
<p>Research output is consistently stronger from Michigan than NU in most fields (ie paper citations and the like). This is mainly what the departmental rankings are based on in things like ARWU. I wouldn’t say its blind really seeing as there are numbers behind it. As to the ug level specifically, you and I are both left purely with anecdotal evidence.</p>
<p>^You’ve been missing the point. Most of us already know what graduate rankings measure. The point is that research output doesn’t translate to better undergrad education or better departments for undergrads. You failed to see such disconnect. “Better departments” for undergrads are those with more accessible professors who enjoy teaching undergrads, more research opportunities on per capita basis, smaller classes, etc. There are countless examples such as LACs and schools like Brown/Dartmouth.</p>
<p>“Per capita NU demolishes Michigan.”</p>
<p>Arbiter, you are stating the obvious. Nobody is denying that the student body at NU is stronger than that at Michigan. Like most have been saying, only 50% of the students at Michigan are “strong”, compared to 80% at NU. Therefore, one does not expect Michigan to match NU on a per capita basis. When you adjust for the difference in the strength of their respective student bodies however, Michigan and NU are pretty even. </p>
<p>If you really want to see “demolition” on a per capita basis, you should check out Brown, Chicago and Dartmouth. Brown has produced 129 Rhodes, Marshall and Truman scholars, Chicago has produced 92 and Dartmouth has produced 107. Michigan has only produced 64 and Northwestern 46. Below are the per capita figures:</p>
<p>Chicago : Northwestern, 3:1
Brown : Northwestern, 4:1
Dartmouth : Northwestern, 5:1</p>
<p>Like I said, Northwestern and Michigan are not known for their production of major fellowship winners.</p>