NU vs. BERKELEY!

<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>actually i'm afraid that just shows that all of those excellent schools just aren't as great as wharton. (rolls eyes)</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."</p>

<p>thank you, thethoughtprocess. i thought it was just me who found this ridiculous. especially coming from a high schooler. but what the heck, let them say what ever they want. i've lost hope for this board.</p>

<p>"When will people understand that SATs are useless? It's a multiple choice test, for crying out loud."</p>

<p>i'm sorry, pennfan, but i'm afraid you're going to have to do pretty goddamn well on that multiple choice test because as far as i know, wharton admissions aren't going to think it's useless like public elites apparently do.</p>

<p>"To whoever it was who dissed me for talking about Credit Suisse recruiting at NU"</p>

<p>i hope you aren't referring to me because i think it was brilliant of you to mention Credit Suisse. go wharton!</p>

<p>2350+ on both the SAT and 3 SAT2s. No hard feelings here. </p>

<p>I just think it's silly to put this much emphasis on a 4 hour multiple choice test as a measure of ability/intelligence. I doubt employers are going to say: "Oh, this guy scored 1 point higher on his ACT. I think I'll hire him."</p>

<p>Hawkette, I found your posts giving the published data about most of the top tier national universities as quite informative. However, pardon my saying so, you have a distinct (negative) bias towards UMichigan. The reason is best known to you! With my experience in the Wall street,I can tell you that no recruiter, will consider UMich any less than Cornell or Northwestern. Yes, there is a definite preference for Columbia and UPenn and that is because of the visibly high population of Columbia and UPenn grads in the IB/IM segment. I have no reason to support UMich, other than the fact that your assumption that UMich is in the ranking range of 30 to 40, is not shared by many recruiters:)</p>

<p>To be fair, Mich and Berk are highly recruited. Firms want to go where there are large number or large concentration (or both) of smart kids. Even Mich/Berk may not be the best in concentration, their size guarantees that there will be more than enough kids for elite firms to choose from.</p>

<p>alexandre and joshua007,
Sorry that I can't join your "Amen Chorus" on U Michigan, but when it comes to comparing a school with the premier colleges in the country, the standards are high and the competition is very, very good. </p>

<p>I maintain that there are four major factors that determine one's undergraduate experience:</p>

<p>1) Quality of fellow students
2) Size and nature of the classroom
3) Quality and nature of the instruction
4) Institutional resources and the willingness to use them to support undergraduate education.</p>

<p>In the context of comparisons with the USNWR Top 40 on the four points above, I would grade the undergraduate experience at U Michigan as follows:
B Student Quality
B Size/Nature of Classroom
A- Quality/Nature of instruction
B Institutional Resources</p>

<p>You persist with references to faculties, resources, academic and corporate reputation, and well-connected, loyal alumni. This is fine but you act like U Michigan is the only place that has this. You really need to get out more. There are a lot of schools that can make similar claims and they are located all over the country.</p>

<p>Rintu,
Please don't misinterpret my comments on U Michigan as having a negative bias. U Michigan is a fine state university with a lot to recommend it. But there are many schools of a similar level throughout the country and their partisans don't endlessly try to promote their school over others with considerably stronger student profiles and institutional advantages. I believe that I am only trying to set the record straight when I see claims that don't agree with the facts. </p>

<p>I think SamLee made an insightful comment that the size of a U Michigan (and a historical relationship) is responsible for the visits of some companies.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I believe that I am only trying to set the record straight when I see claims that don't agree with the facts.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That may be your intent much of the time, but like all of us you also use opinion to make statements, and you use opinions to attempt to set the record straight or contradict posters whose claims you disagree with. For example, given what I know about admissions, I don't think the comment about no Michigan transfers scoring about 1400 is a "fact." If it is, I'd like to know your source on that--I know of no such reporting on campus, and given the makeup of transfers I'd find that quite surprising. </p>

<p>This board is loaded with opinions and that is what sparks such interesting discussion and makes it good reading. But I think we should be careful about distinguishing opinion from facts. I also think it is not accurate to imply that you (or any of us, really) use only facts to correct other posters.</p>

<p>hoedown,
You are probably in a better place than I to know the number of 1400+ scorers who transfer generally and to U Michigan. While the number may not be exactly zero, my intuition (and others whom I have consulted on this) would agree that the percentage tends to be quite, quite low. If you can suggest an appropriate number, I'd be happy to put it into my calculations and re-run the numbers.</p>

<p>BTW, it should be noted that, for consistency purposes, I made the same assumption about 1400 scorers among transfers for all schools, including Northwestern.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Were you serious with your question or you're just being sarcastic?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>when i was asking you to back up something you otherwise "made up" with actual numbers... you would think i was joking, wouldn't you.</p>

<p>there is no point engaging in an argument that's not going to be won. The point of posting all of this data is that so people can see where their misconceptions lie and say "oh.. well... fair enough. i concede."</p>

<p>i think it's pretty clear who has been proven wrong here, letting this thread go on for so long is only giving credence to an otherwise ridiculous position that has been little more than a stream of personal assertions somehow being construed as a legitimate retaliation to factual data.</p>

<p>this thread needs to end.</p>

<p>Hawkette, I don't want you to agree with me. I want you to state facts, not make sweeping generalizations. That you think Michigan is not worthy of being a top 30 university doesn't bother me. We each have our own definition of quality. I am sure there are schools you believe are worthy of top 20 honors that I would not rank among the top 30. But you constantly accuse me of bias, like with your claim that my assertion that the mean ACT score at Michigan was just one point lower than the mean ACT score at Brown, Columbia and Cornell was a "spin". I guess if Michigan's student body is worthy of a B, student bodies at those other schools score a B+?And how does the university with the 7th largest endowment, 5th largest library system and arguably the most modern labs and facilities in the country get a score of B for resources? Like I said Hawkette, we don;t have to agree, but you could at least adhere to the facts.</p>

<p>IMO, none of the top public elites which include Berkeley, UVA, Michigan, UCLA, UNC should be out of top 30, in any category.</p>

<p>Alexandre,
Endowment resources are best measured on a per capita basis. U Michigan has 40,000 students (grad and undergrad). Based on the NACUBO data from 6/30/06 (I know endowment has increased since then as it has for all schools), that would give U Michigan about $151,000 per capita. This would rank the school outside of the top 50.</p>

<p>To that, let me add, should a college’s academic reputation matter (and particularly so for a school involved in copious amounts of unrelated research activity mostly aimed at grad students)? Does any of this research activity/school reputation influence postgraduate outcomes for UNDERGRAD students? </p>

<p>I think that many have argued that a school’s academic preparation, research opportunities, highly decorated faculty, etc. are key advantages in determining postgraduate success and these strengths merit inclusion in any college ranking. </p>

<p>Alexandre,
Re the assignment of a B grade for U Michigan’s student body quality, please tell me what grade you would assign in a class that has 40 students with the following distribution?</p>

<p>Top 10
1465 Average
725 Critical Reading
740 Math</p>

<p>11-20
1400 Average
689 Critical Reading
711 Math</p>

<p>21-30
1346 Average
644 Critical Reading
672 Math</p>

<p>31-40
1315 Average
599 Critical Reading
632 Math</p>

<p>U Michigan
635 Critical Reading
680 Math</p>

<p>U Michigan’s score is identical to the average of the schools ranked 31-40. I think that a B is the highest grade that one could plausibly give U Michigan’s student quality and, given the quality of the other schools, probably that was a little generous.</p>

<p>I'd give group 1 an A plus and give Mich an A-, after all a 1300 isn't bad (and probably around 90th percentile, which is an A- lol)</p>

<p>
[quote]
copious amounts of unrelated research activity mostly aimed at grad students

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Do you mean that which goes on at the medical center?</p>

<p>Hawkette, I cannot assign a grade for an entire student body, certainly not based on standardized scores since Michigan de-emphasizes ACT/SAT scores and does not superscore. But a score of B is very low given the talent level on campus. A- would seem fair, but like I said, I don't see how we can rate the talent of a student body that has thousands of students pursuing different academic disciplines and goals in universities that value different criteria (GPA vs SAT, vs Essays, vs ECs etc...) and report grades (weighed vs unweighed) and SAT/ACT (superscore vs best score in single sitting) differently. But even if Michigan's student body were ranked between #30 and #40 out of 1,000+ universities, how can you give it a B? What would a university at #150 be? F? </p>

<p>As far as endowment, total endowment and endowment per student are both important. Large universities like Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Michigan, Penn, Texas and UVa to name a few benefit from economies of scale. Whether a university has 1,000 undergrads or 30,000 undergrads, a university only needs so many specialized labs, supercomputers, libraries, hospitals, administrations, athletic facilities, observatories and linear accelerators. You should also keep in mind that state schools receive hundreds of millions of dollars each year from state and federal governments. A public university the size of Michigan with an endowment of $150,000/student is very well off because it also receives over $300 million from the state government. Brown, Columbia, Cornell and Penn all have endowments per student that range between $200,000 and $300,000, and none of them get more than $50 million from the state. Michigan's endowment per student among universities is not out of the top 50 unless you include LACs that have fewer than 2,000 students. But in that case, half the Ivy League and the University of Chicago and many other very highly regarded universities don't make the top 25 and barely make the top 50. So let us leave the LACs out of this one because they are at an unfair advantage. Among national universities, Michigan's endowment per student is among the top 25 or so and rising at a faster rate than any other. And none of the schools ranked above it in this criteria receive hundreds of millions of dollars in state funding annually except for UVa. Anyway, at the current rate of growth, Michigan's endowment per student should climb up the ranks very rapidly, but even as it stands now, giving Michigan a score of B for institutional resources is laughable. IF Michigan gets a score of B, what would you give Tufts or Boston College or Georgetown or Cal? C? In terms of institutional resources, Michigan is more like an A-, maybe even A.</p>

<p>According to the latest endowment figures provided by NACUBO:</p>

<h1>1 Princeton University ($1.9 million/student)</h1>

<h1>2 Yale University ($1.8 million/student)</h1>

<h1>3 Harvard University ($1.5 million/student)</h1>

<h1>4 Stanford University ($950,000/student)</h1>

<h1>5 MIT ($800,000/student)</h1>

<h1>5 Rice University ($800,000/student)</h1>

<h1>7 Caltech ($750,000/student)</h1>

<h1>8 Dartmouth College ($600,000/student)</h1>

<h1>9 Northwestern University ($420,000/student)</h1>

<h1>10 Johns Hopkins University ($390,000/student)</h1>

<h1>11 Emory University ($380,000/student)</h1>

<h1>11 University of Notre Dame ($380,000/student)</h1>

<h1>13 Duke University ($375,000/student)</h1>

<h1>14 Universityy of Chicago ($360,000/student)</h1>

<h1>15 Washington University ($350,000/student)</h1>

<h1>16 Brown University ($290,000/student)</h1>

<h1>17 Columbia University ($280,000/student)</h1>

<h1>18 University of Pennsylvania ($265,000/student)</h1>

<h1>19 Vanderbilt University ($260,000/student)</h1>

<h1>20 Cornell University ($220,000/student)</h1>

<h1>21 Yeshiva University ($210,000/student)</h1>

<h1>22 University of Virginia ($180,000/student)</h1>

<h1>23 University of Rochester ($175,000/student)</h1>

<h1>24 Lehigh University ($165,000/student)</h1>

<h1>25 Case Western Reserve University ($160,000/student)</h1>

<h1>26 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor ($150,000/student)</h1>

<p>But how can you against the fact that the top 5-6 LACs and undergrad focused Ivies (Dartmouth, Yale Princeton) spend many times more on advising and undergrad grants (COHE) than most schools (including their Ivy counterparts). Dartmouth spends almost twice as much as the next school in-line (Yale) and much of this has to do with pre-existing infrastructure and the ability to spend incremental upside on students.</p>

<p>Can you share those figures with us Slipper? I am sure LACs and non-research universities like Dartmouth focus more on undergrads, but figures would help illustrate the point. Obviously, large universities with huge graduate programs like Chicago, Columbia, Michigan, Penn etc...require students to take a more active interest in their education, but those that do have options that one can only dream of.</p>

<p>There is too much emotion in this discussion about grades because of the U Michigan name. Let's ignore the name and look again.</p>

<p>The grading is for students operating in a very competitive class. There are 40 students. One student scores at the mid-point of the bottom quartile of the class, placing the student 35th out of 40 total. Frankly, I expected the student to score better in this comparison. But the student did not. Given that fact, I conclude that there is no legitimate way to assign a grade anywhere near an A. In this group of students, a B would be generous and a C+ might be more appropriate.</p>

<p>Re endowments, I think you missed Wake Forest which is at the $157k level. So U Michigan places 27th out of the 40 schools. If done to scale, U Michigan's current level is just over 1/2 that of the school ranked 16th, a little more than 1/5 the school ranked 9th and 1/10 the school ranked 3rd. Furthermore, U Michigan has one of the highest absolute numbers and percentages of graduate students who clearly use more of the resources. Given these facts, I conclude that a grade of B is correct or perhaps slightly inflated.</p>

<p>Are those Endowment per capita figures inclusive of graduate students as well?</p>