<p>bottom line, an average american would tell you michigan is a lot better than wisconsin despite the fact that Wisconsin is better in certain majors than michigan. Come on ppl, Michigan is in the top 15 (at least) in MBA, Med School, Law school and Engineering school, who cares about crop sciences or agriculture majors. That's what's so good about those ivey leagues schools, Harvard has good law school, med school, and business school. Their engineeering program is more life science oriented, but needless to say, it's still in the top. Same goes to columbia, stanford, u penn. they're all strong in the big-money-making schools, med, law and business. I'm from the south, and go to school at u of i engineering, other than wisconsin cheese, i don't know a thing about wisconsin. I only heard that their science program is not bad, only not bad.</p>
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who cares about crop sciences or agriculture majors
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<p>hahaha (10 chars)</p>
<p>Yes crazyforee, you made your ignorance obvious. And YOU should care about crops and agriculture--besides the food you eat they are looking at crop sources to produce fuel for our cars etc. It's one of the key research areas today and UW is in front. Not to mention Stem Cells where UW just made another major advance as reported all over the world in newpapers you must not read.</p>
<p>CTV.ca</a> | Stem cells created without embryos</p>
<p>Bioenergy</a> research center gets early boost from U.S. Department of Energy (Sept. 28, 2007)</p>
<p>If the science programs are "not bad" why is UW the #1 school in the US for research funding, why does it come in ahead of UM in the international research U rankings? </p>
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crop sciences or agriculture majors
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<p>haha, that's funny. why should universities have those majors? Let's turn all universities into trade schools. The world would be perfect if students can only major in business, law, medicine and engineering.</p>
<p>Oh...we cannot forget the football major. :)</p>
<p>Crop sciences are essentially mircobiology, genetics and biochemistry combined to improve plants. You think corn and soybean yields have doubled just by luck. Big companies like Monsanto employ scores of scientists to do this research and they get their PhD's at place like UW and Cornell and Berkeley.</p>
<p>Trade school--HAH. What uninformed children.</p>
<p>^^^I'm finding it hard to believe these guys are serious. At many (not all) public universities, biochemistry is in the School of Agriculture, as are some of the genetics and micro programs. Monsanto is headquartered in the state I live in, and you can bet they are hiring a lot of Ag/science majors, at every level.</p>
<p>Yeah, why would anyone want to study undergrad business at Cornell; it's housed in CALS ... Agriculture and Life Science?</p>
<p>Btw, U of I is #1 in Agricultural Engineering.</p>
<p>I just tested my friend if he knew what a wolverine was. He said, "a wolverine is a carnivore from the northern parts of north america. like a really b*tchy badger".</p>
<p>You asked if UMICH and Wisconsin are peer schools in the sense of their reputation. I gave an explanation as to what creates those 'reputations' and how an average american citizen perceives them, not reputation in crop sciences or agriculture specifically. If you know that you want study plants or various other things in the field of crop science or agriculture for the REST OF YOUR LIFE, then go to the school that has the best crop s and agri program. Otherwise, you're better off attending a school that's a little bit more reputable overall. What kind of school you go to also helps you to determine what exactly you want to do with your life. The Alumni network as well as social network at your undergrad institution will help you land your first job after graduation. The top rated schools and better well-rounded schools such as Umich, ivey leagues and etc are much better at having those networks. I am really enjoying the social network and recruiting efforts made by U of I Alumni for recruiting engineering students, even in non traditional areas such as pure strategy consulting firms like mckinsey or bcg. </p>
<p>BTW, any statistical data that some of you can use to back your claim that most genetics or Molecular and celluar biology curriculums are in fact part of the agriculture or crop sciences program? I find that hard to believe from personal experience. And common sense somehow tells me that is not, in fact, true.</p>
<p>"BTW, any statistical data that some of you can use to back your claim that most genetics or Molecular and celluar biology curriculums are in fact part of the agriculture or crop sciences program? I find that hard to believe from personal experience. And common sense somehow tells me that is not, in fact, true."</p>
<p>Many of those disciplines emerged out of agriculture. Do you know how the science of genetics started? It came from the study of plant breeding.
Basic</a> Principles of Genetics: Mendel's Genetics</p>
<p>Most of the early science was related to making better crops and animals. That's what people needed and where there was value. So the fact that life sciences are housed in what used to be knowbn as schools of agriculture makes perfect sense. So today they are often called colleges of agriculture and life sciences. That naming is also related to the Morrill Act which provided Federal money for the study of agriculture. The link has a list of schools that resulted from the act.</p>
<p>Morrill</a> Land-Grant Colleges Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>I would say, yes, they are peer institutions.</p>
<p>You can put Wisconsin among this grouping of top publics, which are all peers:</p>
<p>Berkeley
Michigan
Virginia
UCLA
Wisconsin
Illinois
Texas</p>
<p>(in fact, the Big Te(leve)n has the most top publics of any conference, and I would consider them all peers).</p>
<p>^ I forgot North Carolina, as well.</p>
<p>In the USNWR academic peer assessment rating, these are the peers:</p>
<p>Berkeley (4.8) / Yale (4.8)
Michigan (4.5) / U Penn (4.5)
Virginia (4.3) / Dartmouth, Northwestern (4.3)
UCLA/UNC (4.2) / Carnegie Mellon (4.2)
Wisconsin/Texas (4.1) / Washington University St. Louis (4.1)</p>
<p>If you want to consider top publics that are peers, then the 17 publics ranked in the USNWR Top 50 probably would qualify as the best group of comps: </p>
<p>UC Berkeley
U Virginia
UCLA
U MICHIGAN
U North Carolina
W&M
Georgia Tech
U WISCONSIN
UC San Diego
U Illinois
U Washington
UC Davis
U Texas
UC Santa Barbara
UC Irvine
Penn State
U Florida</p>
<p>If one is thinking about the Midwest and where there is likely to be the greatest amount of applicant and graduate overlap, then the peer group is certainly U Michigan and U Wisconsin, and I would add U Illinois as well.</p>
<p>"If one is thinking about the Midwest and where there is likely to be the greatest amount of applicant and graduate overlap, then the peer group is certainly U Michigan and U Wisconsin, and I would add U Illinois as well."</p>
<p>Yup and each one has its comparative strengths.</p>