Some thoughts...

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
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<p>I have read through the Michigan board before, and I just wanted to bring up and being a new account member, instead of finding old posts, I thought I would just make a new one with some thoughts that I have had. Disclaimer... I believe some of the things that I am saying and some of the stuff I am just going to say to play devil's advocate. I am looking at you Alexandre for an intelligent response.</p>

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<li><p>It has been mentioned before that no instate student should even consider leaving the state due to the instate tuition that they have the privilege to pay for UM. What about schools such as some of the Harvard, princeton, yale, rice, vanderbilt, etc? They meet 100% need and some of them do it in the form of only grants no loans. It is very plausible that an instate student could end up paying the same as or less at a private than the instate tuition of UM. Is it still ridiculous to consider going out of state?</p></li>
<li><p>It has been claimed that Michigan offers everything and more that any other school does. You have torn down Duke, and have said besides HYPS, Michigan is the best. I challenge you to assume that all of the elite schools are on an equal playing field. If a student studies and works hard they will succeed in life. If they slack off, they won't. No matter if they go to Harvard, WUSTL, or Cal Berkley this should hold true. If we assume they are equal, then maybe Michigan doesn't offer something for everyone. Maybe a kid doesn't like the snow, so they want to go to Rice. Or maybe a kid wants a big city so they go to Emory. Perhaps, they went to Pioneer High and want to get away from home so they go to an ivy. And finally maybe a student wants to attend a university with a contained campus. Not one in which the university is integrated into the city. Therefore they go to Vandy or Duke. Michigan is great, but it isn't perfect for everyone.</p></li>
<li><p>Another big argument that is often made is that while Michigan may not have the same quality of students coming in, the graduates get into better grad schools coming out. You often compare Michigan to schools like Vandy, Rice, etc. However, you fail to remember that until a few years ago Vandy was just a school in the south that rich people sent their kids to. It hasn't been until the last few years that the student body has gotten to an elite quality. Grad placement stats from even this last year do not show off how good a school like Vandy has become. Watch for the classes of 2015, 2016 and beyond. As the quality of students improve, so should the eventual grad school placements. Vandy is not alone, its southern peers WTSL and Rice fall in the same category.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, I don't think anyone argues that Michigan is a fantastic school. However it is a large public research university. They have many departments that are highly ranked but that is to be expected of a university with highly ranked grad programs. Some of the smaller private universities are more focussed on achieving an overall excellent liberal arts undergrad education. WSTL, Brown, Vandy, and Dartmouth don't have as many great departments as Michigan but they do have small class sizes, great faculty, access to said faculty, the ability to create interdisciplinary majors, access to administration, and the ability to easily double major, etc. Those schools still believe in the core principles of a liberal education. They offer liberal education within the framework of an elite research university. Are they any worse than michigan for not having top notch departments, no. I argue that students get a better undergrad experience and if they do well, they will be just as well off with a dartmouth or vandy degree as they would be with a michigan degree in the #3 department in the country.</p></li>
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<p>This is just food for thought. I would appreciate comments especially from Alexandre. I want to create a productive discussion. No attacking.</p>

2

<p>I know this post is directed at Alexandre but I would like to chip in even though I have yet to even start uni. </p>

<p>First of all, I think this is a good post as it does bring up some of the issues that are frequently tossed up in CC particularly about how these smaller academic institutions (i.e Vanderbilt, Rice, Tufts etc.) compare to some of the bigger institutions and I think at times they have been overly undermined and even unnecessarily trashed.</p>

<p>Regarding your first statement, I think you may have misunderstood what the majority may have been saying regards to tuition. As far as I’ve read in pretty much all Michigan vs <em>insert uni of your choice</em> thread, people have said “wait for FA packages to come and then make a decision”. If going out of state costs more than $100K then Michigan may be well worth attending instead of a 60K a year private institution. </p>

<p>On your second point about a level playing field, I have to completely disagree. Regardless of your work ethic, not all institutions will give you the same level of success in the future. Yes, there will be the odd student who makes it big from less known and less reputable colleges but there’s a reason why the vast majority of the most academically accomplished and wealthy men and women are graduates from the top 30 universities in the world. These universities attract the world’s brightest students and teachers and hence provide an unparalleled education. Furthermore, from my interpretation, Alexandre never said Michigan is the best apart from HYPS. He just said that Michigan can hold it’s own against the rest of the top tier and should be considered as a peer institution. Now even as a future wolverine (if I get my student visa that is, hehe :p) and one who is extremely excited about enrolling at Michigan, I will fully admit that during the application process Michigan was not amongst my top 3 choices. In fact, and I know this going to be controversial, Duke was my top choice followed by Princeton and Cornell simply because I’ve always wanted to go to a small private institution with a far more intimate and personal setting. In contrast, a friend of mine picked Michigan over Brown,CalTech and CMU simply because he wanted the big social environment of Michigan. Basically what I am saying is, there comes a point where the top institutions become indistinguishable academically and can only be differentiated based on environmental factors which different people will have a different outlook upon. That’s why people say go for “fit”. </p>

<p>So yeah, Michigan isn’t perfect for everyone but the imperfection does not lie in it’s academics. That is why people in the Michigan forum defend it so strongly. The fact is Michigan is an AMAZING uni academically and unless you don’t like the environment or atmosphere of a large school, there’s no reason for you to choose a small private institution unless it’s HYPS or financial factors come to play.</p>

<p>Now onto your third point. I doubt anyone is going to argue that the students of Vandy and WUSTL are weaker than Michigan. You should look at this way, the small private liberal colleges can only accept approx. 1750 students so they accept the top 1750 students that apply. If you take the top 1750 students in Michigan (even the top 5000), they will be of the exact same caliber of Duke Vandy, WUSTL and even HYPS.</p>

<p>Finally like I said before, Michigan’s size can be a disadvantage but it offers advantages as well. Large alumni network, top 20 in terms of wealthiest alumni, largest spread of living alumni, access to a broad range of recruiters and opportunities are a few. The CEO of Lockheed visited Michigan a few years ago and he openly said that Michigan offers a stronger batch of grads than a lot of prestigious private institutions are. Clearly, Michigan is doing something right when it comes to teaching making the whole “undergraduate focus argument” more and more redundant. You might have experienced a great “traditional liberal arts education” but unless it converts to good job prospects, I’m not sure how useful it is.</p>

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<p>Two posts by newish members. This completely reeks of collusion. I suggest this nonsense be nipped in the bud and this thread eliminated.</p>

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<p>This attitude will not carry you far in life rjkofnovi. Just because you don’t agree with what someone has to say does not mean that they do not have a right to say it. Michigan is an American university. This nation as a whole respects the freedom of speech. Deal with it.</p>

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<p>Another new poster…hmmmmmm</p>

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<p>There has been a rash of PROVEN posters filing from the same IP address recently. It is easily discovered by moderators and is against posting rules on CC. if any of the above posters are the same person, be aware you will be exposed and your account possibly suspended.</p>

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<p>In my original post I stated that I just wanted intelligent discourse and a productive discussion. I did not want this to turn into attacking. I have read alexandre’s posts and I frankly do not agree with everything that he says. I respect the university of michigan, but I want to challenge alexandre to a good conversation. I was also hoping others would join in. Is that not the point of this website rjknovi… To partake in intellectual discourse? Now, I would hope that we all have better things to create multiple accounts and ■■■■■ the boards.</p>

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<p>There was a previous poster who recently made very simliar statements to yours. He posted under three different membership names from the same IP address…</p>

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<p>He’s right, redraider12, his suspicions are legitimate. No one’s accusing you or attacking you, but just bringing up the possibility based on past occurrences. I’m not knowledgable enough on UMich’s academic elitism nor am I familiar enough with other universities to respond intelligently to the points you brought up. I’m sure they’re sound, though probably challengeable in a few ways. I, too, am interested to hear what anyone might have to say about them.</p>

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<p>First of all, rjkofnovi, I don’t see what I posted that has caused you to react in this way.</p>

<p>If you read it, you would have realised that I am going to be attending Michigan and looking forward to it and my post was very positive regarding Michigan and explained why Michigan is as good if not better than universities like Cornell, Duke, Rice etc. </p>

<p>Please read my post before attacking it. I have no idea who the original OP is and my post was saying completely different things to the what the OP was.</p>

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<p>If you are legitimate Hidevik, I apologize.</p>

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<p>I confirm that Hidevik is a fellow Wolverine. He will be joining the family in the autumn. </p>

<p>redraider, I am not sure I understand the purpose of this thread, and like others have stated, a first-time poster starting a thread such as this one is highly suspicious. This said, I have always stated that Harvard, Princeton and Yale (as well as MIT and Stanford) are better than Michigan, and therefore worth paying more to attend. In the case of peer schools, including Dartmouth, Rice and Vanderbilt, I agree 100% that attending those schools is totally worth it if they are a better fit and end up costing roughly the same as or less than Michigan. However, the point that I had made is that for in-state students, those schools will generally be significantly more expensive unless they come from lower and lower middle income families. If that is the case, I think turning down Michigan makes no sense.</p>

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<p>I’m going to throw something out there that no one seems to talk about except in the music forum. Everyone talks about how great UMich’s Engineering and LSA programs, etc. are, but another gem is the School of Music, Theatre and Dance. So, except for Rice, UMich really trumps ALL those private schools hands down in that department. Yale has a graduate program in music that I am sure is quite good, but no undergrad program. In one poll UMich is ranked 6th in the nation for music, including conservatories. And so THAT is something to be proud of!</p>

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<p>Great point saxlady! As has been discussed many times in the past, Michigan has no academic weaknesses. There is almost no other school in this country that is as complete and strong against such a large variety of disciplines.</p>

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<p>Good point on the music school. I have one D in LSA at Mich (who absolutely loves it) and the other is at a small music conservatory. She plans to apply to Mich for grad school next year, it is very hard to get into, but she will attend if accepted.</p>

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<p>I don’t really give a rodent’s butt about the prestige arguments that occur on these threads, although I’m well aware of UMich’s caliber and world-standing and am grateful that my son attended (and yes, attended the SOM, which is indeed very well regarded).</p>

<p>However, I find the quoted sentence ironic on examination. The notion of an “elite” school necessitates some kind of hierarchy of quality…so by the very classification of “elite” doesn’t one actually have to dispense with the whole “equal playing field” notion?</p>

<p>I mean, if you’re going to make distinctions, then, well, make distinctions ;)</p>