<p>Alexandre,
I prefer using UCB and Northwestern as that is what the thread is supposed to be about. </p>
<p>Your U Michigan commercials (like the above) are really best done in the U Michigan school forum.</p>
<p>Alexandre,</p>
<p>
[quote]
Not a major jump mind you, but at least 80-120 points on average.</p>
<p>And assuming that there really is a "real" 100 point gap in average between the SAT average at Cal/Michigan and the private elites
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not that I am saying SAT means everything. I agree with you maybe SAT is often overemphasized when comparing colleges on this board. But where do you get that 80-120 point gap from? I have addressed this before and actually simulated what I thought a typical class in a spreadsheet and found that the gap is <em>likely</em> insigificant. 80-120 point is a huge jump and you are basically saying, if Michigan superscored, it's SAT average would be the same as NU. If that's true, then its ACT should be roughly the same as NU. But that's not the case. 69% of NU student scored 30 or above; for Michigan, the number was 38%. NU's ACT average is 2-3 points higher which is equivalent to roughly 100 point difference in SAT. Unless there's reason to believe somehow the group taking ACT is dumber at Michigan, it means superscoring SAT won't help raise its SAT average by much.</p>
<p>Sam Lee, it is impossible to compare ACTs and SATs. Cornell, Columbia and Michigan all have mean ACT scores of 29-30. MIT and Harvard have mean ACT scores of 32. The ACT is not easily converted into SAT.</p>
<p>And Sam Lee, if Michigan superscored, the mean SAT score would not jump by 80-120 points. It would jump by 30-50 points. However, if Michigan changed its SAT weighting from unimportant to very important, then the mean SAT score would jump by a great deal more. Michigan's top students generally stay in-state, and they just aren't motivated to do well on the ACT/SAT. As I said above, Michigan weighs a 0.1 GPA difference more heavily than a 400 point (old system) SAT difference. Not much of an incentive for a Michigan student to focus on the SAT/ACT when he/she is directly told to focus entirely on GPA.</p>
<p>Alexandre,
The Michigan spin machine is running on HIGH. More comparisons with higher ranked schools, this time with Cornell and Columbia. I look forward to your next post when you will include Syracuse, Rutgers and Clemson. </p>
<p>For ACT average scores, here is the data:</p>
<p>31 Northwestern, Dartmouth (can't find numbers for Columbia and U Penn)
30 Cornell
na UC Berkeley</p>
<p>28.5 U Michigan
28 George Washington
27 Boston University
26.5 Clemson, SMU, Marquette, U Georgia</p>
<p>FACT: U Michigan's average ACT scores are closer to those of GW, BU, Clemson, SMU, Marquette, U Georgia, etc. than the likes of Northwestern, Dartmouth, etc. </p>
<p>SAT and ACT score comparisons are easy to make. There are literally scores of websites that post this information. Here is the scale for the range of schools listed above:</p>
<p>32 = 1410-1450
31 = 1360-1400
30 = 1320-1350
29 = 1280-1310
28 = 1240-1270
27 = 1210-1230
26 = 1170-1200</p>
<p>You state that "Michigan's top students usually stay in state." I hope that you have some supporting evidence for this statement for it sounds another exaggeration. I would guess that some stay home, but many (probably most) of the best do not. Frankly, I would expect that, just as in states like Virginia, California, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Texas, etc, many of Michigan's best students go out of state to one of the elite private schools, eg, the USNWR Top 20. That is not a knock on the fine public universities of these states, but these Top 20 schools all have stronger student bodies than U Michigan and I would bet that all have more than a few students that hail from Michigan.</p>
<p>I think Alex is right in the sense that some students who might have applied to Ivies chose not to because their in-state school was Michigan - which is one of the best publics in the country and an excellent college.</p>
<p>also for the second time, since it was obviously missed with the appearance of comments such as these:
[quote]
The problem with selectivity is that -- while elite private schools look more on SATs, most elite public schools (State Us) value the applicants high school performance as reflected in their very high highschool rank.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>this is why berkeley has 99% of its student body in the top 10% of their high school class: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4251180&postcount=77%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showpost.php?p=4251180&postcount=77</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
...AND THERE always are many students at top public schools (UCB, UM, UVa, UCLA to name a few) who could outperform the brightest students from ivies or private elites.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>prove it, post numbers, learn to defend your conjecture.</p>
<p>Of course some Michigan students stay in-state and I said as much in my last post. I concur that U Michigan is in the first tier of America's public universities (along with UC Berkeley, U Virginia, UCLA, U North Carolina, W&M, U Wisconsin, UCSD, Georgia Tech, U Illinois, U Washington and U Texas). I would place it in the top 30-40 among national universities. However, Alexandre's attempts notwithstanding, U Michigan is not Northwestern, not Cornell, not U Penn. A legitimate comp would be Boston College or NYU or U Wisconsin or Georgia Tech.</p>
<p>To whoever it was who dissed me for talking about Credit Suisse recruiting at NU, I don't think comparing SAT averages is much more useful.</p>
<p>^^^ first of all, what you said was incorrect.</p>
<p>but more relevantly, of course normalized, standardized IQ tests of university students it is more useful than tracking where one firm recruits.</p>
<p>I doubt Credit Suisse is muddled up about where they recruit. The fact that CS doesn't show up on that "popular employers of NU grads" list should corroborate that. (<a href="http://www.northwestern.edu/careers/surveyoutcomes/recruiting-by-function.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.northwestern.edu/careers/surveyoutcomes/recruiting-by-function.html</a>)</p>
<p>When will people understand that SATs are useless? It's a multiple choice test, for crying out loud.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It's a multiple choice test, for crying out loud.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>so are IQ tests, the MCAT, parts of the BAR, and <em>gasp</em> most of the tests you will be taking at 'holy wharton' if you are some day admitted.</p>
<p>Multiple Choice tests include: LSAT, GMAT, MCAT, Securities licensing tests (series 7, 63, 65, etc.)</p>
<p>PennFan2012,</p>
<p>Are you trolling here? The career page showed there were 101 (N=101)students graduting with bachelor degree responding with salary. <a href="http://www.northwestern.edu/careers/surveyoutcomes/recruiting-by-function.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.northwestern.edu/careers/surveyoutcomes/recruiting-by-function.html</a> </p>
<p>Even if we assume just 50% (most likely more than that) of those filling out the survey put down salary info, that means only 200 of the 1900 grads filled out the survey! That list is very impressive for such size. I know year in and year out, quite a few chemE and BMEs (no way less than 3) work for Abbort Lab's headquarter in North Chicago. It's not even shown on the page. Motorola and P&G, other 2 firms that hire quite a few NU engineers each year usually, are not on it either. </p>
<p>Note that the list says "3 or more" students "accepted" positions. So it's not gonna show the ones that don't have 3 or more students OUT OF THAT 200 OR WHATEVER accepting their offers. Please read carefully and THINK what the data say and what not before jumping to conclusion.</p>
<p>Another thing about the list: it pertains to hiring through on-campus recruiting only. Let me reiterate that in itself is only a partial list as not everyone hired through on-campus recruiting responded.</p>
<p>PennFan,</p>
<p>I just found that Stanford (so are Swarthmore, Amherest, Wiliams, WashU..etc) isn't on that menu that has at least one error anyway. Is Stanford your next stop to troll?</p>
<p>I think PennFan thinks the incomplete list represents all the schools it recruits at.</p>
<p>Also, having Credit Suisse recruitment as a gauge for school quality is somewhat funny. There are several Investment Banks that take different numbers from different top schools - just because one company takes more from school X than Y doesn't mean school Y is less recruited at by every company.</p>
<p>thethoughtprocess,</p>
<p>I think recently Duke board had someone trolling there just because Duke wasn't on the recruitment list of one company (neither was Yale, if I remember right). Now I feel your "pain". ;)</p>
<p>Yeah, Sam Lee, thats the same thing. Duke wasn't on Citigroups drop-down menu on its website. However, it was a top 10 destination for Duke undergrads to work at (along with mostly other I-banks). </p>
<p>I'm sure NU, since its a top school, is heavily recruited at. Maybe not by one specific firm - though I don't see how NU can hurt someones resume. And maybe not as much as Wharton, where PennFan attends. However, I-banking recruitment is logical - they go wherever the top students are, because they want to hire top students. I think its a moot point, since the CSFB list is missing other top schools and thus shouldn't be considered a gauge at all.</p>
<p>No, he hasn't got into Penn. He's just a fan, as the screename says.</p>
<p>"The Michigan spin machine is running on HIGH. More comparisons with higher ranked schools, this time with Cornell and Columbia. I look forward to your next post when you will include Syracuse, Rutgers and Clemson."</p>
<p>Hawkette, there is no spin. You always accuse me of spinning when I always state only the facts. Michigan's mid 50% ACT range is 27-31 and the mean ACT score is 29. And I am only too glad to include ACT averages at various schools that you often mention:</p>
<p>Michigan: 27-31
<a href="http://sitemaker.umich.edu/obpinfo/files/umaa_freshprof.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://sitemaker.umich.edu/obpinfo/files/umaa_freshprof.pdf</a></p>
<p>Cornell: 28-32
<a href="http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000375.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000375.pdf</a></p>
<p>Brown University: 27-33
<a href="http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Institutional_Research/survey/test_facts/CDS2006_2007.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.brown.edu/Administration/Institutional_Research/survey/test_facts/CDS2006_2007.pdf</a></p>
<p>Columbia does not have a common data set, but I recall seeing somewhere that its mid 50% ACT range was 28-32</p>
<p>Boston University: 25-29
<a href="http://www.bu.edu/oep/cds.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.bu.edu/oep/cds.html</a></p>
<p>Georgia Tech: 26-30
<a href="http://www.irp.gatech.edu/Common_Data_Set_2006/Comm_Data_Set_C.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.irp.gatech.edu/Common_Data_Set_2006/Comm_Data_Set_C.html</a></p>
<p>University of Wisconsin-Madison: 26-30
<a href="http://apa.wisc.edu/CDS_USNEWS/CDS_2007.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://apa.wisc.edu/CDS_USNEWS/CDS_2007.pdf</a></p>
<p>University of Texas-Austin: 23-28 (this is 2 years old)
<a href="http://www.utexas.edu/academic/oir/cds/03-04/CDS2003-C.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.utexas.edu/academic/oir/cds/03-04/CDS2003-C.pdf</a></p>
<p>Clemson (I don't understand the infatuation): 24-29
<a href="http://www.clemson.edu/oir/commonDataSet/CommonDataSet06.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.clemson.edu/oir/commonDataSet/CommonDataSet06.htm</a></p>
<p>The problem Hawkette, is that you again fail to see the big picture. I have said it many times before, student selectivity is only a small part of the equation. Cal, Cornell, Michigan, Northwestern etc... aren't great because of their undergrsduate student populations, but because they have incredible faculties, great resources, a practically unbeatable reputation in the academic and corporate worlds and very well connected, loyal and powerful alums.</p>