<p>
</p>
<p>you’re definitely the bigger person. (or more likely, you’re trying too hard.)</p>
<p>
Interesting observation…care to elaborate?</p>
<p>What would you guys say are WashU’s peers?<br>
WashU has top 10 programs in biology and social work (?)</p>
<h1>3 med school and i believe top 20 in law school. Or are we talking about undergraduate peers only?</h1>
<p>
Duke, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Rice, Emory</p>
<p>WUSTL academic peers would be any university ranked between #6 and #40. Schools I would compare WUSTL to the most (in terms of overall college experience and atmosphere) are Emory, Georgetown, Northwestern, Rice and Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>n00b, i didn’t mention WUSTL before, but I have love for the school as well 
one of my best friends goes there and loves it! and I have visited him twice as well, and loved the experience! :D</p>
<p>The poster (rjkofnovi) stated that Michigan is a peer of Penn; MGMT refuted the claim by stating “it (is) not a peer in that it’s not an Ivy League institution nor a top selective university. Penn is clearly the higher, more prestigious school.”
Rjkofnovi further asserted his original claim by stating: “Yes seriously. Penn is NOT a top Ivy. Michigan is a top public and is an academic peer of Penn.”</p>
<p>Therefore, the basis of Rjk’s argument implicitly suggests that because “Penn is NOT a top Ivy” and “Michigan is a top public”, then the Michigan is an academic peer of Penn. However, this logic would also implicitly suggest that because Spelman is the top HBCU and Penn is NOT a top Ivy, they would be academic peers of each other. We all know this is not true, as Spelman is not an academic peer of neither Michigan nor Penn.</p>
<p>As a result, Rjk’s deductive reasoning skills and arguments are flawed and holds no sound validity…</p>
<p>DukeAlumnus, your reasoning started off well, but then faltered in the latter stages. From RJK’s statement, I deduced that he meant that top public universities are roughly equal in quality to the Ivies other than HYP. In other words, Brown, Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Michigan, Penn and UVa are all academic peers. There are obviously vast differences in the atmoshpere and feel between Brown and Cal or between Dartmouth and Michigan or between Columbia and UVa, but in terms of academic excellence, they are all peers. The peer assessment score assigned to the quality of undergraduate education at those universities seems to support RJK’s statement. </p>
<p>Cal: 4.7/5.0
Columbia: 4.5/5.0
Cornell: 4.5/5.0
Penn: 4.5/5.0
Michigan: 4.4/5.0
Brown: 4.3/5.0
Dartmouth: 4.3/5.0
UVa: 4.3/5.0</p>
<p>Where you lost me, and several others, is in assuming that you could assign the same weight to an HBCU as you could to leading public universities. Your comparison would be equivallent to the following argument:</p>
<p>RJK’s reasoning:
Golfer X is one of the top 50 Golfers in Europe.
Golfer Y is one of the top 50 Golfers in the US.
Therefore, Golfer X and Golfer Y are peers.</p>
<p>Your reasoning:
If RJK’s reasoning is true, then the following must also be true:
Golfer X is one of the top 50 Golfers in Europe.
Golfer Z is one of the top 50 Golfers in Greenland
Therefore, Golfer X and Golfer Z are peers</p>
<p>“Where you lost me, and several others, is in assuming that you could assign the same weight to an HBCU as you could to leading public universities.”</p>
<p>That’s precisely my point. He assigned the same weight to a “top public school” as he did a “non top Ivy”.</p>
<p>You could look at it this way:
RJK: Basketball player A is one of the top 10 players in the USA
Basketball player B is one of the top 10 players in Florida
Therefore, A and B are peers.</p>
<p>However, if you have a list of the top 100 players in the USA and there are no players from Florida on the list, then a) players A and B are not peers, and b) player B could be ranked as the #150, #500, or #1,000 player in the USA.</p>
<p>UNC people love to make this argument as to why UNC is equal to Duke; they assert that because UNC is one of the top 5 public schools and Duke is not one of the top 5 private school, then they are equal (or even UNC is better). However, when you look at the rankings, you will see that Duke is ranked in the Top 10, while UNC is not in the top 25. Duke is ranked #13 in the world, while UNC is not in the Top 100.</p>
<p>For the record, Penn is ranked #6 in the USA, while Michigan is not ranked in the Top 25; Penn is ranked #11 in the world, while Michigan is ranked #18. I’d say it’s a stretch to say they are peers…</p>
<p>i agree with duke vs unc, but 11 vs 18 is hardly a difference…</p>
<p>CAN YOU GUYS PLEASE NOT HIGHJACK THE THREAD! No one clicked on the thread to see a flame war between Michigan and Penn and Duke and whoever else jumped in. Seriously, this isn’t the place nor is it the point of this thread.</p>
<p>^true that. my bad… i did detract at times :/</p>
<p>Dukealumnus, again, your logic fails you. How is comparing a toppublic university to a top private university the same as comparing a top 10 player in one state vs a top 10 player in the entire country? And you are looking at just the USNWR. That ranking is one that intentionally sets out to hurt public universities.</p>
<p>Now, please tell me how is #11 in the World better than #18 in the World? And according to whom? I assume you are referring to the Times rankings, which also ranks Stanford #17 in the World and Cal #34 in the World. How reliable is that? Besides, the Times is just one of three widely circulated rankings of World universities. The other two are Newsweek (which ranks Michigan #11 and Penn #13) and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University ranking (which ranks Penn #15 and Michigan #21 in the World). None of those rankings suggest that Penn is appreciably better than Michigan.</p>
<p>“CAN YOU GUYS PLEASE NOT HIGHJACK THE THREAD! No one clicked on the thread to see a flame war between Michigan and Penn and Duke and whoever else jumped in. Seriously, this isn’t the place nor is it the point of this thread.”</p>
<p>Right you are bjomounts. I guess I can lose sight of the big picture sometimes.</p>
<p>Penn and Michigan are academic peers… lol. It’s like comparing apples to oranges but at the core of everything, they are both roughly equal as academic peers.</p>
<p>Actually, if you like accuracy, MGMT was the one who initially stated that Michigan wasn’t a peer of Penn. I just refuted him. If you wanted to accuse anyone of starting a flaming war, there was your instigator. Here were his/her exact quotes: </p>
<p>"lol you guys are so delusional. “I go to Community College A and I have respect for my peer school Ivy B.”</p>
<p>How is Michigan a peer to Princeton, Penn, etc?"l</p>
<p>I agree Michigan is not a peer to Princeton, but then again neither is Duke or Penn. It is not a “community college” and it is an academic peer of the so called lesser Ivies, which include any schools not starting with the letters H,Y,or P.</p>
<p>Let us be honest RJK, we all got carried away! LOL! That’s OK for the rest of you, but a moderator such as myself should know better.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think this thread is excellent. Instead of ranking universities aimlessly, people are grouping universities with universities they feel are of equal quality. That is far more effective than the usual regurgitation of statistics. For example, grouping Chicago, Columbia and Johns Hopkins together makes perfect sense as they all three have a lot in common. Or grouping Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke and Northwestern. Again, those schools have a lot in common. Or Georgetown, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt and WUSTL. Those are random examples mind you, but in the end, you get a better result than comparing universities that may be of equal calibre, but completely difference, like comparing Notre Dame to Columbia or Cal to Dartmouth etc…</p>
<p>Well i just woke up, I do sleep once in a while, and noticed I was being slightly disparaged in this thread in the wee hours of the morning. Just wanted to defend myself. Carry on.</p>
<p>Alex,
I wasn’t going to post in this debate, but your comment # 117 requires it. Like it or not, statistical evidence can go a long way to supporting (or not) one’s claims about a college. </p>
<p>I liken objective comparisons to windshield wipers which clear away the rain and let one get a better look at the terrain. Comparing on matters such as size, student diversity. student strength, graduation/retention rates, class sizes, financial resources, etc. can go a very long way to understanding the differences in various colleges and what an undergraduate student will directly experience when he/she gets on campus. The colleges with the premier undergraduate environments of great peers / small class sizes / great teaching / deep financial resources will compare well in all of these elements while the weaker ones will cling to a few that present them in the best light. </p>
<p>You often claim that your alma mater is a peer to many of the top private undergraduates in the USA. I guess it depends on how you define peer. While U Michigan is a fine state university, in today’s world, the vast majority of OOS USA students would select Duke and U Penn over U Michigan. Certain subsets of academic major might equal or even supersede Duke an U Penn (eg, UM Bus & Eng are nationally competitive), but taken as a whole, U Michigan undergrad is not in the same class as Duke and U Penn. </p>
<p>Look at the specific data for each college and it’s easy to see which is the outlier and doesn’t belong. </p>
<p>O B J E C T I V E D A T A </p>
<p><strong><em>STUDENT BODY</em></strong><br>
UNDERGRADUATE ENROLLMENT<br>
Duke 6394 U Penn 9687 U Michigan 26083</p>
<p>NUMBER OF IS STUDENTS (% OF STUDENTS)<br>
Duke 959 (15%) U Penn 1841 (19%) U Michigan 17736 (68%)</p>
<p>% OF WHITE, BLACK, ASIAN, HISPANIC, INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS<br>
Duke 58%/10%/19%/6%/6% U Penn 59%/8%/17%/6%/10% U Michigan 71%/6%/12%/5%/5%</p>
<p>% OF STUDENTS IN FRATERNITIES/SORORITIES<br>
Duke 30%/42% U Penn 30%/26% U Michigan 15%/17%</p>
<p><strong><em>RETENTION & GRADUATION RATES</em></strong><br>
FRESHMAN RETENTION RATE<br>
Duke 96% U Penn 98% U Michigan 96%
-% OF STUDENTS WHO GRADUATE IN 4 YEARS:<br>
Duke 86% U Penn 87% U Michigan 70%
-% OF STUDENTS EXPECTED TO GRADUATE IN 6 YEARS:<br>
Duke 93% U Penn 95% U Michigan 81%
-% OF STUDENTS WHO DO GRADUATE IN 6 YEARS:<br>
Duke 94% U Penn 95% U Michigan 88%</p>
<p><strong><em>FACULTY RESOURCES</em></strong><br>
-% OF CLASSES WITH <20 STUDENTS<br>
Duke 70% U Penn 74% U Michigan 44%
% OF CLASSES WITH 20-50 STUDENTS<br>
Duke 25% U Penn 19% U Michigan 38%
-% OF CLASSES WITH 50+ STUDENTS<br>
Duke 5% U Penn 7% U Michigan 18%
-FACULTY/STUDENT RATIO<br>
Duke 8/1 U Penn 6/1 U Michigan 15/1
% OF FULL-TIME FACULTY<br>
Duke 97% U Penn 67% U Michigan 92%</p>
<p><strong><em>STUDENT STRENGTH</em></strong><br>
-% ACCEPTANCE RATE<br>
Duke 23% U Penn 16% U Michigan 50%
-TOTAL SAT/ACT RANGE (Middle 50%)<br>
Duke 1340-1540/29-34 U Penn 1330-1530/31-34 U Michigan 1220-1420/27-31
SAT CRITICAL READING RANGE (Middle 50%)<br>
Duke 660-750 U Penn 650-750 U Michigan 590-690
% OF STUDENTS SCORING 700+ ON SAT CRITICAL READING<br>
Duke 60% U Penn 55% U Michigan 23%
SAT MATH RANGE (Middle 50%)<br>
Duke 680-790 U Penn 680-780 U Michigan 630-730
% OF STUDENTS SCORING 700+ ON SAT MATH<br>
Duke 68% U Penn 67% U Michigan 43%
% OF STUDENTS SCORING 30+ ON ACT<br>
Duke 72% U Penn 70% U Michigan 45%
-% OF STUDENTS RANKING IN TOP 10% IN HS CLASS<br>
Duke 90% U Penn 96% U Michigan 92%</p>
<h1>OF NMS FINALISTS IN 2007 (% of entering students)</h1>
<pre><code>Duke 90 (6%) U Penn 115 (12%) U Michigan 62 (1%)
</code></pre>
<p><strong><em>FINANCIAL</em></strong><br>
COST (Tuition & Fees) FOR OOS & IS<br>
Duke $37,525 U Penn $37,526 U Michigan $32,401/$11,111
USNWR 2009 FINANCIAL RESOURCES RANK<br>
Duke 11th U Penn 9th U Michigan 35th
ENDOWMENT SIZE (PER CAPITA undergrad and grad)<br>
Duke $450,360 U Penn $329,509 U Michigan $184,494
% OF STUDENTS WHO RECEIVE FINANCIAL AID<br>
Duke 39% U Penn 42% U Michigan 40%
% OF FINANCIAL NEED MET & AVERAGE SIZE OF PACKAGE<br>
Duke 100%/ $31,014 U Penn 100%/$31,820 U Michigan 90%/$11,014
ALUMNI GIVING %<br>
Duke 40% U Penn 38% U Michigan 18%</p>
<p>S U B J E C T I V E D A T A </p>
<p>USNWR 2009 RANK<br>
Duke 8th U Penn 6th U Michigan 26th</p>
<p>USNWR PEER ASSESSMENT SCORE<br>
Duke 4.4 U Penn 4.4 U Michigan 4.4</p>
<p>USNWR 2009 RANK EX-PA<br>
Duke 6th U Penn 6th U Michigan 37th</p>
<p>RANKED BY USNWR FOR EXCELLENT CLASSROOM TEACHING<br>
Duke YES U Penn NO U Michigan NO</p>
<p>With apologies to the OP for taking this thread further off-track, I hereby return this thread to the original topic of schools that one most respects. In my case, those would be:</p>
<p>Privates: Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame</p>
<p>Publics: UC Berkeley, U Virginia, UCLA, U Michigan, U North Carolina, W&M</p>
<p>Hawkette,</p>
<p>I found your post interesting… but I think your definition of peer schools is very limited. Oftentimes, it’s not just the students that define which schools are peer schools of the others. Oftentimes, they’re the employers. Here’s the schools that the employers considered peers:</p>
<p>McKinsey maintains working relationships with dozens of campus career centers, but this year the firm is actively recruiting at only a handful of them. These schools are Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, MIT, Stanford and the University of Michigan.</p>
<p>Please continue by clicking the link Undergraduate Recruiting at Vault’s Top Six Consulting Firms: <a href=“http://www.vault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=252&article_id=14364421&cat_id=1223[/url]”>http://www.vault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=252&article_id=14364421&cat_id=1223</a></p>
<p>In my opinion, if McKinsey, the most notorious MC firm when it comes to recruitment, considered UMich as one of the select few to recruit talents at, then I think that says a lot about UMich’s prestige and academic quality. I mean, come on. This is McKinsey doing talking now. How is that questionable?? And, like I said, McKinsey is extremely elitist when it comes to recruitment. It did not even consider Duke, Brown and some fancy private schools in the NE. It also did not consider Berkeley, which is very surprising given Berkeley’s domineering prestige across the globe.</p>