<p>Bump</p>
<p>The quality of LAC’s decrease at a faster rate as you go down compared to National Universities, imo.</p>
<p>^ Where in the world did you get that idea? Any data to support it? Let’s look at the #50 for each category:
LAC - Denison - Avg GPA 3.59, Avg ACT 31
Natl U - U Florida - Avg GPA 3.57, Avg ACT 27
Oy.</p>
<p>It’s much easier to fill a smaller class with upper level students. </p>
<p>@"Erin’s Dad" the quality of a college should never be judged by average GPA and tests just as you shouldn’t judge a student by numbers. National Us have much more academic diversity. Ex. Denison has 36 majors while UF has MUCH MORE. Both LACs and National Us have their pros and cons.</p>
<p>^ How does that relate to quality?</p>
<p>More learning opportunities. For instance Kalamazoo College has 1 major in their bio program while UMich has 5 in it’s 2 bio departments. Lots more opportunities to study bio at UMich then K.</p>
<p>You haven’t addressed quality. Yes, Us have more majors and generally more opps for research. That has nothing to do with quality. Your specific statement was “The quality of LAC’s decrease at a faster rate as you go down compared to National Universities”. That is just not true. The incoming students are better for comparable level LACs once you get outside the top 30 or so. And comparing Kalamazoo at #61 to UMich at #28 (using the usual rating system) based on number of majors doesn’t help your case. I could just as easily use class size to show the opposite.</p>
<p>But back to the OP’s original question, what rating to use in MI schools.</p>
<p>I am OP, and it was someone else who made the drop comment.</p>
bump
Since this thread got bumped …
“Denison … Avg ACT 31 …
U Florida … Avg ACT 27” (upthread)
According to their respective websites: Denison’s average ACT is 28; The University of Florida’s middle range is 27-31. (Both for the fall 2014 entering class.)
Michigan 29-33
^ Source? USNWR (Best Colleges, 2015 Edition) has the University of Michigan’s middle ACT range at 28-32.
As a current high school student from Michigan, this is the order a group of peers and I have come up with:
UMich
Hillsdale
Kzoo
MSU
MITech
Hope
Albion
Calvin
UM Dearborn
Wayne State
Detroit Mercy
Central
Grand Valley
Oakland
Western
UM Flint
Eastern
Here’s how they shake out in one state-focused, allegedly data-driven ranking:
http://www.stateuniversity.com/rank_by_state/score_rank/MI.html
(In its national ranking, stateuniversity identifies approximately the same set of top schools as USNWR or Forbes … but within that set, the order is rather different. So I wonder if their ranking rings true to people who are very familiar with Michigan colleges.)