<p>Just as a quick side note, from NU’s site “More than 90 percent of our undergraduate-level classes are taught by professors and Northwestern’s overall student-faculty ratio is an impressive 7 to 1. As for class size, nearly three-quarters of all undergraduate classes have fewer than 20 students”</p>
<p>NU doesn’t do credit hours. All courses are 1 credit, end of subject. Simple and neat.</p>
<p>And therefore the percent of classes taught by TA’s are the same as the percent credits taught by TA’s, under 10%, whereas Michigan’s credits taught by TA’s is around 1/4th.</p>
<p>Crimsonstained7,</p>
<p>Just a few words for that quote from NU. Whatever not taught by professors are not necessarily taught by TAs (graduate students). In fact, most of them aren’t; they are taught by lecturers and post-docs who already have PhDs. </p>
<p>I think you misinterpreted the “student credit hours” on that UMich page. I did the same and I bet most people would did the same at the first glance. But if you read the numbers more closely, you’d figure it out. :)</p>
<p>So NU has less than less than 10% classes taught by TA’s haha. Not sure what you mean about the UMich credits?</p>
<p>Is this thread some sort of sick/twisted joke? Like the answer to your trepidation is rather obvious…</p>
<p>People keep dredging up a moot point. It’s been argued to death, but Michigan fans keep coming back to bring up points. So yes, some sort of sick/twisted joke. Maybe even cruel and unusual punishment.</p>
<p>And what is this point?</p>
<p>Let the thread die. Everything that can be argued has. There are two different schools, with two different attitudes, educations, etc. The OP is long gone, I’m sure, and all discussion has just repeated itself over and over again. Stop posting</p>
<p>Where you went to college is the most overpriced overrated thing in America today. Many of these posts just prove how skillfully the college administrators have been at brainwashing parents. Up to a point it does matter where you went to college but there are at least 40 very good schools with plenty of smart students. Admission is tougher today but some of that is artificial. Now we have prep courses 24/7 and the country is full of Tiger parents. Dose anyone really think today’s HS kids are any smarter. The elite colleges are just playing the upper middle class parents for fools by convincing them that the number #1-5 ranked school will dramatically change the life of their child over #9 or #14. It’s nonsense</p>
<p>Here are the 1997 numbers</p>
<p>Yale 20% Admission Rate 1350-1550 25th-75th percentile SAT range
Columbia 24% Admitted 1341-1438 Range
Penn 33% Admitted 1370-1440 Range
WashU 56% Admitted 1180-1380 Range
USC 70% Admitted 1070-1310 Range
Chicago 71% Admitted 1270-1470 Range</p>
<p>[Schools</a> That Send the Most Grads to Top B-Schools - Businessweek](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>@krzysmis: If you kept up with the literature you would know that the sat and act have not trended with IQ for almost 20 years now. The SAT was re-curved and re-formulated in the mid 90’s to change its general psychometric philosophy from aptitude test to assessment test (though there is still a weak g-factor correlation). </p>
<p>While there is a difference between the test scores of the two universities it is not as large as you are portraying it. Michigan has a 28-32 middle 50% on the ACT, whereas NU has a 31-34. This would make the Michigan average a 30 with the NU being 32.5 . Certainly this is a difference but not a 4 point one. This when converted into SAT terms is about a 150 point difference (if you go by the conversion charts online). It basically places the average Michigan student in the top 5% of all scores and the average NU student in the top 2% of scores. </p>
<p>So while you could argue that NU has a slightly stronger student body (a notion I am generally in agreement with) it is nowhere near the difference you make it out to be. Furthermore neither the SAT nor ACT is a measure of “intelligence” or potential. The ACT especially is knowledge based at this point; considering that this test is the standard at both schools it is hard to say definitively any true difference in intelligence but rather a simple difference in test scores.</p>
<p>Except, the actual averages are 29 and 33, since the distribution s are highly skewed for both. Not surprisingly, for mich it’s skewed down, while for nu up. Reflecting the philosophies of both places no doubt: lots of low scorers for mich with some high preformers and the other way round for NU.</p>
<p>The info is available on usnwr under their compass service. Pay 25 bucks and find out for yourself. </p>
<p>It’s clear to me by now that some mich fanatics here have trouble with some unpleasant truths.</p>
<p>To krzysmis: I am not too sure about your knowledge about both the schools. Fortunately, I have enough reasons to claim that I know both the schools pretty well. First, the students of Michigan and Northwestern are equally proud of their respective institution and are least bothered about a discussion/debate among less informed debaters:) If you happen to be a current student of Northwestern, please follow the tradition of your school. It never encourages ‘bad-mouthing’ about another school. If you are a prospective student, then you are entitled to argue on something for which the current students of Northwestern as well as Michigan are least interested.</p>
<p>The truly humorous thing about these posts is that more commonly on this forum the argument is reversed with a Duke or Univ of Chicago fanatic lecturing the poor NU students/parents how they are going to suffer for attending an inferior school.</p>