Premed, Not sure where to go... UT, Michigan, Notre Dame, Emory, Duke

College Search & Selection
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@Alexandre As @waitingmomla mentonied above, I said that Duke is NOT fully on par with HYPSM in my original comment, but rather on par with the non-HYP ivies and Chicago.

Also you are conflating the standing of the undergraduates programs and the lay prestige of the schools with their academic standing as research universities, as this is reflected in research-focused international rankings.

For undergrad, UMich and UCLA are categorically not on par with the non-HYP ivies, Chicago, Duke. Every college ranking out there proves that, on top of metrics such as yield and acceptance rates as well as SAT scores, high school GPAs and cross-admit splits. The established view for undergrad is that HYPSM is king, followed by non-HYP ivies, Chicago, Duke. NU and Hopkins round out the top 15. Places like ND, Emory, GU, UMich, UCLA come after, no one really views them as top 15 colleges.

Now if you are talking about research and academic strength and the standing of the schools based on the research-focused international rankings, then HYPSM as a group is clearly not king. Harvard, Stanford, MIT dominate in that regard. Princeton is usually lower in the top 10 along with Chicago, and Yale is most often left outside the top 10, usually not ranking better than places like Penn, Columbia and Hopkins.

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The most important take away a high school senior should take is that prestige matters to the point of splitting hairs to some people, but NOT MED SCHOOLS. Med schools will NOT care one wit whether someone attended Emory, UGA, Vanderbilt, Duke, or any university/LAC in the top 100. (They also won’t care if the university is ranked top 100 or 200 but there may be more funding issues and opportunities to do what med schools expect out of academics so that should be reviewed too ).
A good college for pre-meds is collaborative not competitive and offers lots of support and resources. The student should be among the top 25% stats-wise and have excellent time management and work ethics. Finally, because so few would-be pre-meds never make it into med school, the college should offer strong placement, networking, and opportunities.

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“Also you are conflating the standing of the undergraduates programs and the lay prestige of the schools with their academic standing as research universities, as this is reflected in research-focused international rankings.”

So are the thousands of university presidents, provosts and deans who make up those surveys I see, although they are explicitly instructed to rate their peers based on the quality of the undergraduate education that they offer. I guess Gerhard Casper and his peers have nothing on you. :wink:

“For undergrad, UMich and UCLA are categorically not on par with the non-HYP ivies, Chicago, Duke. Every college ranking out there proves that, on top of metrics such as yield and acceptance rates as well as SAT scores, high school GPAs and cross-admit splits.”

Most rankings rely on a one-size-fits-all methodology that fails to capture the differences between private and public universities, and/or on very inconsistent, if not manipulated data. Remind me how Penn came up with its most impressive 6:1 student to faculty ratio again? :wink: Gerhard Casper touched on that point in his letter. He clearly demonstrates with what ease certain universities forfeit their moral compass in order to manipulate data and game the rankings. That you should condone such behavior does not reflect well on you.

Regardless, to suggest that Michigan and UCLA are “categorically not on par with non-HYP ivies, Chicago and Duke” is your opinion, it is not fact. That being said, you are correct in saying that most high school kids are likely to buy into those flawed rankings that you so tout so proudly, and for that reason, the majority would choose elite private universities over elite public universities. That does not make the them better, only more popular.

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@Alexandre hey the point of this thread really isn’t about ratings or prestige… That’s really not a factor for me because I️ feel like all of the schools in my top 5 are well respected in their own way Im more worried about advice and people with personal experiences at the schools and different perspectives

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Agreed Sirens56, and I think there has been a lot of good advice on this thread already. I would rely more on your own findings, and on your instincts. Go with what you feel is right for you.

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I would add to this that it’s not “some” people, but very, very few people almost all of whom probably find themselves on college forums. It’s rarely, rarely seen in real life with the exception of one or two fields. Then which college is the “best” will often depend upon what the Alma mater was of the person making hiring decisions.

This last bit can even happen with “normal” hiring to be honest. Living in PA, I know plenty of folks who consider Penn St to be the best school one can go to - and those folks are making hiring decisions.

BUT, the majority of people I come across recognize that there are several terrific schools out there only really varying by name/location/fit. Med school admissions seems to fit into this category. They are not trying to produce doctors solely for the academic snobbish world. They are trying to produce doctors for everyone. Therefore, it helps to take in top students from all walks of life - and oodles of different schools.

I know I have posted this before on other threads, but if one wants to see a Med School Class Profile (or a dozen), take a look at U Rochester’s:

https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/MediaLibraries/URMCMedia/education/md/documents/2021-profile.pdf

One can change the year in the URL and see those from previous years letting one realize much remains the same year in and year out. I suspect it would be a similar report from most med schools. It ought to let future pre-meds see what successful applicants have done, including schools they came from.

(As a personal connection, in this class, my guy is the one who juggles fire and knives - along with having many of the other things they mention, research, travel, volunteer things, shadowing things, etc, etc, etc. All that comes with his high GPA and MCAT score.)

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“The established view for undergrad is that HYPSM is king, followed by non-HYP ivies, Chicago, Duke. NU and Hopkins round out the top 15. Places like ND, Emory, GU, UMich, UCLA come after, no one really views them as top 15 colleges.”

That’s all based on US News, which others have said, you don’t have to be a slave to. You should use it as a general guide and go from there.

Also public universities use EA or have no early action program so to compare acceptance and yield is a little disingenuous between EA programs with ones with ED. In fact ED programs are used to game the rankings, I wonder what Duke or Penn’s yield would be if it had EA. Probably what it was when I applied (40%). Notre Dame is the notable exception in using EA.

What is the established view for engineering and computer science? Your beloved US News has Michigan and Berkeley ahead of any of the top 15 outside of Stanford and MIT. Their top-10 has 6 public colleges, Stanford, CMU, Cal Tech, MIT. No Chicago or Duke. Would you advise someone to pick Chicago over CMU for computer science? What do you do when two rankings provide contrary information?

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@theloniusmonk If Chicago was able to get an over 60% yield with EA up until 2 years ago, I dont see why Penn would not be able to do just as well.
A lot of people think that for undergrad both overall standing of the school and its strength in a specific discipline matters. Which is why it is not uncommon to see compsci and engineering people choosing Yale over Berkeley or CMU for example.

@Alexandre

So all the numerous college rankings out there are completely wrong and do not capture anything of importance? rather convenient of you to say so.

I dont, but maybe you can enlighten me. The numbers seem to add up. All I know is that every undergrad class at Penn is taught by a faculty member and not a TA.

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<<<<<
what school do you think I️ can get the best GPA at?
<<<<

What other schools accepted you and their net cost?

What is the net cost of all of your schools

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@Alexandre “it is common knowledge in academe that Michigan and UCLA are in that top peer group. Look at any peer rating, from the National Research Council to the Times Higher Education Ranking to the QS Ranking etc”

Times Higher Ed ranks UCLA and UMich ** BELOW ** Rice, Emory, Vandy and Notre Dame.

NRC focuses exclusively on doctoral programs, and releases rankings every 10 years - so not sure that’s relevant to this conversation.

QS Ranks UMaryland ahead of Emory, and UMinnesota ahead of Dartmouth, Vandy and Notre Dame. Do you really believe that? If so, I would wager you are in the minority, and would refer you to your own comment to the other poster about relying on flawed rankings.

“So are the thousands of university presidents, provosts and deans who make up those surveys I see, although they are explicitly instructed to rate their peers based on the quality of the undergraduate education that they offer”

Regardless of what they are “explicitly instructed”, these peer opinions are subjective and of course subject to personal bias. They are one piece of the pie to consider, yes. But hardly hard facts

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“Times Higher Ed ranks UCLA and UMich BELOW Rice, Emory, Vandy, and Notre Dame.”

That’s bunk!

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2018/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

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“So all the numerous college rankings out there are completely wrong and do not capture anything of importance? rather convenient of you to say so.”

Yes, rankings are, for the most part, completely wrong and do not capture much of anything. The US News methodology does not adjust for public universities in any way, and gives way too much liberty for universities to manipulate data. End result, academic powerhouses like Cal and Michigan are left out of the top 20 altogether. THE and QS are way too focused on research and international students. End result, LACs do not exist in their rankings. Brown is ranked #29 in the US, while Rice and Dartmouth barely crack the top 50. None of those rankings are reliable.

“I dont, but maybe you can enlighten me. The numbers seem to add up. All I know is that every undergrad class at Penn is taught by a faculty member and not a TA.”

I am surprised you do not know. Penn is one of the universities that manipulates data to make itself look better and inflate its rankings. Pretty unethical behavior if you ask me. All universities are clearly instructed to include graduate students enrolled in programs that also enroll undergraduate students in their student to faculty ratios. Penn omits some 7,000 such graduate students (2,200 in CAS, 2,400 in Wharton, 1,500 from SEAS and 700 from Nursing). Penn’s student to faculty ratio is 10:1, not 6:1. If it lies about something as easily verifiable as this, there is no telling what else it is lying about. Sadly, the US News does not audit data. As such, the ranking is not reliable. That’s what Stanford president Gerhard Casper explicitly says in his letter to the US News editor (link to his letter is provided in post #59 of this thread). Public universities may not manipulate data since theirs is audited by the state. Like I said, data used by the rankings are extremely unreliable, especially those reported by private universities as they are not even audited. At least the data released by public universities is audited.

As for every undergraduate class at Penn being taught by a faculty member, that’s usually the case for 95-98% of classes taught at most top universities, but seldom for 100% of the classes. TAs usually teach intro to Calculus, intro to college writing, and intro foreign language classes. That is certainly the case at Brown, Cornell, Harvard…and yes, at Michigan too. I am surprised it does not happen at Penn, although that would not be a bragging point. One does not need a Fields Medalist, or even an associate professor, to learn basic Calculus or intro to college writing. If anything, it would be a waste of a university’s resources. But beyond those intro-level classes, it is unusual for TAs to teach classes. As the title suggests, most TAs assist faculty, almost exclusively in leading discussion groups, almost always in lower level classes, where larger lecture groups are broken down into smaller discussion sections. TA involvement is part of a university’s development of future professors. How else are PhD students even to become good teachers if they do not learn in a supervised environment?

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Guys, this is NOT a discussion about prestige of Michigan v. Duke or whatever.
It’s a thread from a high school student who wants to go premed and is trying to figure out the school where that will be the easiest (or the least arduous, at least).

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@rjkofnovi “Times Higher Ed ranks UCLA and UMich BELOW Rice, Emory, Vandy, and Notre Dame." “That’s bunk!”

It is NOT bunk. See below link. Not sure why yours is different.

Maybe this is more proof of my point that it’s not wise to rely too much on these ratings.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/rankings/united-states/2018#!/page/0/length/50/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

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“Times Higher Ed ranks UCLA and UMich ** BELOW ** Rice, Emory, Vandy and Notre Dame.”

waitingmomla, the THE ranks UCLA and Michigan among the top 25. Emory, Notre Dame, Rice and Vanderbilt are not ranked among the top 50.

“QS Ranks UMaryland ahead of Emory, and UMinnesota ahead of Dartmouth, Vandy and Notre Dame. Do you really believe that? If so, I would wager you are in the minority, and would refer you to your own comment to the other poster about relying on flawed rankings.”

I did not say that the THE and QS are accurate. I said that according to all sources, Michigan and UCLA’s academic reputation is very strong. And no, I do not think that Maryland and Minnesota are better than Dartmouth, Emory, Notre Dame and Vanderbilt (although they are in Engineering :wink: ). I am a critic of all rankings since they use a broad paint brush. But a ranking that underrates Berkeley and Michigan is just as flawed as one that underrates Dartmouth and Notre Dame.

“Regardless of what they are “explicitly instructed”, these peer opinions are subjective and of course subject to personal bias. They are one piece of the pie to consider, yes. But hardly hard facts”

I agree. But those peer ratings are just that…ratings. They do not claim to be “fact”. Sadly, as demonstrated in the post above, you should take “facts” with a big grain of salt, since those published by private universities tend to be grossly exaggerated.

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@Alexandre

“waitingmomla, the THE ranks UCLA and Michigan among the top 25. Emory, Notre Dame, Rice and Vanderbilt are not ranked among the top 50”

As I said to rjkofnovi, the below link is what I’m looking at, I’m not sure why its different from their link. But you will see that the THE ranks UCLA and UMich lower than Rice, Emory, Vandy and Notre Dame. And no offense, but the QS rankings are insane in my opinion. I don’t know what universe that’s coming from. But that is just my opinion.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/rankings/united-states/2018#!/page/0/length/50/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

“I agree. But those peer ratings are just that…ratings. They do not claim to be “fact”. Sadly, as demonstrated in the post above, you should take “facts” with a big grain of salt, since those published by private universities tend to be grossly exaggerated”

My point was that you seemed to give these ratings a lot of credence - as if they were fact - to support your argument that Michigan is in that top tier. If you are conceding that they are not fact, and should indeed be taken with a grain of salt (subject to bias), then yes on this point we can agree.

We will never agree that Michigan/UCLA are better schools than Notre Dame, Rice and Vandy, so we’ll just have to agree to disagree.

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“As I said to rjkofnovi, the below link is what I’m looking at, I’m not sure why its different from their link. But you will see that the THE ranks UCLA and UMich lower than Rice, Emory, Vandy and Notre Dame.”

I was referring to THE’s main global ranking. The ranking you are looking at is not THE’s, it is the Wall Street Journal’s.

https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2018/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats

“And no offense, but the QS rankings are insane in my opinion. I don’t know what universe that’s coming from. But that is just my opinion.”

No offense taken. I agree. The QS ranking is terribly flawed. But so is the US News ranking.

“We will never agree that Michigan/UCLA are better schools than Notre Dame, Rice and Vandy, so we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

I never said Michigan and UCLA are better than Notre Dame, Rice and Vanderbilt, nor do I believe that they are, so we are not in disagreement. Those are all excellent universities. But they are different. Michigan and UCLA are major research universities (like Cornell, Northwestern and Penn), while Notre Dame, Rice and Vanderbilt are not.

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MODERATOR’S NOTE:

I agree. And the thread has gone off the rails discussing rankings, which the OP has said is not of interest.

At this point, the OP should review this thread and combine with his/her own research. Since not all of the schools have released their decisions, some may be knocked off the list if there is no acceptance. So once the OP has all decisions, if s/he is still unsure, s/he can come back on a new thread presenting his/her findings against a (potentially) shorter list of colleges. Closing thread.