The University of Michigan's academic power rating

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Michigan
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<p>So I decided to do a comparative study of the top research universities using departmental ratings as a basis of comparison. My results are derived from the unweighted average of departments as they are rated by the USNWR graduate programs edition. Since they are entirely based on the reputational scores of learned scholars in their respective fields and do not depend on some random methodology, I think the results are fairly accurate. Below were the results (needless to say, Michigan rocks!):</p>

<p>SCIENCES (Bilogy, Chemistry, Computer Science, Geology, Mathematics, Pshycis):</p>

<h1>1 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 98.67</h1>

<h1>2 University of California-Berkeley 97.33</h1>

<h1>3 Stanford University 97.00</h1>

<h1>4 California Institute of Technology 94.33</h1>

<h1>5 Harvard University 91.67</h1>

<h1>6 Princeton University 89.33</h1>

<h1>7 Cornell University 87.33</h1>

<h1>8 Columbia University 85.33</h1>

<h1>9 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 83.67</h1>

<h1>10 University of Chicago 83.33</h1>

<h1>10 University of Texas-Austin 83.33</h1>

<h1>10 Yale University 83.33</h1>

<h1>13 University of Wisconsin-Madison 83.00</h1>

<h1>14 University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign 82.67</h1>

<h1>15 University of California-Los Angeles 81.00</h1>

<h1>16 University of Pennsylvania 80.00</h1>

<h1>16 University of Washington 80.00</h1>

<h1>18 Northwestern University 77.20</h1>

<h1>19 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 75.60</h1>

<h1>20 Duke University 74.00</h1>

<p>HUMANITIES/SOCIAL SCIENCES (Economics, English, History, Political Science, Psychology, Sociology):</p>

<h1>1 Stanford University 95.00</h1>

<h1>1 University of California-Berkeley 95.00</h1>

<h1>3 Harvard University 94.33</h1>

<h1>4 Princeton University 93.67</h1>

<h1>5 Yale University 91. 33</h1>

<h1>6 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 90.00</h1>

<h1>7 University of Chicago 89.67</h1>

<h1>8 Columbia University 87.67</h1>

<h1>9 University of California-Los Angeles 86.67</h1>

<h1>10 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 85.50</h1>

<h1>11 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 85.20</h1>

<h1>12 University of Pennsylvania 84.33</h1>

<h1>12 University of Wisconsin-Madison 84.33</h1>

<h1>14 Northwestern University 82.67</h1>

<h1>15 Duke University 82.20</h1>

<h1>16 Cornell University 82.00</h1>

<h1>17 University of Texas-Austin 77.67</h1>

<h1>18 Washington University-St Louis 74.80</h1>

<p>COMBINED AVERAGE IN THE 12 TRADITIONAL DISCIPLINES:</p>

<h1>1 University of California-Berkeley 96.17</h1>

<h1>2 Stanford University 96.00</h1>

<h1>3 Harvard University 93.00</h1>

<h1>4 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 92.09</h1>

<h1>5 Princeton University 91.50</h1>

<h1>6. Yale University 87.33</h1>

<h1>7. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 86.84</h1>

<h1>8 Columbia University 86.50</h1>

<h1>8 University of Chicago 86.50</h1>

<h1>10 Cornell University 84.67</h1>

<h1>11 University of California-Los Angeles 83.84</h1>

<h1>12 University of Wisconsin-Madison 83.67</h1>

<h1>13 University of Pennsylvania 82.17</h1>

<h1>14 University of Texas-Austin 80.50</h1>

<h1>15 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill 80.40</h1>

<h1>16 Northwestern University 79.94</h1>

<h1>17 Duke University 78.10</h1>

<p>If one were to add undergraduate Business and Engineering to the equation, weighing the two combined as 1/3 of the total, with the sciences weighed at 1/3 and the humanities and social sciences at another 1/3, you would get the following result:</p>

<h1>1 University of California-Berkeley 94.44</h1>

<h1>2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 93.06</h1>

<h1>3 Stanford University 90.00</h1>

<h1>4 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 87.22</h1>

<h1>5 Princeton University 84.67</h1>

<h1>6 Cornell University 83.78</h1>

<h1>7 Harvard Universty 83.67</h1>

<h1>8 University of Pennsylvania 82.11</h1>

<h1>9 Columbia University 82.00</h1>

<h1>9 Yale University 82.00</h1>

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<p>This analysis looks very good. </p>

<p>Would you be so bold as to post this in the “College Search & Selection” forum? :)</p>

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<p>I’ll pass! You troublemaker! ;)</p>

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<p>Care to explain what “Bilogy” and “Pshycis” are? ;-)</p>

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<p>Thought Duke would be higher</p>

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<p>^^^Duke is held in very high esteem here at CC. It is looked at by many, probably those who are slaves to the USNWR rankings, as just a touch below HYPSM and higher than schools like Berkeley, Michigan, and UCLA (among other). In reality it is a peer to all of them.</p>

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<p>Why did the fourth study stop at just 10 schools? I’m interested in where UT-Austin lands since we have really good business and engineering programs.</p>

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<p>andrewt, the Universities of Chicago, Texas, UCLA and Wisconsin all make the top 15.</p>

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<p>how did UVA fare?</p>

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<p>Unfortunately jasoll, UVa does not do well on academic power ratings, although it would beat WUSTL by a small margin.</p>

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<p>

You make some good points, goldenboy. However, nearly every national research university wants to have strong faculty and top departments across all disciplines. That is what is important to academic administrators. However, only a handful of universities have comprehensive greatness across all academic disciplines. Faculty, research and graduate programs drive academic prestige.</p>

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<p>He completely missed the point of this thread and addressing his points would detract from the original purpose. As the title of the thread clearly states, the point is not to measure academic offerings to individual students but the overall academic power of a university. In that regard, major research universities will fare better than other universities. </p>

<p>Whether a university affords undergrads the opportunities to get to know its faculty is a CC fear-tactic used to ward students off research powerhouses. The fact is, every single student I have known at Michigan and Cornell has taken dozens of small classes (fewer than 25 students) where they really got to know their professors. Research opportunities were availlable to all students who actively sought them. I have never met a single student who attended those two large research universities who did not easily find two or three prominent faculty members that knew them very well and were willing to give them glowing recommendations when needed.</p>

<p>But that is not the purpose of this thread. The thread is about raw academic power.</p>

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<p>

Then why isn’t Berkeley considered better than Harvard? It’s the best school in the world according to the academic power rating. Why isn’t Michigan considered better than Columbia? Why isn’t Wisconsin considered better than Northwestern? Why isn’t UT-Austin considered better than Duke? Why isn’t UCLA considered better than Brown? Why isn’t UNC considered better than Dartmouth? Why are UVA, Vanderbilt and Wash U considered prestigious in the first place then?</p>

<p>There’s clearly something else that drives prestige besides all of this. Even putting impressionable high schoolers aside, no adult I’ve ever met would put any of those former schools in the same league as any of the latter schools besides considering Michigan to be on par with Columbia. That’s at least reasonable.</p>

<p>The reason I’m so invested in this is that I chose Duke over a full ride at UT-Austin and a direct admit from McCombs. I’ve never really regretted it and pretty much every adult who’s advised me on that decision in the legal, academic and business world (my dad’s a lawyer at Cleary, my uncle’s an MD at BNP Paribas and my mom’s a Stanford Human Biology professor) thinks it was an absolute no-brainer to pick either Brown, Duke or Dartmouth over Texas even though they were $200,000 more expensive.</p>

<p>If this power rating essentially drives prestige, then we all look like idiots. Of course, that’s essentially why it doesn’t. Perception shapes reality and the perception is that Brown, Duke and Dartmouth are better than Texas academically. Whether they actually are or aren’t is of little relevance.</p>

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<p>“The reason I’m so invested in this is that I chose Duke over a full ride at UT-Austin and a direct admit from McCombs”</p>

<p>I just knew you went/are going to Duke.</p>

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<p>“The reason I’m so invested in this is that I chose Duke over a full ride at UT-Austin and a direct admit from McCombs.”</p>

<p>You picked a specific area where Duke clearly beats Texas. I suppose you were interested in economics/finance and Duke is a great training ground for it, as is Dartmouth. If you were interested in engineering, it would have been foolish to go to Duke over a full ride to UT-Austin. If you were instate to a school like Michigan, it would also be foolish to spend that much extra money to go to Duke for either economics/finance or engineering. Same thing with Berkeley. A school like Michigan has virtually no academic weaknesses. Very few schools, Harvard included, can make that statement. Academically Michigan is very strong in many disciplines, it just rarely is strongest in any single one like HYPSM are. Michigan isn’t quite in their league as an overall academic institution. It is however in the next rung down, along with quite a few others including Duke. I have no problem saying that Duke is an academic peer of Michigan. I just never hear anyone from Duke that says the same thing about Michigan. However I can understand your angst and suppose if I had paid well over $200,000.00 for my private undergraduate education, I would like to think that my school is better than any public.</p>

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<p>His story sounds just so familiar…doesn’t it, rjk? </p>

<p>You turned down a full ride to UT McCombs to drop $200k at Duke?! Wow! I would’ve taken the UT offer and asked for $200k deposit in the bank. Probably would have been way ahead…clearly the best and brightest.</p>

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<p>^^I have no problem with anyone who can afford it to spend that much money on a college they really wanted to attend. My problem is it appears that simply because they went to an expensive top private school that they are better than others who went to a top public. It’s this condescending tone that I have read online here for a number of years involving Duke students that just rubs me the wrong way. I rarely have seen the same type of behavior from HYPSM students who also frequent these boards.</p>

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<p>

I didn’t realize Duke was “clearly” better than McCombs for economics/finance, and I’m certainly not convinced that Duke is much better than a full ride from McCombs.</p>

<p>Sure Duke might be slightly better than UT McCombs for Wall Street, but I wouldn’t exactly say that it is “clearly” better.</p>

<p>

You weren’t admitted to the BHP program were you?</p>

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<p>Duke is definitely a target school for finance on Wall St. IMO there are plenty of areas where UT bests Duke, but this just isn’t one of them. I do agree that I personally wouldn’t pay 200 grand more for Duke over McCombs, but it does seem that the OP could afford it.</p>

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<p>Alex, could you calculate a combined ranking that includes the USNews Top 6 Graduate Professional Disciplines (i.e., Business, Law, Medicine, Engineering, Education and possibly Public Affairs)? Altogether, that will be 18 disciplines (plus the 12 traditional disciplines in sciences and humanities/social sciences). The Professional Disciplines could be counted as 1/3 of the new ranking. The results should be very interesting.</p>