<p>Gentleman i agree with you and that is my point. I am just tired of seeing Umich and berk put above Uva, and if you read my earlier post i am simply asking what justifies this.</p>
<p>Bball: Umich more prestigious? really? thats funny because here are the rankings:
Institution 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996
University of Virginia 23 21 20 22 22 21 21 19
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 25 25 25 25 25 23 24 24
University of California-Berkeley 20 20 20 20 22 23 27 26</p>
<p>But we have to remember Bball's opinion is more reliable than the most respected college rating index out there.
Also Bball- "Therefore, I didn't want to go to a school that had 90 percent in-state"- do you honestly have any idea what you are talking about??? Uva has 70% instate/ 30% out of state. UCB has 91% instate which is 21% higher than Uva.</p>
<p>well, that's news to me, i knew UC Berk was around that, but i didn't know that UVA was 30 percent out of state. RU sure about that, b/c I was told otherwise by a few other ppl.</p>
<p>DMC, you honestly are a pretty crazzzzy kid, but I RESPECT you and your opinions nonetheless lol. Honestly, if that is the case, I do not know why that is b/c I feel that someone at michigan who strives to get a 4.0 has accomplished something just as much as someone at Duke. Schools like michigan and Cal grade on harsh harsh curves, and it makes it hard to get str8 As. These schools have no problems giving out Ds and Fs by the hundreds. You think that you get like automatic brownie pts for being at Duke. Get the grades and get into your grad program in 4 years, and we will talk. You think that every Duke grad is guaranteed a spot at Harvard Law. Well, i know someone who has 2 siblings that graduated from duke, one is attending a law school ranked about 50-60 in the country, and the other is attending a top 20 busines school. Not bad, but not great either for your Duke label. These two kids would have probably done the same coming out of schoo like NYU or Brandeis, which are ranked lower. Law school admission is heavely based on LSAT scores.</p>
<p>I know a lot about grad school admissions and I can tell you that graduates of the Ivies and top LACs tend to be overrepresented bigtime at the top grad schools, much more so than the big publics.</p>
<p>Slipper, I happen to know a lot about graduate school placement too. DMC, equal GPAs and standadized scores from Michigan and Ivy League schools yield equal results because they are considered equals in the eyes of adcoms. The difference is that fewer students at Michigan graduate with 3.6+ GPAs than at Ivy League schools...and with good reason. At Ivy League schools, about 90% of the students are excellent whereas at Michigan, it is more like 65%. Try to remember, Michigan has a student body twice to five times larger than any ivy. </p>
<p>According to the WSJ study, over 3% of Michigan, UVA and Cal students end up at top 5 Medical Schools, top 5 Law Schools and top 5 MBA programs. Columbia, Cornell and Penn all had fewer than 6% attending those same graduate schools...and that study heavily favored Northeast Coast schools. I do not see how the ivies have such a clear advantage over elite state schools. A 3.8 student from Cal, Michigan or UVA with a high LSAT or GMAT or MCAT score will get into the same types of graduate schools as a student from Duke or Columbia or Dartmouth with similar scores.</p>
<p>Alright alright. Maybe the stats I hypothetically posed were too gracious on both fronts. But you get my point. LOL Bball, YES THERE ARE AUTOMATIC PT.S you get for the school you went to. Be realistic for one moment. Your grad school WILL look at where you went to school. It is a sad truth, but it is just that...truth. I am not saying HYP grads will be discernable from one another, but a Columbia grad to a Umich grad is. Top schools like that tend to trust the curriculum of schools in their league, no? Moreover, Bball, if you honestly believe that Cornell is as succesful as its peers in putting kids into top grad programs, it is YOU who are "crazzzzzy." It just is not. Every Ivy league school and then "ivy wannabes" like Duke, Columbia, Uchicago are better at placing their kids into top grad programs.</p>
<p>Alexandre:</p>
<p>If you are willing to bring the flawed WSJ rankings inthe argument, I will oblige. You saying that 6% of the ppl at Upenn/Columbia getting into top grad schools is flawed because only 1/4 of the kids at those schools even opt to go to grad school. Moreover, Duke is 90% from the field at getting kids into top grad programs, so that has to count for something towards the people that do opt for that route. Moreover, I have seen you compare Umich to LSE, Columbia, Penn, and even Dartmouth. Why? Are you seriously toying with the notion that Umich UNDERGRAD prowess can even begin to touch such schools? You can talk to me ALL day about Grad programs, but this discussion is centralized at the undergrad level. To be honest, I might even say that Dartmouth, Williams, Amherst are right behind the top 4 schools in terms of undergrad attention and faculty.</p>
<p>Then you just skip undergrad and go on doing your research in grad schools. What makes a college great is the experience it can offer, not a bread-down of academic departments.
Quote:
"I am sorry, but in no way is Duke and Dartmouth better than UPenn. That is just nonsene. What makes Dartmouth sooo good to be a top 10 school. I mean, its departments aren't that strong compared to a Chicago, Cornell, Penn. If UCB is a top 10 school, they why isn't Penn or Cornell???"</p>
<p>I don't get it. Some schools are better in some areas. A small liberal arts school won't be the same as a large research school. You can't compare apples and oranges. True UCB and UNC-CH are great schools, but they are huge, why should you compare them to a 5000 student school.</p>
<p>Exactly. Yet Alexandre put large research facilities (umich) and specialized small communty schools (Dartmouth) in the same pot. I say this...go to Dartmouth for undergrad and go to Umich for grad. Not the other way around.</p>
<p>DMC, I am also talking about undergraduate education. I do not know Michigan's graduate programs well since I was never a graduate student at Michigan. You know very little about universities. Didn't you just say that Georgetown is unrivaled in PS and has an amazing library? You rely on opinion and popular misconceptions to judge and group universities. That is unfortunate.</p>
<p>I apologize for the polisci international relations confusion. But one of my buddies who went to Georgetown told me that. Moreover, I dont think you need to question my opinions in general now. To be honest, most of your diction is based off of one perspective: Umich's. I clearly admit that Duke is not top 5 by any means. I even think Dartmouth is much better for the undergrad experience. However, until I came to this board, I had never seen Umich in the light that you portray it to be. I trust Slipper's opinion almost more than anyone on here, because he is such a veteran to this whole process. From his posts, I dont see the bias that yours carry as much.</p>
<p>Edit: Wake Forest is awesome. If you go there, we can hang out because I'll be at Duke. Good luck, buddy.</p>
<p>Like I said, you judge schools based on what others have told you and based on your own limited experience. DMC, I am as much a "veteran of the process" as Slipper. We have similar backgrounds. We both attended elite High Schools,completed both our undergraduate and graduate studies at top universities, worked for exclusive companies and recruited students at various top universities. And I consider myself a little more even handed than Slipper. I do not consider my own schools superior to everybody elses...but I do consider it to be equal to most.</p>
<p>Basically there are two schools of thought, Alexandre comes from one, and I come from another. I think both of us are right equally. This just shows how complex "ranking" is and the reason why so many refute ranking systems. People get different things from different places. Personally I think an undergraduate focus, an absolutely student body, and strong grad placement is more important than having a lot of nobel prize winners at a school five times bigger. Some thing the opposite. No one is wrong here, there are too many exceptions to show otherwise.</p>
<p>Thanks DMC - Duke will be awesome, its a great choice.</p>
<p>Niether does he. We all said HYPSM are better. It would have been ludicrous for you to even put Umich in that spectrum. However, saying Umich and Dartmouth are on equal footing for UNDERGRAD is a tad out there. I know you are a veteran, but most of your answers are derivative to Umich.</p>