NU vs. BERKELEY!

College Search & Selection
121

<p>Yes, TheThoughtProcess, they include graduate students.</p>

<p>Hawkette, among top 25 universities, Michigan's undergraduate student population as a percentage of the total student population is one of the highest. 65% of Michigan's students are undergrads. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Stanford, Duke, University of Chicago, MIT, Northwestern, Washington University, Emory University, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Rice University, Caltech, Johns Hopkins and Carnegie Mellon all have a lower percentage of undergraduate students. </p>

<p>At any rate, I assume that if you give Michigan a rating of B (or less as you seem to think would be fair), then schools like Tufts, Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, Boston College, Tulane, NYU, USC and other decent universities would get a rating of C or D in terms of institutional resources. Do you agree with that? Afterall, they all have endowments per student range between $50,000-$120,000 and none of them receive hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from their respective states.</p>

<p>"So U Michigan places 27th out of the 40 schools." What 40 schools would that be Hawkette? Michigan is #27 out of over 1,000 national universities.</p>

122

<p>
[quote]
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....

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Well, if we're gonna keep worshipping at the almighty altar of facts, I think you're only half right. Michigan does have a lot of grad students, numerically, so Michigan has more grad students than many if not all of its wealthy peers (offhand, I think Penn comes close, but Michigan has more). </p>

<p>However, proportionally, I don't believe facts support your argument. At Michigan, graduate students make up just over 1/3 of the total (36%). I haven't looked them all up, but just a quick glance through the list of colleges ranked as having a high per-student endowment reveals that at some places, grads outnumber the undergrads.</p>

<p>Columbia 68.3%; Chicago 67.2%; Harvard 64.9%; MIT 59.7%; Caltech 58.6%; Penn 56.5%; Stanford 55.1%; Yale 53.3%; Duke 52.3%.</p>

<p>And Northwestern and Rice grads don't outnumber undergrads, but are proportionally higher than at Michigan (44.5% and 40.9%).</p>

<p>I don't know about the way resources are allocated, but it's simply not correct to say that Michigan's grad students dominate proportionally. This misperception lingers despite being addressed in an earlier thread.</p>

<p>ETA: I see after posting that Alexandre already made this point as I was typing. I'll leave mine stand as well, since it provides some hard percentages.</p>

123

<p>If Michigan's per capita was just undergrad I'd expect its rank to be boosted - I know that MIT Duke Stanford and Columbia all have a higher percentage of students who are grad.</p>

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<p>TheThoughtProcess, Michigan's endowment, as of June, 206, was $5,650,000,000 and has 40,000 students (25,500 undergrads and 14,500 graduate). $5,650,000,000/40,000 = $141,250. That's good for #27 or #28 among national universities.</p>

125

<p>Yeah, not bad to say the least - considering about 1000 colleges exist.</p>

126

<p>TheThoughtProcess, our two schools have a lot to brag about when it comes to endowment. If I am not mistaken, Michigan's endowment grew the most (by a large maring), some 2,200% in the last 20 years and Duke's grew the second most in that span of time, by some 1,100%. Only one or two other schools' endowment, Notre Dame and perhaps UVa, have grown by more than 1,000%.</p>

127

<p>Wow, unbelievable numbers. Michigan also started off at a higher endowment than Duke, ND, and UVA. In absolute numbers, has Michigan's endowment growth been the largest in the world in the past two decades?</p>

128

<p>You think graduate students use more resources than undergrads...you have to be kidding? Graduate students</p>

<p>a) do not take nearly the credits undergraduates do (usually around 20 spaced out over 2 years)
b) do not live on campus
c) do not eat campus food
d) usually teach undergraduates
e) are required to serve in their department (i.e., organize seminars etc.)
f) are traditionally required to find their own funding for research after their first two years</p>

<p>Graduate students are not a drain on campus resources as some would have you imagine. Undergraduates are the ones that are expensive to educate...</p>

<p>Cheers,
CUgrad</p>

129

<p>Here are the facts on endowment for 36 of the top 40 national universities as ranked by USNWR (not including UCLA, W&M, Brandeis, UCSD).</p>

<p>Rank, School, Grad & Undergrad Enrollment, Endowment Per Capita</p>

<p>1 Princeton, 6935, $ 1,881,024
2 Harvard, 16725, $ 1,728,891
3 Yale, 11483, $ 1,570,199
4 Stanford, 11325, $ 1,243,680
5 MIT, 10206, $ 819,916
6 Rice, 4971, $ 801,980
7 Caltech, 2171, $ 728,200
8 Dartmouth, 5753, $ 537,476
9 U Chicago, 10641, $ 457,382
10 Notre Dame, 10998, $ 403,403
11 Emory, 12338, $ 394,717
12 Washi U, 12101, $ 387,136
13 Duke, 11680, $ 385,079
14 Johns Hopkins, 6124, $ 383,858
15 Northwestern, 17004, $ 302,322
16 Brown, 8125, $ 266,663
17 U Texas, 50377, $ 262,716
18 Vanderbilt, 11607, $ 253,846
19 Columbia, 24417, $ 243,184
20 U Penn, 23704, $ 224,151
21 Cornell, 19639, $ 220,032
22 U California, 33558, $ 170,857
23 Case Western, 9592, $ 166,656
24 Wake Forest, 6622, $ 157,439
25 U Virginia, 24068, $ 150,331
26 U Michigan, 39993, $ 141,331
27 Tufts, 8832, $ 137,615
28 Lehigh, 6858, $ 136,989
29 Boston College, 14381, $ 100,681
30 USC, 33000, $ 92,907
31 Carnegie Mellon, 10120, $ 92,844
32 Georgetown, 11343, $ 73,569
33 Georgia Tech, 17936, $ 58,415
34 U North Carolina, 25378, $ 45,284
35 NYU, 40870, $ 43,423
36 U Wisconsin, 38887, $ 36,664</p>

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<p>LOL! CUgrad, undergrads are indeed spoiled. :)</p>

131

<p>great reading. thanks to everyone for spending the time and effort to look up these numbers and facts and forming coherent opinions around them. one of the most interesting threads ive read so far.</p>

132

<p>corrections/addtions to numbers posted above
1. U Texas was inadvertently included although it is not ranked in USNWR Top 40.
2. UCLA per capita is $50,896
Brandeis per capita is $97,783
W&M per capita is $5725
UCSD per capita is $18,242</p>

133

<p>
[quote]
...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.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Sorry to go back to an old point, but this was my first chance to look at some data. In looking over the incoming transfers for this fall term alone, I see students coming from Berkeley, Boston College, Dartmouth, Oberlin, Denison, and Purdue who had SAT composites over 1400. And another group with SATs as high who are coming from other places--a number of decent publics both in and outside of Michigan, and several community colleges. Including a student at a community college with an SAT above 1550. And this probably reveals my own bias and ignorance, but I confess I find that later case remarkable.</p>

<p>I can't divulge numbers, but I can tell you that the number is above what I think anyone here would call "quite quite low." Perhaps the reality of transfer at Michigan and Northwestern and other places in the Top 30 or 40 or 50 is different than a lot of us realized.</p>

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<p>I am not surprised Hoedown. I have known several students who transfered into Michigan and most of them were typical Michigan students.</p>

135

<p>Alexandre,
The comments that I have been making re 40 is the USNWR Top 40 National Universities. Another poster objected to my conclusion that in this competitive group, I would assign U Michigan a ranking of between 30 and 40. It is for this universe of schools that I assigned the earlier grades to U Michigan of:</p>

<p>B Student Quality
B Size/Nature of Classroom
A- Quality/Nature of instruction
B Institutional Resources</p>

<p>Student Quality: U Michigan's students score at the mid-point of the bottom quartile for this group. A grade of B in this group would be generous.</p>

<p>Size/Nature of Classroom: Class size statistics and Student/Faculty Ratios favor ALL of the 31 private schools over U Michigan. For the 9 public universities, U Michigan would rank around the average. Thus, U Michigan would place around 35th out of 40 schools. Again, a grade of B in this group would be generous.</p>

<p>Quality/Nature of instruction: Perhaps against my better judgment I used PA scoring here. For PA scoring in this group of schools, an A- would be appropriate.</p>

<p>Institutional Resources: I have already provided the endowment per capita numbers where U Michigan ranks 26th. As for the comparisons provided by hoedown to other schools with high percentages of graduate students, please note that their endowments per capita are all significantly higher than U Michigan. </p>

<p>A ranking of 26th out of 40 could equate to a B grade and this was my first inclination, but the scale is quite steep and the funding level of U Michigan is not that impressive on a per student basis. A grade of B for this would be generous and a C+ is probably more reflective of the scale in this group of 40. (And Alexandre, to respond to your question about the lower achieving schools, I think that a grade of D or F would be appropriate in some cases).</p>

<p>hoedown,
For the transfer data that you posted, are you stating that there are a consequential number of 1400 scorers in the 1086 transfers that U Michigan took last year? As only a little over 20% of the regular admits scored at this level, are you suggesting that the transfer numbers are similar or even better? I would guess that they would be closer to 5% or less, but perhaps I am wrong. Maybe you can provide a little more specificity in your reply. </p>

<p>And Alexandre, you mentioned that the transfers you knew were like the average U Michigan student. I hope you know that the average is 1315 (and was undoubtedly lower when you attended in the mid-90s).</p>

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<p>Hawkette, very thorough replies - I think Mich's institutional resources should be slightly higher just because I think there is a slight increasing returns to scale for having a massive endowment.</p>

<p>For example, Michigan's large endowment in absolute numbers could provide for a certain unique lab or something that would be one of the only few of that kind in the country.</p>

<p>However, I again agree with you that endowment per capita is a valuable tool as well.</p>

137

<p>
[quote]
hoedown,
For the transfer data that you posted, are you stating that there are a consequential number of 1400 scorers in the 1086 transfers that U Michigan took last year? As only a little over 20% of the regular admits scored at this level, are you suggesting that the transfer numbers are similar or even better? I would guess that they would be closer to 5% or less, but perhaps I am wrong. Maybe you can provide a little more specificity in your reply.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Heh. I am not "suggesting" anything. </p>

<p>Recall that I looked at one term, whereas transfers are admitted for three terms, and I haven't looked at ACT scores that would be in concordance with a 1400. I suppose we could telegraph those I found out to three terms (or I could look more up), but why? It's immaterial to the point here. I'm not interested in the formula you are attempting to develop. I'm simply addressing, factually, a statement you made upthread. </p>

<p>The statement was that NO transfers at Michigan (or schools like it) scored over a 1400, later amended to say you and some unnamed but knowledgable source believed the number was "quite, quite low." The fact is that the number at Michigan is certainly not zero, and unless Fall 2007 is a freakishly unusual term--and there are no indications here that it is--the number is not "quite quite low" either. </p>

<p>I don't know the transfer patterns at other schools like Michigan, nor do I know the source you're basing your information upon, so overall I think it would incautious for me to declare definitively that some transfers at those other schools scored over 1400, also. But your assumption for those schools might be worth reexamining. </p>

<p>As I stated before, perhaps transfer patterns are different than some of us believed.</p>