Preliminary 2013 admissions data

<p>

But why should an undergraduate care what a professor does with his time outside the confines of the classroom and office hours? Those are the times the vast majority of students will interact with the faculty member. If you want to conduct specific research with the professor out of the blue after a particularly fascinating lecture one day, you obviously need to jump through some hoops and get permission at Duke much like you would at UCLA or Michigan but this doesn’t apply top 95% of students.</p>

<p>I maintain that as long as a professor is able to meaningfully engage a classroom in a small-group setting in discussions about the subject matter, give feedback whenever a student asks for it, and promptly answer emails to questions students have after class, then he is more than doing his/her job. However, this is anything but guaranteed at public schools where the professor has to sit in a lecture hall with 400 undergraduates and is unable to field questions from students real-time during the lecture since its impossible to hear anyone.</p>

<p>

My experience with Political Science classes at Duke would compel me to disagree with this statement. In a class of 40 to 50 students, every student in the room will be able to recognize everyone else’s face at least by the first month and people definitely notice if you consistently don’t participate in discussions.</p>

<p>One of my sophomore classes in Political Science was a 30-40 person section in which the professor included participation as an overall component in the final grade so everyone was forced to raise their hand and contribute to the conversation. The professor would stop every 5-10 minutes to get a student’s analysis on an aspect of the readings that were assigned for that day. In fact, there was a set of readings due for each class and so the lecture’s purpose was to cement key concepts and have a Socratic dialogue amongst classmates to break down different theories and concepts that were presented in the text.</p>

<p>In a 100 person class, it would be truly impossible to force any student to get involved in classroom discussions and many students can simply not show up to class and not suffer any penalty. I remember this clearly because the first Introductory Economics class was this way at Duke. I can only imagine how poor the classroom experience would be if I had to take a dozen or so classes like that, which might have been the case at a place like Texas or UCLA.</p>

<p>

So, you would only include the USWNR Peer Assessment ratings as part of your rankings and nothing else? That’s the only way that Cal and Michigan land in these ranges; the use of almost any other measure such as selectivity, counselor rankings, class sizes, financial resources, etc. would cause these schools to tumble.</p>

<p>goldenboy, you are obsessed by Michigan. There has not been a single thread on the Michigan forum that points out a strength that you have not tried to discredit or downplay. In a way, it is flattering. This alone proves how threatened you are by Michigan. </p>

<p>“I maintain that as long as a professor is able to meaningfully engage a classroom in a small-group setting in discussions about the subject matter, give feedback whenever a student asks for it, and promptly answer emails to questions students have after class, then he is more than doing his/her job. However, this is anything but guaranteed at public schools where the professor has to sit in a lecture hall with 400 undergraduates and is unable to field questions from students real-time during the lecture since its impossible to hear anyone.”</p>

<p>A class that has 400 students at Michigan will likely have 300-400 students at any top private university. Like I said, class sizes at Michigan are roughly the same size as they are are top private universities. It’s not like a class with 400 students at Michigan would only have 50 or even 100 students at a private peer. My intermediate Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Financial Econ and Econometrics classes had 150, 120, 90 and 60 students respectively. Several friends from high school took the same classes (in the case of Micro and Econometrics, using textbooks written by Hal Varian and Jan Kmenta, both my professors at Michigan at the time) at several private elites, and their classes in those subjects had roughly the same number of students (in some cases 10%-20% smaller, but in most cases, almost identical. By the way, those were the four largest Econ classes I took at Michigan (I was fortunate enough to place out of Econ 101 and 102). All of my remaining Econ classes had between 10 and 50 students. On average, my Econ classes had 30-40 students.</p>

<p>“So, you would only include the USWNR Peer Assessment ratings as part of your rankings and nothing else? That’s the only way that Cal and Michigan land in these ranges the use of almost any other measure such as selectivity, counselor rankings, class sizes, financial resources, etc. would cause these schools to tumble.”</p>

<p>Not at all. If properly, accurately and consistently measured, even if you include selectivity measures, class size, financial resources etc…, Cal would still be ranked between #6 and #9 (higher than Duke for sure) and Michigan between #10 and #17. I personally do not believe in the counsellor ratings. They are a complete joke. The majority of high school counsellors are not knowledgeable about universities. </p>

<p>But let us break down the USNWR:</p>

<ol>
<li>I have no idea how the USNWR measures financial resources, but it is pathetic and insulting to the intellect of any reader with half a brain. There are only two bottom line measures of financial resources; endowment and debt upon graduation. The rest can, and are, easily manipulated by private universities that do not answer to any authority as public universities do. </li>
</ol>

<p>As far as debt upon graduation is concerned, most elite universities (not including HYPSM, Caltech and Rice) average between $16,000 and $32,000. Cal, UCLA, UVa and UNC all average in the $16,000-$19,000 range (along with Dartmouth, Penn and Vanderbilt). Michigan’s average graduating debt is $27,000 (Brown, Cornell, Duke, Emory, Georgetown, JHU, Northwestern and several other private elites also have graduation debts averages in the $20,000-$26,000 range). Some private universities, like CMU, Notre Dame, USC and Wake Forest, have average graduation debts in the $30,000+ range. Chicago and Columbia do not provide graduation debt statistics. In short, when all smoke screens are eliminated, private or public elites provide similar financial resources to student aid. </p>

<p>As far as endowment goes, Michigan’s stands at $7.7 billion, the 6th or 7th largest in the nation, and that does not include the $300 million annual state funding that it receives. Adjusted to private university standards (they do not receive any state funding), Michigan’s endowment would be roughly equal to $13-$14 billion (only HYPS) would be larger. Even on a per student basis, Michigan would be among the top 10 or thereabout (not including LACs), with only HYPSM and perhaps Caltech and Rice having a significant edge. </p>

<p>The rest of the USNWR financial resources equation is a joke. It rewards universities that waste money and motivates private universities to resort to highly questionable and “creative” accounting practices. From a finances point of view, Michigan is definitely among the top 20, perhaps even among the top 15. </p>

<ol>
<li>Where selectivity is concerned, Cal us already one of the 15 most selective universities in the nation and Michigan is among the 25 most selective. With the way private universities “report” data, I would not be surprised if Cal were in fact among the 10 most selective universities and Michigan among the 20 most selective. And Michigan is gaining at the moment. It is one of the few universities with a rapidly growing applicant pool. However, the way private universities report data, superscoring and lying about SAT/ACT ranges, definitely hurts public universities. That fact that Michigan and Cal still manage to rank so highly on selectivity measures is impressive. </li>
</ol>

<p>Either way, financial resources and selectivity are not holding Cal and Michigan back…certainly if data is properly, accurately and consistently reported and calculated.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Faculty resources are certainly interesting. Again, until private and public universities report data the same way, it is pointless to compare. </p></li>
<li><p>Alumni donation rates, should not be considered a ranking variable since private and public universities approach it very differently. Private universities openly solicit alumni very aggressively while public universities may not. Secondly, private universities have been soliciting alumni since the late 19th and early 20th century. Public universities did not start taking alumni donations seriously until the 1980s because up to that point, public universities did not require additional financial assistance than tuition and state funding. Again, reporting data is an issue. Some private universities have “special donation plans” where alums are coaxed into giving a $5 donation to be reported over a 5 year period; $1 annually. Some private universities publicly embarrass alums who do not donate. Finally, the size of a university’s alumni body is a restriction. There is a reason why the majority of the top alumni donation rates belong to LACs. The smaller the alumni base, the easier it is to reach a larger segment of alums. Personally, I think alumni donations should be calculated on a donation/alum basis, and should not be used in a ranking, but much like the Teaching Quality Ranking, should be reported separately.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I have long suspected that private universities do not report data accurately or consistently. Whether as a result of deliberate unethical practices or internal university practices does not matter. The way S:F ratios are reported and the recent scandal with admissions data reporting at a couple of major colleges and universities prove that there is a problem with the way private universities report data across the board, whether it is in selectivity, faculty resources, financial resources or a number of other data. I stand by my opinion that Michigan would leap into the top 20 if all data were accurately, consistently and honestly.</p>

<p>Back to the OP point. The spike in applications in the last three years are not isolated random occurrences. Most elite universities that join the common app see a surge in applicants that lasts several years. Michigan is no exception. As long as Michigan is considered a reasonable reach or a match, top students will continue to apply at a rapidly increasing rate annually, and as long as the percentage accepted continues to drop in chunks, the yield will hold, if not increase, as the university’s top rated programs and excellent environment will take care of the rest. For this reason, the quality of the students enrolling in the university will continue to rise as it has for the last two years. By 2014, Michigan’s acceptance rate will be in the 25%-28% range, and the mid 50% ACT/SAT will be 29-33 / 1280-1480. For the Bicentennial, Michigan’s acceptance rate will drop to 20%, and the mid 50% ACT/SAT for incoming freshmen will be 30-34 / 1320-1520. Whether Michigan becomes more selective after 2017 depends on how the university is perceived by high schoolers, and how generous their FA packages are. With the new fund raising campaign which is set to start later this year and is expected to top the $5 billion mark come 2017, reportedly targeting scholarships and financial aid, I am fairly certain that Michigan will soon be meeting 100% of financial need for all US students, regardless of residence status.</p>

<p>Alexandre, as a prospective student of a number of private schools and Michigan, I want to personally thank you. You were thorough in your data and argumentation and cut through a lot of the BS. The debate of public vs. private is certainly a relevant one in today’s college admissions scene.</p>

<p>My GPA means I will likely not be able to choose where I go; admissions of the places I applied to will determine my destination. I may not even be able to get into any of my preferred places and have to settle for Michigan State. However, if I am able to make a selection, what you said here was extremely helpful.</p>

<p>Goldenboy, I’m sorry, and I still love Duke (applied and interviewed), but many of your points looked biased, to say the least. You cherrypicked Alexandre’s argument in numerous places and ignored the damning parts. “You actually think it is ok for a university to fudge numbers” was spot on; your argument centered around massaging the numbers to fit the most favorable argument for your university. It doesn’t work that way. You frequently cited aspects and numbers that purported to put private universities in a better light that A) Alexandre largely defused (s/f ratio, seminars: sometimes smaller isn’t always better; did you see also, that sportsmom said her son liked being able to blend in with the crowd in some places? I think that’s a sentiment shared by many, including myself) or B) were just illogical to begin with (counselor ranking is, as stated, absurd: to think that the counselors at my school, who are to put it charitably hands-off, influence USNWR rankings is laughable).</p>

<p>I still love the private universities I applied to as much or more than Michigan. (Though some I would prefer to be a Wolverine) However, Alexandre convinced me that the difference between some of these private institutions and their public counterparts is at least overstated.</p>

<p>Thanks again Alexandre.</p>

<p>Alexandre,</p>

<p>I, too, have noticed the rampant cheating on s/f ratios at some private universities. The instructions on the common data set are very clear: universities are to exclude graduate/professional students and faculty in “stand-alone” graduate-level programs, which typically would include law, business, and medicine. But by implication, they should count faculty who teach both undergrads and grad students in their faculty totals for purposes of calculating s/f ratios, and they should also include the grad students in those fields in their student total for that same purpose. Typically this would include sciences, social sciences, humanities, and engineering, as well as business at schools that have both undergrad and graduate (MBA) programs, unless the graduate-level faculty is entirely separate from the undergrad business faculty. Penn is one of the most egregious offenders here: last time I looked, they calculated their s/f ratio by counting only undergrads as “students,” and by counting every last faculty member, even law and medical professors, as “faculty.” An honest accounting would have pushed their s/f ratio up into the teens, instead of 8:1 or whatever they claimed. It’s as if they were claiming every last graduate student was in a “stand-alone” program, and every last faculty member was not in a “stand-alone” program.</p>

<p>As long as some schools are engaged in this kind of manipulation, s/f ratios just aren’t comparing apples to apples. I thought about opening up a CC thread on this, but I just didn’t have time to crunch the numbers for a bunch of schools.</p>

<p>That’s correct bclintonk. Until all data provided to ranking publications by universities are thoroughly audited for consistency, accuracy and adjusted for state vs private variables, ranking are misleading. Trust me, it does not stop at the s:f ratio. Many universities exaggerate SAT/ACT ranges, and many manipulate financial resources horribly. The whole system is rotten to the core.</p>

<p>Thank you Alexandre for presenting a factual, well thought out and well supported argument for Michigan.</p>

<p>Alexandre- great posts. To play devil’s advocate (I will start out by admitting that my son has been accepted as an OOS to UM), do you think Michigan might inflate its students’ test scores? I was upset when I saw what happened at Emory, as my son is applying there too. But I have to wonder if all schools don’t try to fudge the data a bit. Unfortunately, the USNWR rankings are viewed by too many as a gospel. I really appreciate how you posted all this information. It is quite eye-opening. Please realize that I’m not trying to discredit your assertions, I just wanted to know what you think about a school like UM resorting to the same tactics as other schools.</p>

<p>PsychoDad, I will not absolve any university, Michigan included, of wrong doing. All universities should have their figures audited. That being said, public universities generally have far less pressure to do well in the rankings as rankings are not a priority to them. Also, public universities generally must have their data audited by state officials. That is not to say that public universities cannot fudge data, but they do not usually have the same pressures or freedom to misreport data.</p>

<p>Congratulations on your son’s acceptance by the way. He can rest knowing he at least got one good university in the bag.</p>

<p>Thank you for your post- your data is very interesting. My son really liked UM and wants to major in Classics, and I know that their program is one of the best in the country. Ad at least I know that the majority of his classes in Classics will have very small class sizes.</p>

<p>BTW he got into Boston College as well.</p>

<p>Congratulations to your son PsychoDad10 on his admission to BC and Michigan!</p>

<p>On another note, public and private universities alike don’t have to include transfer students in their enrollment statistics so a lot of these schools have weaker student bodies as a whole than when just their freshman class is examined. Some of the most egregious offenders of this practice are NYU, USC, UCLA, and Cal Berkeley.</p>

<p>I think you go far in your disparaging of private universities Alexandre but there definitely should be an independent auditing of these rankings to make sure we are comparing apples to apples.</p>

<p>The only statistics that are meaningful to prospective students are graduate representation in elite medical, law, and business programs since this pertains to a vast segments of students and since this metric measures actual outcomes, it can’t be manipulated. Unfortunately, besides individual schools posting lists, there have been no comprehensive studies done since the WSJ Feeder Ranking in the early 2000s.</p>

<p>Michigan is in the top 20 for National Universities in that ranking if I recall so maybe you are right that a few more private or public schools will be exposed for being frauds before all is said and done.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>I think it’s a gross exaggeration to say that “the only statistics that are meaningful to prospective students are graduate representation in elite medical, law, and business programs.” That’s just wildly off-base. The vast majority of undergraduates will never go to medical, law, or graduate-level business school, and many, probably most, do not aspire to graduate education in any of those fields. Many want to be engineers or computer scientists or research scientists. Others study business at the undergrad level and never intend to do graduate work that would largely replicate what they’ll learn as undergraduates. Some aspire to dental school, or pharmacy school, or vet school. Some want to be nurses, or teachers. Some want to work in forestry, or conservation biology, or public land management. Some hope to be diplomats, or land some kind of position in public policy. Some aspire to earn Ph.D.s and teach at the college ro university level. The possibilities are endless. </p>

<p>As for WSJ’s “comprehensive” feeder ranking, that has been widely and thoroughly debunked for its poor methodology. Apart from its numerous other flaws, any “study” that doesn’t normalize for the number of applicants from a particular institution and for the objective qualifications of those applicants (e.g., LSAT, MCAT, GMAT scores) is pretty worthless. To use a crude example, if a University of Wisconsin student with an undergrad GPA of 3.9 and a 175 on the LSAT has the same statistical probability of acceptance at Yale Law School as a Harvard undergrad with the identical GPA and LSAT score, then there’s zero advantage to choosing Harvard over Wisconsin if your goal is admission to Yale Law School, even if Harvard sends 50 times as many students to Yale Law School as Wisconsin because it has so many more top LSAT scorers (as one would expect, since it has so many more high SAT-scorers in its undergraduate student body, and LSAT scores correlate strongly with SAT scores). Then the putative advantage of attending Harvard is just an optical illusion.</p>

<p>Personally I think it is fantastic that the University of Michigan keeps increasing their applications and selectivity. I think it helps out the state of Michigan in many ways. Also, I’ve said for a while now that U of M should cut down their in state enrollment to about 50-55% and decrease their freshmen enrollment to about 5,000 students. This would increase UMich’s selectivity and the selectivity of other Michigan universities that enroll a large amount of U of M rejects (Michigan State and Grand Valley State for example). The state of Michigan is shrinking and therefore UMich should cut down their in state enrollment (which I think they are doing now).</p>

<p>“The only statistics that are meaningful to prospective students are graduate representation in elite medical, law, and business programs since this pertains to a vast segments of students and since this metric measures actual outcomes, it can’t be manipulated.”</p>

<p>In the real world (read: not CC), most prospective college students will not end up pursuing graduate work of any kind, much less in the three relatively narrow disciplines you listed. My guess is that the WSJ list they’d find even more interesting is the one in which large employers of recent college graduates list out the schools they find to be the most productive feeders. </p>

<p>Heck, even Duke kids eventually have to get a job, don’t they? (Or, to put it differently, the one in my house had better.)</p>

<p>

I meant that there exists at least a critical mass of students that interested in those three professional programs where it makes sense for us to compare outcomes between schools by examining those statistics. A lot of people get a job after college and then go to business school 3-5 years down the line. This isn’t always the case, especially in engineering and computer science, but there’s definitely a sizeable amount that do.</p>

<p>I think something like ~800 Michigan students/alums apply to law school and medical school a piece annually so there’s 1,600 UMich grads right there. I would estimate that at least a 1/3 of each Michigan graduating class ends up going to law school, medical school, or business school.</p>

<p>Goldenboy, it is true that 1/3 of Michigan’s graduating class ends up going to law, medical or business graduate school. That’s actually low compared to many elites, where typically, half their graduates end up in one or more of these three professional programs. The reason for this is simple. Michigan has a far more intellectually diverse student population than many of its peers. The only elite institutions I can think of that have an equally diverse undergraduate student body (academically speaking) are Cal, Cornell and Northwestern. That is why I often list those are Michigan’s closest peers. </p>

<p>The WSJ report you referenced above was flawed…very flawed. It was certainly interesting and, had the study been far more exhaustive, would actually have been quite telling. Let us be honest, there is no way that looking at the top 5 programs in each of those three professional fields would have been sufficient. For one, how do you determine the top 5 HYS are the definite top 3 Law schools, but which two follow? Chicago, Columbia, Michigan or NYU? Legal scholars and major law firms would not be able to agree on two out of those four. And that’s not even scratching the surface. What about Cal, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Northwestern, Penn and UVa law schools? There are approximately 15 law schools that are considered outstanding/elite/world class. Why settle for just 5? And there are probably 15 elite Medical schools and just as many elite MBA programs. For example, among Medical programs, Harvard and JHU are the unquestioned top 2. But what about Columbia, Duke, Michigan, Penn, UCSF, UDub, WUSTL and Yale to name a few? Heck, even Chicago, UCLA and Vanderbilt can be included. Which three medical schools would you pick to join Harvard and JHU? Among MBA programs, Harvard, Wharton and Stanford are the top 3. But Chicago, Columbia, MIT and Northwestern come close. Cal, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Michigan, NYU, UCLA, UVa and Yale are up there too. Can anyone honestly pick two of those to join Harvard, Stanford and Wharton among the top 5? There are just too many elite graduate programs. I would include 15 for each of those major graduate programs.</p>

<p>But as many have pointed out above, those three fields are not the be-all/end-all of graduate school admissions. Engineering and CS are as important as Law, Medicine and MBA. The Engineering PhDs I know all started off in the 6 figures for major companies. They are now all making over the half million mark annually. Not including Engineering and CS makes no sense.</p>

<p>And not including other important programs, such as the major traditional disciplines (Anthro, Bio, Chem, Econ, Geology, History, Math, Physics, PoliSci, Psych, Socioloigy etc…), other health programs (Dentistry, Heath Services Management, Pharmacy, Nursing, Veterinary Medicine, Speech/Occupational/Physical Therapy, Public Health, Social Work etc…) and other important graduate programs such as Public Affairs, Architecture, International Relations, Music, etc… would also diminish the accuracy and relevance of such a study.</p>

<p>Don’t get me wrong, Michigan did ok in that study, so I have nothing personal against it. If memory serves, Michigan was #5 in absolute terms (only HYPS placed more graduates into the 15 programs included in the study), #18 in relative terms among national universities and #1 among public universities. But in order for the study to be truly complete, it will have to include far more fields of study, and far more programs than just the top 5 for each field. In such a comprehensive report, I suspect that HYPSM and Caltech will be the top 6. Beyond those, I do not think you will see a major difference between the next 15 private universities, top 5 public universities and top 10 LACs.</p>

<p>

There is not a single professional program on Planet Earth where MIT and Caltech alums are as well represented in absolute terms or in relative terms as say Duke grads. You’ve seen all the lists yourself for programs that report undergraduate representation: UVA Law, Yale Law, Harvard Law, Chicago Law, Michigan Law, Wash U Medicine, Vanderbilt Medicine, Hopkins Medicine, all M7 MBA programs, etc.</p>

<p>This is nothing to take away from those amazing institutions but I think you need to acknowledge that just because a school is more highly regarded academically, that doesn’t mean its students fare better in employment and professional school admissions. It would be silly to pick Caltech over Duke if one was interested in Investment Banking or Management Consulting. The former is a non-target school while the latter is a heavy hitter in this area.</p>

<p>I’ve also never seen Michigan outperform Duke in representation in any professional program besides Michigan Law and Chicago Law while UCLA, UNC, UVA, etc. are nowhere close to Duke in representation anywhere. I think a more comprehensive study will still show Duke as either #5, #6, or #7 trailing just HYPS and possibly an Ivy or two.</p>

<p>This is not surprising however since 18 year olds and most adults prefer the top private schools over the top public schools for undergraduate education.</p>

<p>

Legal scholars and prominent academics are in love with Berkeley and Michigan for sure but neither of those schools place their students into corporate law positions anywhere close to the rate that NYU or even Penn does. Michigan Law had a poor showing this past year and its graduates fared worse in law firm hiring than any T14 besides Georgetown.</p>

<p>Obviously, Michigan’s legal reputation will be sterling among older law deans and prominent faculty members since when they were growing up, Michigan was considered the #3 best law school in the country. But should we trust these individuals when their opinions aren’t considered by decision makers who actually hire law school graduates? After all, law school is a professional program so placement in the legal field should be the most important criteria to look at when assessing the quality of a law school. I don’t see how faculty strength even matters.</p>

<p>

Duke, Penn, WashU and UCSF Medicine have reputations that are a notch higher than the other schools you listed according to the Peer Assessment ratings done by Residency Directors and other medical schools.</p>

<p>I know you love Peer Assessment so you can’t ignore this metric in the field of Medicine.</p>

<p>“This is not surprising however since 18 year olds and most adults prefer the top private schools over the top public schools for undergraduate education.”</p>

<p>yeah i don’t/didn’t</p>

<p>“Duke, Penn, WashU and UCSF Medicine have reputations that are a notch higher than the other schools you listed according to the Peer Assessment ratings done by Residency Directors and other medical schools. I know you love Peer Assessment so you can’t ignore this metric in the field of Medicine.”</p>

<p>I agree. Peer assessment and Residency Directors ratings matter a great deal. I am not sure, however, how Duke, Penn or WUSTL separate themselves from Michigan or Stanford Medical schools according to Medical experts:</p>

<p>USCF: PA 4.7, RD 4.6 = 4.65 average
WUSTL: PA 4.6, RD 4.6 = 4.60 average
Stanford: PA 4.6, RD 4.5 = 4.55 average
Duke: PA 4.5, RD 4.5 = 4.50 average
Michigan: PA 4.3, RD 4.6 = 4.45 average
Penn: PA 4.4, RD 4.5 = 4.45 average
Columbia: PA 4.3, RD 4.4 = 4.35 average
UDub: PA 4.3, RD 4.3 = 4.30 average
Yale: P 4.3. RD 4.3 = 4.30 average</p>

<p>There is no reputational difference between those 9 elite Medical programs.</p>

<p>And why are you willing to accept the Medical school reputational ratings, but not Law school reputational ratings. It certainly looks like you are cherry picking. According to LAw schools PA, Judges and Lawyers and Big Law, Michigan Law’s reputation is tied in fourth place with Chicago and Columbia. That is why the WSJ actually included Michigan Law among the five programs in its survey back in 2003. If you are so willing to accept medical school reputational ratings, you have to accept Law school reputational ratings. Just because you do not agree with the majority of leading legal scholars does not make it so. Your irrational hatred for Michigan always seems to get the best of you.</p>

<p>“After all, law school is a professional program so placement in the legal field should be the most important criteria to look at when assessing the quality of a law school.”</p>

<p>Absolutely. But you are assuming that all law students have a similar ambition. They do not. Clearly, a smaller percentage of Michigan and Yale law school students wish to pursue careers in Big Law. Yale law graduates famously pursue clerkmanships while Michigan has a large percentage seeking positions in academe and in private practices in Michigan. What you need to look at is their reputation among Big Law firms (Yale #1 and Michigan #4) and the placement rates of graduates from those law schools schools actually seeking positions in Big Law firms. </p>

<p>I don’t see how faculty strength even matters."</p>

<p>I hope you are joking goldenboy. I won’t say more on this point, because if truly think the strength of the faculty does not matter, we will not be able to find a common ground. </p>

<p>“There is not a single professional program on Planet Earth where MIT and Caltech alums are as well represented in absolute terms or in relative terms as say Duke grads. You’ve seen all the lists yourself for programs that report undergraduate representation: UVA Law, Yale Law, Harvard Law, Chicago Law, Michigan Law, Wash U Medicine, Vanderbilt Medicine, Hopkins Medicine, all M7 MBA programs, etc.”</p>

<p>Engineering is a major professional field. Caltech and MIT destroy Duke where Engineering is concerned. It is not even close. And that’s the point many posters on CC, in this thread and myself have been making. Not all universities attract students interested in Law, Medical and MBA programs. Caltech and MIT attract students who are predominantly interested in pursuing graduate studies in Engineering, CS, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Economics, Mathematics and Physics. If you include those programs, Caltech and MIT will likely join HYPS as the top feeders into elite graduate programs in relative terms (Caltech is so small, it probably won’t crack the top 10 in absolute terms). </p>

<p>Again, your insisting on ignoring Engineering as a professional program seems a lot like cherry picking. Engineering graduate students have similar job offers, starting salaries and career paths as students enrolled in comparable MBA or Law programs. Engineering is as lucrative and important a profession as any, especially when it goes beyond the technical and into the strategy and management positions, which is what graduates from top Engineering programs end up doing. </p>

<p>“I’ve also never seen Michigan outperform Duke in representation in any professional program besides Michigan Law and Chicago Law”</p>

<p>Where Michigan will outpace Duke is in its placement of students in its own graduate programs. Michigan Law, Medicine and Ross each enrol ± 50 Michigan graduates annually Duke graduate professional programs are unlikely to enrol more than 15-20 Duke graduates per program. It is very difficult for Duke to bridge the gap of 30+ matriculants per program. Sure Duke may place as many alums at non-Michigan/non-Duke graduate programs as Michigan. In some instances, Duke will place slightly more and in other instances, Michigan will place slightly more. Overall, both will place roughly the same number in top graduate programs…until you factor in Michigan graduate programs. Once you do, Michigan will post bigger numbers than Duke. </p>

<p>“I think a more comprehensive study will still show Duke as either #5, #6, or #7 trailing just HYPS and possibly an Ivy or two.”</p>

<p>In relative terms, I think Duke would still be among the top 10, but not among the top 6. I genuinely believe that HYPSM and Caltech will blow the competition out of the water. Remember, Caltech was #17 in the WSJ survey, and that did not include Engineering or science PhD programs. If you include those programs, Caltech will leap forward! Once you get past those 6, the difference in relative terms between #7 and #20 will be insignificant if you include Engineering and other major graduate programs.</p>

<p>“This is not surprising however since 18 year olds and most adults prefer the top private schools over the top public schools for undergraduate education.”</p>

<p>18 year olds are, admittedly, very concerned with rankings. Not all of them mind you, but many of them are. I personally chose Michigan over a couple of schools that were ranked ahead of it. Many students I knew at Michigan also made similar decisions. And who cares about “adults”? 70% of adults have no college education and 70% of adults that do have degrees from third rate universities. Among the intellectual elite, top publics like Cal, Michigan and UVa have very strong reputations for undergraduate education…certainly on par with many elite private universities.</p>

<p>

I’m more willing to consider Medical school reputational rankings since I’ve never seen a study conducted that compares residency and subsequent hiring outcomes from different medical school like those that exist in mass for law schools.</p>

<p>Law school is a professional program so it makes sense for us to consider hiring statistics most stronly. These usually correspond with Peer Assessment anyway despite a few underperformers like Georgetown and Michigan.</p>

<p>The nation’s leading scholars have different priorities than law school students-these established individuals don’t need to worry about getting hired in a JD-preferred job like law school students do.</p>

<p>In terms of actual law firm and clerkship placement, Michigan’s peers are Duke, Berkeley, UVA, and Cornell-not Columbia or Chicago. Almost any study not based on opinion confirms this.</p>

<p>[Faculty</a> Quality Based on Membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2012](<a href=“http://www.leiterrankings.com/new/2012_AAAS.shtml]Faculty”>Faculty Quality Based on Membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2012)
[TOP</a> 70 LAW FACULTIES IN SCHOLARLY IMPACT, 2007-2011](<a href=“http://www.leiterrankings.com/new/2012_scholarlyimpact.shtml]TOP”>TOP 70 LAW FACULTIES IN SCHOLARLY IMPACT, 2007-2011)
[Brian</a> Leiter Law School Faculty Moves, 1995-2004](<a href=“http://www.leiterrankings.com/students/2010_top40lawschools.shtml]Brian”>Brian Leiter Law School Faculty Moves, 1995-2004)</p>

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Any data to back this up? Yale is the best law school in the world so its graduates often pursue Supreme Court clerkships after school before they work in a big law firm. I don’t see why Michigan Law grads would be all that different from Duke and Berkeley Law grads in terms of their career aspirations.</p>

<p>[Brian</a> Leiter Law School Faculty Moves, 1995-2004](<a href=“http://leiterrankings.com/new/2011_LawTeachers.shtml]Brian”>Brian Leiter Law School Faculty Moves, 1995-2004)</p>

<p>Michigan Law does very well indeed at placing its graduates in academia but not really any better than say UVA, Duke, Berkeley, etc.</p>

<p>Here’s proof from University of Chicago Law Professor Brian Leiter that Michigan’s legal reputation has eroded from its grandiose heights of the past and how NYU has surpassed it.:</p>

<p>1.U.S. News does not provide evaluators with any information about the schools to be evaluated: evaluators receive a list of about 180 school names, and that’s all. This survey provided evaluators with current faculty rosters for all the schools being evaluated. As evaluators completed the evaluation, they did so with the faculty roster right in front of them. This might explain why schools like NYU and Michigan essentially trade places in the 2003-04 EQR survey as compared to U.S. News: NYU has strengthened its faculty significantly over the last decade, while Michigan’s overall faculty strength (while still quite considerable) has eroded from its previous lofty heights. But because for many decades Michigan was one of the top five law schools, while NYU was not, evaluators presented only with school names rank Michigan more highly than NYU; evaluators presented with current faculty lists reverse that evaluation.</p>