<p>is there a way to block/hide posts from specific users on CC?</p>
<p>Yes. Click on his/her name, view public profile. Go to user lists (somewhere in the profile) and click add to ignore list.</p>
<p>Some of my terms might be off since I’m going by memory but that should get you there.</p>
<p>got it. thanks</p>
<p>Yes, I am a Michigan grad. So I am biased, though I also graduated 17 years ago and have a fair bit of post-graduation perspective. ND is more exclusive if you define exclusivity in terms of undergraduate acceptance rate. But is it more elite? If you think that the undergraduate experience is at all tied to the quality of the grad school programs of an institution, then ND is significantly less “elite.” For a student who is going to attend a PhD program, especially in the social sciences, then Michigan is more “elite” by a pretty wide margin. Such a student will, generally, have already been exposed to first year grad classes and participated in an undergrad research opportunity. To be frank, ND just doesn’t “do” grad school. Just look at the issues their econ department(s) has/have faced in the last few years. None of this is to say that, on average, a student should choose Michigan over ND. But if a non-professional graduate degree is one’s intended path – and I am generally disinclined to make broad statements such as this – it seems that Michigan is pretty clearly the better choice for the <em>motivated</em> student.</p>
<p>“I hold ND in very high regard because I’ve witnessed first hand really impressive friends get rejected and go to their safety, Michigan.”</p>
<p>Michigan was not a safety for those students. They got lucky with Michigan and unlucky with Notre Dame. Michigan is no longer accurately described as a “safety”. </p>
<p>“ND is both exclusive and elite, to any unbiased person.”</p>
<p>Actually, in academe, ND is not considered “elite”. But I get your point. Both Michigan and ND are exclusive and elite, Michigan more of the latter while Notre Dame more of the former. To many high school kids, being exclusive is more important than being elite. To employers and graduate school admissions offices, eliteness trumps exclusivity.</p>
<p>If you look at where students from the top East Coast high schools go to (I provided the links to 10 of them in the UM vs Alabama thread), you will see that Michigan is significantly more popular than Notre Dame. Below is the total of students matriculating at top Midwestern universities based on the numbers provided in those links. I just added all the numbers up. </p>
<p>University of Chicago 57
University of Michigan 56
Northwestern University 55
Washington University-St Louis 50
University of Notre Dame 16</p>
<p>Clearly, in the eyes of high school students at top high schools (like the Phillips Academies, Hotchkiss, Dalton, St Paul’s, Collegiate, Lawrenceville, Taft, Hill etc…) in another part of the country (ensuring no regional bias), Michigan is considered more elite, attracting more than three times the number of students.</p>
<p>“And even still, I don’t understand why some Michigan grads are so obsessed with lowering the acceptance rate, raising the median numbers, etc.”</p>
<p>Obsessed is a strong word. I agree that on CC, many seem concerned about selectivity, in larger part because of people like you. Read your posts above. You value a university entirely based on exclusivity.</p>
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Yes, it was. And still very much is—for Ivy, Chicago, Duke, JHU, ND, Northwestern, et al. applicants I know.</p>
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<p>Since ND’s freshmen class is about a 1/3 of the size of Michigan’s, there’s really not much disparity there. Also consider that ND is a Catholic school, and your numbers are from elite NE preps with (I assume) many Protestants and Jews, who would never consider ND. And Michigan has always pulled well from the East Coast.</p>
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<p>I understand that, but if you already graduated, the heightened exclusivity has absolutely nothing to do with you. Preserving the integrity of your degree is fine, but the people campaigning for tighter selectivity do so as if it rewrites history. You are not the class of 2018 that got in with the hyper-competitive admissions requirements, you’re the class of 19XX or 200X, when it was easier. I’m not trying to offend anyone here, but seeing this fixation on “fixing” the selectivity is rather bizarre.</p>
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<p>It’s ranked higher on US News. It rejects 75% of its applicants. It has a 1/3 of the freshmen class size. All things that bolster its elite status. And a Michigan family (as was the case for the OP) turning down U of M, with the means to spend $30k more per year on a single child, makes them a member of the financial elite in the state of Michigan. Everyone is the OP’s family’s circle knows it’s $15k for Michigan tuition, and they might not know it’s 3x as much for ND, but they know it’s a hell of a lot more than $15k, which further bolsters its elite status.</p>
<p>I guess I still don’t understand how the data you seem to have marshaled makes ND more elite. But “elite” is, by definition, subjective. So this is a discussion that cannot be completed – and I am not trying to do so. I would just say – as I did before – that if one wants to seek an academic career and thinks that undergraduate experience is at all affected by the opportunities afforded by a school’s graduate programs, then there really is no comparison. Michigan is clearly the better option. If one wants a smaller undergraduate degree program and wants to go to professional school, then ND may be a better choice.</p>
<p>I am no fan of PC (as normally understood), but I do think that one should consider diversity not just in terms or race or ethnicity – but also in terms of point of views to which one will be exposed. On this, I think Michigan is very likely to prove much more diverse than ND. Again, not a clear reason to attend Michigan but a consideration.</p>
<p>@lakeforest13</p>
<p>Do you go to LFHS…?</p>
<p>I’m class of 2017 and I’m from a decent high school in NYC. A lot of kids at my school (me included) believe that ND is overrated (Yes, it’s good but #17? No. Well, the rankings are ■■■■■■■■ and skewed against publics anyway). </p>
<p>Here are some numbers from my high school this year:
ND: Applied: 18 Accepted: 3 Attend: 2</p>
<h2>Michigan: Applied: 162 Accepted: 79 Attend: 21 </h2>
<p>ND: SAT Avg (1600): 1443 ACT Avg: 30 GPA Avg (100): 91.3
Michigan: SAT Avg (1600): 1431 ACT Avg: 31 GPA Avg (100): 92.91</p>
<p>Yes, yes, you keep making the argument that ND is more exclusive blah blah. Sure it’s slightly harder to get in, but Michigan destroys ND in academics, so I consider Michigan to be more elite (although I think exclusive and elite mean the same to you…) Praising exclusivity is dumb… classmate of mine (she’s brilliant) got into Duke, Hopkins, WUSTL, UVA, and Michigan this year. Her dad makes a ton and she could have easily gone to one of the more exclusive schools. And yet she chose Michigan because Michigan engineering is phenomenal. No sane person is going to choose Yale for engineering over Cal, Michigan, etc.</p>
<p>To address your statement about Michigan being a safety… yes, for the cream of the crop applicants; the ones with the 3.99s and the 2340s. Another fellow classmate of mine thought he was a shoo-in (it was his first choice as well; visited, got a bunch of apparel, etc as he waited for EA decisions). He was deferred, then rejected, and was heartbroken - leaving him with no choice but to attend ND.</p>
<p>attribute,</p>
<p>You’re campaigning hella hard against ND, why? You didn’t disclose that you’re one of those rejected ND applicants, so I’m guessing it’s not that. Do you hate the (other) 2 kids that got into Notre Dame? Michigan and Notre Dame are both incredible schools, but let’s not get crazy and put down fellow classmates because they’re going somewhere that is a little more exclusive & elite. You posted test scores and GPA, but obviously ND requires more from their applicants (which my rejected friends will also testify to).</p>
<p>And congrats to your friend for choosing what I assume was the best engineering school she got into. But according to a recent Forbes magazine’s list of top 25 most valuable college diplomas, an ND engineering is more valuable than what you consider to be a more elite Michigan engineering degree.</p>
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<p>LOL. Once again someone is quoting one of Forbes ridiculous surveys without any frame of reference. </p>
<p>“Michigan and Notre Dame are both incredible schools, but let’s not get crazy and put down fellow classmates because they’re going somewhere that is a little more exclusive & elite.”</p>
<p>Notre Dame might be a little more exlusive, whatever that means exactly, but it is definitely not more elite as an academic institution in comparison to Michigan.</p>
<p>I’m not campaigning “hella hard” against ND… It just seemed to me like you were putting Michigan down, so I gave my opinion. I’m actually good friends with the other ND acceptee and I have no idea who the other is (the one that’s not attending).</p>
<p>Well, for those of you who I suspect have yet to even enter college, you will learn that the perceived differences for two schools like ND and Michigan are microscopically marginal amongst some and non existent with many others.</p>
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<p>I didn’t put Michigan down once. You on the other hand called Notre Dame overrated, and said any ranking that puts it higher [than Michigan] is “■■■■■■■■” and biased. Very unbecoming words directed at an exclusive private school you couldn’t get into.</p>
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<p>There’s no debate that ND is more exclusive than Michigan. Exclusive: belonging to or catering for a privileged minority. At the undergrad level, they’re both very elite academically, but one is a private with 11:1 ratio and the other is a large state school with 16:1. Post-grad, ND is a more tight knit base and holds a certain cachet over the 500k Michigan grads out there. I understand the rivalry, but facts are facts.</p>
<p>With all of this said, ND isn’t for everybody so I understand why some people aren’t fans–I’m not even a fan. But it doesn’t mean you have to insult what they do. If a Michigan student applies and get accepted to ND and his parents are fine with paying 3x the tuition, it’s a no-brainer.</p>
<p>“If a Michigan student applies and get accepted to ND and his parents are fine with paying 3x the tuition, it’s a no-brainer.”</p>
<p>For people with no brains, I agree. For just business or engineering, ND for three times the cost over Michigan is downright lunacy.</p>
<p>“At the undergrad level, they’re both very elite academically, but one is a private with 11:1 ratio and the other is a large state school with 16:1”</p>
<p>I don’t see that ratio to be all that significant. </p>
<p>“Post-grad, ND is a more tight knit base and holds a certain cachet over the 500k Michigan grads out there.”</p>
<p>I suppose if the person hiring you were a ND grad that would be somewhat be the case. If you were looking for an international job, Notre Dame has little cachet compared with Michigan.</p>
<p>just curious, what year are you at UM rjknovi, and what is/was your major?</p>
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<p>No brains? Well, their parents are smart enough to be able to spend the extra $120,000 without it breaking their back and they recognize the value of an elite private (Catholic) education. And let’s be honest, they hold the trump card at the country club where everyone’s kid is at Michigan and they get to brag that their kid is at the more exclusive and more expensive ND.</p>
<p>The kid benefits from the private education, an exponentially tighter alum base and the ability to make some insecure state school friends feel inferior on holiday breaks.</p>
<p>" Well, their parents are smart enough to be able to spend the extra $120,000 without it breaking their back and they recognize the value of an elite private (Catholic) education. And let’s be honest, they hold the trump card at the country club where everyone’s kid is at Michigan and they get to brag that their kid is at the more exclusive and more expensive ND."</p>
<p>Who could argue with that?</p>
<p>“The kid benefits from the private education, an expo.nentially tighter alum base and the ability to make some insecure state school friends feel inferior on holiday breaks.”</p>
<p>LOL. You obviously equate ND with HYPSM. ND is a fine school for sure, but it is NOT academically elite enough for those who prize that sort of thing to elicite feelings of inferiority to others. As to the Catholic part of your commentary, that alone would be a huge turn off for a large chunk of people who have no interest in attending a religiously oriented school. I suppose if I attended a country club that were overwhelmingly dominated by Catholics, or attended a Catholic high school, I myself might regisiter a bit of ND envy . The only “insecure friends” who might feel inferior are obviously those that would have wanted to attend Notre Dame. The ones who would NEVER have any interest in attending couldn’t care less, except to point out to a braggart that academically ND is not in the same league as those schools already mentioned in this post.</p>