Spartans or Terps!

College Search & Selection
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<p>bosox–I don’t know what collegeboard says, but USNWR has collegehelp’s range, as does literature put out by the university itself.</p>

<p>BTW, how do you judge selectivity, if not by those scores? If Harvard, say, told only people with SATs (not including writing) of 1580 or above to bother applying and then, because it had a much more limited pool, accepted 50 (or even 90)% of those who applied, would that somehow make it less selective than a school which admitted 30% of a much lower scoring applicant pool?</p>

22

<p>UCLA- Percent applicants admitted: 26%
97% in top 10th of graduating class
91% had h.s. GPA of 3.75 and higher
93% In-state students
Princeton Review Selectivity Rating: 98
Average GPA: 4.14
Number of Applicants last year: 45,380</p>

<p>UNCCH- Percent applicants admitted: 34%
76% in top 10th of graduating class
93% had h.s. GPA of 3.75 and higher
85% In-state students
Princeton Review Selectivity Rating: 97
Average GPA: 4.37
Number of applicants last year: 20,017</p>

<p>UMDCP- 65% had h.s. GPA of 3.75 and higher
72% In-state students
CBoard didn’t post admissions rate or gpa info
Princeton Review Selctivity Rating: 94
Average GPA: 3.89
Admissions website on umd.edu was down…</p>

<p>I really think it’s hard to compare the selectivity of these schools, especially for out of state applicants. getting in to uncch or ucla from out of state requires ivy-like admissions qualifications.</p>

23

<p>easy question there is no reason to go to msu over umd…
but thats just me…
location, prestige, weather all favors umd in my opinion..</p>

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<p>If you get into Maryland and are into sciences or engineering, go there. Of course…if you get in. I was in-state and got rejected two years ago (got into Texas out of state and Georgia Tech though :frowning: ), apparently it’s only gotten harder.</p>

25

<p>Quote numbers all you want, but I personally would take MSU over UMD for several reasons.</p>

<p>First, academically, MSU is very well-rounded. It has some very great programs, from business to engineering to agriculture to journalism to teaching. Furthermore, MSU has a visible dedication to undergraduate education. It has smaller residential colleges in business, the sciences, pre-law, and just recently the arts and humanities. There’s also the stellar Honor’s College. If you can get into UMD, you can probably get into MSU’s Honor’s College which probably rivals the undergraduate experience of just about any public university you can think of.</p>

<p>Second, MSU has one of the most varied and exciting social scenes around. The school spirit is palpable. The sports are pretty good, particularly basketball. The alumni network is helpful. And the MSU name can actually take you pretty far.</p>

<p>I’d pick MSU, but that’s just me. I like a school with a campus as beautiful as the people; with a great social life and good academics and a good reputation.</p>

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<p>I just saw a license plate at the University of Pennsylvania that said: “IMA TERP”… :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>^^I’m not a statistician, but be careful of what you’re comparing. The UMD stats you are showing are for “admitted” students, whereas the MSU stats are for those “enrolled” in the Freshman class for 2006. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it true that all “admitted” stats are going to be higher? Won’t a lot of those top “admitteds” enroll at more prestigious schools, like Ivies, and are using the MSU’s and UMD’s of the world as safeties?</p>

<p>I suspect I’m right and that the gap is not as great as collegehelp is portraying.</p>

28

<p>C’mon dadtimesthree: “MSU’s not on Maryland’s level” – that’s a ridiculous statement … and as a U-M alum, you just don’t have a little motivation to, er, kind of put down MSU? … please.</p>

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<p>Quincy4-
The SAT stats I quoted are from US News and they represent ENROLLED students. </p>

<p>U Maryland College Park SAT scores are about 150 points higher than Michigan State. That’s huge. Maryland is much more selective than Michigan State. I am sure Michigan State is a great school. One guy I know from HS went there for math. His whole family attended Mich State practically.</p>

<p>But, if you want to be among a more accomplished student body, go to UMD College Park. I don’t think you can ignore the big SAT difference.</p>

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<p>Collegehelp, USN&WR is not gospel, they do make mistakes. Those same numbers you quote as enrolled, are on UMD’S WEBSITE as “accepted.” Who has more credibility, US News or the University, itself? … What’s more, I think it is very specious, as US News does, to based the quality of a school solely on admissions. I’d like to see UMD if it didn’t sit right on the doorstep of one of America’s sexiest big cities but, instead, had to compete with the likes of a University of Michigan for students in a medium-sized, depressed, economically declining state.</p>

<p>But MSU must deal with the hand it was dealt, and it does a pretty darn good job… Also collegehelp, your comment about UMD being superior for a “more accomplished student body” is absurd when your talking about 35-40,000 student bodies. When you read such sites like StudentsReview.com and other places where the students on the ground, themselves, assess the atmosphere, I can guarantee you that MSU students more often than not talk about more about academics than they do at Maryland where, often (sometimes unfairly so imho) they harp on an allegedly high crime rate on the College Park campus.</p>

<p>I stand by what I said before: Maryland is to be applauded for raising the bar on academics, cutting its class size, private fundraising and building quality facilities… But colleges are funny animals. Unless your talking back in the Gilded Age, when millionaires like Leyland Stanford, Johns Hopkins and John D. Rockefeller (U. Chicago) created instant super schools, these days it takes time for schools to become seasoned academic stars – campus atmosphere-wise, and in the minds of the public. And those examples I gave a private schools from the past; its even harder, and takes longer to establish such reps at public Us (just ask a U. Michigan alum)… This is particularly true when you have a school like Maryland which, until less than 2 decades ago, had no history of academics and was pretty much an open admissions/98.6 school. Its absurd to say that Maryland, instantly, jumped to some higher echelon than MSU, which has been for decades, even over a century, nurturing its academic prowess, just because Maryland decided to raise admissions standards and begin to upgrade facilities and programs — and on most fronts, they are only just barely catching up to MSU (ie, Maryland just launched a $1 billion fundraising campaign whereas MSU surpassed it’s $1.2 billion goal of an ending campaign over a year ago).</p>

<p>And don’t get me started on such strengths Maryland can’t touch MSU in such as Nuclear physics/physics, music, most biological studies, MSU’s great residential college program (which grew by one this year), political science, education, etc., etc…</p>

31

<p>lmao Quincy,
stop giving this crap about how UMD was two decades ago. The OP isn’t planning on going back in time in order to go to college. UMD is a better school now, w/ more highly ranked programs and more competitive students.</p>

<p>maryland is obviously better</p>

32

<p>… Oh yes, and speaking of resources, consider that just this past year, one of our billion-dollar alums just announced he’s bankrolling a $26M new art museum on campus – it will actually be a fancy, state of the art facility that will house the collections of MSU’s 50-year-old art museum. And the art museum is just one of several on campus, some dating back 150 years – making them among the oldest college collections in the nation – and having a number of top-10 collections… Last I looked, Maryland has zero museums; only thing close to a museum is the little gallery (room) inside the Stamp Union…. </p>

<p>Oh yes, I forgot, the National Archives did establish an “Archives II” facility for UMD near campus which holds a number of important documents – my bad, score one for U. Maryland (and, of course, its great location near the nation’s/world’s capital which spawned such great, and recent, benevolence)… </p>

<p>Meanwhile, though, where’s Maryland’s planetarium? (MSU’s is one of the nation’s best); botanical garden? (MSU’s 130-year garden is the oldest college/teaching botanical garden in the nation); how about the largest recorded “voice library” of the spoken word in the world (dating to back to the 19th Century and, now, being digitized to share with the world)? How about special collections numbering nearly 500K items including the largest comic book and largest historical printed veterinary book collections in the world? … I could go on and on…</p>

<p>Yes, I know museums are periphery to college, but they do enhance the scholarly atmosphere of a school, and MSU has it all over Maryland in this respect – indeed, MSU has it over MOST universities in this aspect. </p>

<p>And lets not get into the respective college towns of the 2 schools, where East Lansing bills itself as the City of the Arts and has a diverse, well-established musical and artistic community – sure can’t say that about College Park with its small, roadside strip mall in the downtown of a somewhat barren and bleak suburban subdivision…</p>

33

<p>"lmao Quincy,
stop giving this crap about how UMD was two decades ago. The OP isn’t planning on going back in time in order to go to college. UMD is a better school now, w/ more highly ranked programs and more competitive students.</p>

<p>maryland is obviously better"</p>

<p>Keep saying it, jakem333, and maybe you can convince yourself.</p>

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<p>deleted…</p>

35

<p>Quincy4-
I checked the US Department of Education website about the SAT scores for Maryland College Park. The SAT scores are for ENROLLED students according to the IPEDS database, not accepted. </p>

<p>Th crime statistics at U Maryland College Park are a little higher overall than at Michigan State but not by a lot. In fact, MSU actually reports more burglaries than UMDCP (116 vs 101). UMDCP has more car thefts than MSU (30 vs 12).</p>

36

<p>OMG EVERYONE, MSU has better museums…of course this is excluding all of the museums in D.C. that UMD students have right on their doorstep.</p>

<p>BTW, i don’t even go to Maryland, but you should probably get over your inferiority complex.</p>

<p>“And lets not get into the respective college towns of the 2 schools, where East Lansing bills itself as the City of the Arts and has a diverse, well-established musical and artistic community – sure can’t say that about College Park with its small, roadside strip mall in the downtown of a somewhat barren and bleak suburban subdivision…”</p>

<p>Once again, completely ignoring Washington D.C.</p>

<p>You havn’t said one thing specifically about MSU (not its surroundings, which still suck compared to umd), that leads me to believe it is any better than UMD.</p>

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<p>^^You misread me collegehelp, I am actually defending UMD on the crime talk. I think students have harped way too much on this at UMD and the least little thing that happens, there, gets blown way up – and I say that not to burry my head in the sand, esp after the VaTech tragedy… And yes, crime at MSU has been creeping up (I have no stats, but I’m hearing more bad stuff going on there in recent years; and I don’t mean couch burning after games)…</p>

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<p>Again, jakem333, there’s no point in arguing with you b/c you’re an ideologue who’s made up his mind, irrational and not open to listening to reason or facts… Just your last comment proves this… I don’t think you can find 2 people anywhere who are knowledgeable about both schools that would ever say East Lansing “sucks” compared to College Park. That’s just flat out craziness; after that, I’m through responding to your rants.</p>

39

<p>yep, i have made up my mind.</p>

<p>However, i probably would listen to you if you gave me any good reasons to consider MSU equal to/better than UMD…but you havn’t. All you’ve said is that MSU has more tradition because its older, has more museums, etc. That could be true, i don’t really know how old either of the schools are, but at least in my mind, that’s a very minor contributor to the overall university.</p>

40

<p>For heaven’s sake, can’t you guys agree that they are BOTH fine schools and leave it at that? BOTH are ranked by USN&WR as top national universities (not that I’m a fan of these rankings anyway). BOTH have their strengths . . . AND weaknesses. BOTH of them are better than most of the universities in this country and BOTH of them are not as good as the best universities in this country. What matters is which school fits the OP best in terms of his interests, intended major, locale, student body, etc. So move on, will ya? Sheesh!</p>