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<p>Actually, I must agree with goldenboy on this particular statistical point (although for now I shall abstain from the B10 vs. ACC comparison). Sure, the best 1650 students at UM may indeed be entirely comparable to that of a Harvard class. But that’s not relevant to relevant outsiders such as employers, grad-school adcoms, or the general public who treat the entire UM student body as a statistically aggregated whole. And they are entirely justified in doing so. Given the fact that nobody ever has perfect information on anybody, the best you can do is rely upon statistical correlates, and the fact is, the Harvard brand does indeed statistically correlate more strongly with general talent and motivation than does the UM brand. Now, granted, one could combine the correlational information of the UM brand with other metrics such as GPA and standardized test scores (e.g. GRE, MCAT, etc.) to derive a more reliable measure, but you could also do the same for Harvard. No matter what additional covariates you add, the residual value of the Harvard brand will likely still correlate more strongly with talent than will the UM brand. </p>
<p>The real problem - and one faced not only by UM but all other large public schools - is, to put it bluntly, that the less talented and less motivated students make the rest of the student body look bad by damaging the brand of the school. If UM could retain only the 1650 top-ranked students in a class and eliminate the rest, then I would agree that UM would surely rise up the ranks quickly, and perhaps one day could indeed challenge Harvard. But UM won’t do it. </p>
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<p>As far as I can tell, not a single one of those studies has ever satisfactorily accounted for the fact that personal motivation is not an exogenous variable, but rather is (at least according to the highly plausible premise of goldenboy), actually largely determined by the social environment around you. Let’s face it - if the people around you are lazy, you’re likely to become lazy yourself, and vice versa. {Indeed, that is why parents routinely strive to live in districts populated by motivated and wholesome children because they understand all too well that their own children will tend to copy what neighboring children are doing and they don’t want them falling in with a bad crowd.} </p>
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<p>Actually, if nothing else, that seems to be an excellent reason to choose one of those private schools. If your goal is to enter a top law school, and if they are indeed offering, as you say, ‘rampant grade inflation’ (for which I don’t disagree) that bolsters your candidacy for those law schools, well, isn’t that exactly what you want? Frankly, I think that UM is then being foolish for refusing to provide grade inflation to help its own law-school-bound students. </p>
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<p>Hmmm… pot, meet kettle. Last time I checked, UM was not exactly an open-admissions school. Most (60%) applicants of the Fall 2011 application cycle to UM were not admitted, and plenty of other interested students didn’t even apply because they knew that they wouldn’t be admitted. {Let’s face it, if you have a terrible high school record, test scores and EC’s, you’re not going to be admitted to UM.} Indeed, UM is clearly among the most exclusionary of the 2500 schools in the entire country. The only difference is that they’re simply not as exclusionary as the top privates are. That USNews benefits exclusionary private schools doesn’t seem like a viable complaint when UM also surely benefits from USNews for its exclusionary nature as well. That’s like how the complaints by the Red Sox that the Yankees hold an unfair advantage by maintaining the highest payroll of every baseball team don’t exactly generate much sympathy when you realize that the Red Sox have “only” the #2 or (this season) #3 highest payroll in baseball.</p>