<p>it really depends, like if ur into engineering, i would take michigan in state engineering over columbia / penn / brown / dartmouth</p>
<p>if i was going to cornell for the hotel school or michigan in state for economics, i would take michigan</p>
<p>Ivy: That was the crux of my argument against Alexandre. I proposed that prospective students ARE rational beings and that yield and selectivity should be very important factors AS WELL as peer assessment. </p>
<p>Saying prospective students are not rational is absurd as if that was the case, consumers in our market economy would not be deeemed rational either and economics as a whole would collapse. How many times have you seen an idiot buy a huge SUV instead of a small car? How many times have you seen a college student pick Ivies over Umich (not instate)? </p>
<p>Both times, they do it because of "utility" and because of "prestige". Maybe you should ask yourself why Umich is not demanded by students as much as other top school's and why Umich is not deemed as prestigious as these other schools. There is a reason a 60% acceptance rate is dragging them through the mud and though your SAT stats show otherwise, I was a high school applicant a year ago and I knew MANY PEOPLE who got into Umich out of state with 3.5's and were rejected from Berkeley out of state.</p>
<p>Accepted,</p>
<p>Yeah, I fully understand what you are saying.</p>
<p>Again, the point is NOT to cut down on Michigan - the point is to COUNTER these claims (it almost seems to be a sport on CollegeConfidential) - i.e. to cut down on the "lower" Ivies (an absolute contradiction in terms if ever there was one, given that the term 'Ivy' is almost synonymous to prestige) - almost by default because it's so difficult to attack HYPSM.</p>
<p>Sticking with your "car" analogy:</p>
<p>Let's say that HYPSM are at the Ferrari / Porsche / Maserati level - i.e. nearly indisputable in terms of global prestige and desirability. (and let's say that Oxbridge is like, say, a Rolls or Bentley - i.e. "old school" prestige that may not be what it used to be).</p>
<p>Then the so-called "lower" Ivies are more like a Mercedes Benz or a BMW. Perhaps not a Porsche, but still a vehicle of the highest quality, construction, engineering and prestige (with certain models - like the M6 or CL55 AMG - a.k.a. programs - like Wharton - equal to the HPYSM level) </p>
<p>Sure, every model and make at this level may not be a Ferrari Enzo, but then again - let's ask a very simple but overlooked question: "how many Ferrari's do you actually see everyday on the road?" - i.e. how many out of the vast ocean of college grads can call themselves a member of the exclusive HYPSM club - part and parcel the very definition of prestige - scarcity of value? Not many.</p>
<p>And here is the key point. Most people (and when I say most I mean like 99% of the population) would be EXTREMELY HAPPY to get behind the wheel of a BMW or Mercedes (e.g. attend Brown / Dartmouth / Columbia / Cornell / Penn)</p>
<p>And so while folks here (at CC) tend to get lost in the trees splitting hairs between the relative MICROCOSMIC differences between the elite Ferrari (HYPSM) vs. a "measly" Mercedes - let's be very clear - THOSE differences become nearly meaningless when weighed against the differences between a Mercedes vs. the average car on the street - which is to say that it is still head and shoulders above most cars on the road (the terms "jumbo shrimp" or "lower Ivy" come instantly to mind)</p>
<p>And so where does Michigan fit in all of this? Is Michigan really a Mercedes or is it a Ford (perhaps a really, really nice Ford - but still a Ford) - and while you ponder that question, ask yourself this, which car would you really have the valet pull up at Club "Goldman Sachs" or the "McKinsey" Bistro?</p>
<p>A silly question you say? No more silly than an entire thread(s) dedicated to debating the relative merits of an intangible subject such as "prestige".</p>
<p>well i'll do you the favor of cutting down michigan and the likes then. at the undergrad level there's no comparison between a school like michigan or ucla and a school like, gasp, cornell. it takes a lot more to get into cornell than into either of those schools. screw prestige ratings or w/e that u.s. news thing is called (the thing out of 5). that's essentially a measure of what the faculty at one school think of the faculty at another school and therefore has little to do w/the quality of student at the undergrad level. anyone who lumps michigan together w/cornell or dartmouth blah blah really doesn't know what they're talking about. it's a no brainer.</p>
<p>If Michigan is a Ford, I'm almost afraid to ask what you'd call 99% of US universities. A Pinto? Or even a tricycle?</p>
<p>I also have to wonder why the BMW and Mercedes level appears to be limited to only Ivies.</p>
<p>banana,</p>
<p>I never said it was "limited" to the Ivies - my point (as almost always is) is to counter these claims of "lower" Ivies.</p>
<p>Further, I wouldn't presume to know what 99% of US universities are like since I never did any kind of meaningful research about them.</p>
<p>Again, I am sticking to what I know - and what I know is that the quality of the "lower" Ivies has little if anything to do with being "low".</p>
<p>Whenever I hear "lower" Ivy, I don't see it as a diss. Many people who use that term simply mean that Brown/Columbia/Cornell/Dartmouth/Penn are "lower" (or "lesser") in prestige than HYP, which quite frankly puts them in the company of every non-HYPSM school. I see very few posters suggest that they are not excellent schools in their own right. </p>
<p>And ok, let's ignore 99% of US schools. I'm still going to give you some grief for your choice of brands in the car analogy. The difference between a Ferrari and a BMW is much smaller than the difference between a BMW and a Ford - is Michigan, and whatever you'd consider its peers, that much worse than the non-HYP Ivies? It'd be more accurate to call Michigan and the like BMWs as well. Less expensive BMWs, yes, but they still carry an air of prestige that the average school (re: Ford) doesn't.</p>
<p>And I apologize in advance for switching back and forth between the metaphor and literal discussion. :p</p>
<p>Most people have little experience with how good these schools are "in their own right." We have plenty of hearsay, though! What's obvious is that they attract good students and the awe of people who are influenced by their propoganda campaigns. At the very least, you must give them credit for establishing their brand name, attracting great students, and putting out good research, which history and their continued efforts has helped them keep.</p>
<p>id say michigan is more of a cadillac than a ford</p>
<p>Either way, what Ivy, brostrad, slippers, and I are trying to say is that Umich undergrad should not be lumped with Cornell/Upenn/Brown/Dartmouth.</p>
<p>And those schools should be grouped together because . . .?</p>
<p>They are Ivies and of the nation's highest academic quality and prestige.</p>
<p>Umich undergrad is great too, just more comparable with other schools lower than UsNews top 20.</p>
<p>Alexandre has definitely convinced me of Michigan's quality, I must admit before CC I didn't really think of it beyond the top 25. I now see it as a tremendous in-state opportunity, and a school where a top student can really take advantage of some great resources. But its a top 15-25 undergraduate school, not a top 10 school. Selectivity might be the thing bringing it down, if it had the student body of the Ivies it would no doubt be top 10. Student body does count though.</p>
<p>Not even top 15. Let's be serious here it is a 60% admit state college that has a strong business program which should not be indicative of the overall college of arts and sciences. </p>
<p>Obviously you can say what you said about every college. If Tulane had the student body of Ivy Leaguers it too would be top 10. Same with NYU. I think Umich is great where it is at #25 or perhaps tied with UVA at the most.</p>
<p>Why should it be above colleges like Berkeley? Seriously everyone knows Berkeley is #1 public. People turn down Ivies even out of state for it. Yield is important and so is student demand.</p>
<p>Alex has convinced me that Umich can be comparable to UVA though and maybe tied with it.</p>
<p>Alexandre has convinced me wholeheartedly about Mich's quality as well. Frankly, before I got to CC, my "first word" association with UM would have been "safety" school. I have since been "enlightened."</p>
<p>That said, it's too bad that Alexandre's reach is extremely limited (almost miniscule) when you consider that his influence is limited to the higly specialized, self contained, already-college-obssessed community within CC.</p>
<p>So while his efforts over time have won me over, the harsh reality is that they simply don't make a dent in the hardened perceptions of the "real" world - and that, at the end of the day, is what really matters - particularly when you are talking about prestige.</p>
<p>I'll join in on the whole "Alexandre enlightened me - to a certain extent" deal. I still don't think Michigan undergrad is better than UVA. Just chalk it up to in-state loyalty. :)</p>
<p>And UVA is Top 25. Therefore you can see why I argue so passionably that Umich is in no way top 20.</p>
<p>I'd probably say Umich undergrad is right where it is ranked by USNEWS, maybe a few spots higher. There are just too many good schools ahead of it like Rice, Chicago, northwestern, WashU, Gtown, etc. One thing both Alexandre and I agree upon is grouping schools makes the most sense.</p>
<p>Slipper, Ivy_Grad and Bananainjamies, I am glad to hear that your appreciation of Michigan has ameliorated. I agree with you that student quality is important. I just think that you: </p>
<p>1) Underestimate the quality of Michigan student's body. Many people do if they go by the acceptance rate and mean SAT scores. But if you look closely, Michigan's student body is actually very accomplished. </p>
<p>2) Neglect to fact that Michigan's actual academics are definitely top 10.</p>
<p>Many schools have incredibly gifted students, but mediocre academics. Those schools are not considered top 10 universities. </p>
<p>ACA, can you please list the 20 universities (we are not including LACs in this discussion since we are discussing Ivies and other research universities) that are better than Michigan? I am understandably at a loss because:</p>
<p>1) The deans and top professors of top research universities arround the nation can only think of 6 or 7 universities that are appreciably better than Michigan at the undergraduate level. The peer assessment score proves that beyond a doubt. When deans and professors who participate in the Peer Assessment score are asked to rate the undergraduate academic quality of peer institutions, Michigan always gets a score of 4.5-4.7/5.0, good for 7th-12th place in the nation. And it is not just the Peer Assessment score of the USNWR. Gerhard Capser (a very highly respected, well versed, Yale-educated intellectual and scholar, once a University of Chicago professor and most recently, the President of Stanford University from 1992-2000) shares that general opinion in academe that Michigan is indeed one of the top 10 universities. In fact, in a highly publicized letter of criticism to the US News Editor in 1996, Dr. Casper used Cal and Michigan's absurdly low ranking as "prima facie" evidence to prove his point that the US News rankings are unreliable. </p>
<p>That is a pretty sure sign that the academic world values Cal and Michigan far more than young high school students do.</p>
<p>2) In terms of resources, Michigan is one of the 10 wealthiest universities in the nation:</p>
<h1>1 Harvard University: $26,000,000,000</h1>
<h1>2 Yale University: $15,000,000,000</h1>
<h1>3 Stanford University: $12,000,000,000</h1>
<h1>4 Princeton University: $11,000,000,000</h1>
<h1>5 Massachusetts Institute of Technology: $6,700,000,000</h1>
<h1>6 Columbia University: $5,200,000,000</h1>
<h1>7 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: $5,000,000,000</h1>
<h1>8 Emory University: $4,400,000,000</h1>
<h1>9 University of Pennsylvania: $4,400,000,000</h1>
<h1>10 University of Texas-Austin: $4,400,000,000</h1>
<h1>11 Washington University: $4,300,000,000</h1>
<h1>12 Northwestern University: $4,200,000,000</h1>
<h1>13 University of Chicago: $4,100,000,000</h1>
<h1>14 Duke University: $3,800,000,000</h1>
<h1>15 Cornell University: $3,800,000,000</h1>
<p>Of those 15 universities, Michigan's endowment has grown the fastest over the last 16 years. Michigan's endowment has grown by 1,000% over the last 20 years. Only Duke has come close with 600%. In 1990, Michigan wasn't even one of the 25 wealthiest universities in the nation. At the current rate, Michigan will be the 5th wealthiest university in thenation come 2010.</p>
<p>3) Michigan has one of the 10 largest and most highly decorated faculties in the World. Give the size of its faculty and resources, Michigan can actually make classes quite small, which seems to be a subject of concern for some student-types. Classes at Michigan are roughly the same size as classes at most major research universities like Cornell, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Harvard, Penn, Chicago and Stanford.</p>
<p>4) Graduate placement says something about how respected a university is the academic world. Michigan, with its supposidely mediocre student body, still manages to be only fractionally weaker than Ivies like Penn and Cornell and other top undergraduate institutions you feel have far greater academics and student bodies. Let us just look at the WSJ top 50 feeder schools shall we? I think this is a pretty reliable gauge of how successfully a university is at placing its students into top graduate programs. One must keep in mind that schools with large engineering and undergraduate business programs tend to suffer, in this rating because they usually find good jobs upon graduation and their careers usually picks up quickly from there to the point that they will never think of going back to graduate schools. This explains why MIT, Caltech, Michigan and Cal have relatively low overall scores. But even then, Michigan still does quite well. </p>
<h1>1 Harvard University, 358 attending, 21% feeder score</h1>
<h1>2 Yale University, 231 attending, 18% feeder score</h1>
<h1>3 Princeton University, 174 attending, 16% feeder score</h1>
<h1>4 Stanford University, 181 attending, 11% feeder score</h1>
<h1>5 Duke University, 139 attending, 8.5% feeder score</h1>
<h1>6 Dartmouth College, 93 attending, 8.5% feeder score</h1>
<h1>7 MIT, 92 attending, 7.75% feeder score</h1>
<h1>8 Columbia University, 118 attending, 7% feeder score</h1>
<h1>9 Brown University, 98 attending, 6.5% feeder score</h1>
<h1>10 University of Chicago, 59 attending, 6.25% feeder score</h1>
<h1>11 University of Pennsylvania, 153 attending, 5.5% feeder score</h1>
<h1>12 Georgetown University, 85 attending, 5% feeder score</h1>
<h1>13 Rice University, 29 attending, 3.75% feeder score</h1>
<h1>14 Northwestern University, 73 attending, 3.75% feeder score</h1>
<h1>15 Johns Hopkins University, 45 attending, 3.5% feeder score</h1>
<h1>16 Cornell University, 115 attending, 3.25% feeder score</h1>
<h1>17 Caltech, 7 attending, 2.75% feeder score</h1>
<h1>18 University of Michigan, 156 attending, 2.75% feeder score</h1>
<h1>19 University of Virginia, 82 attending, 2.5% feeder score</h1>
<h1>20 University fo Notre Dame, 45 attending, 2.25% feeder score</h1>
<h1>21 Brandeis University, 16 attending, 2% feeder score</h1>
<h1>22 UC-Berkeley, 118 attending, 2% feeder score</h1>
<h1>23 Tufts University, 22 attending, 1.75% feeder score</h1>
<h1>24 Washington University, 29 attending, 1.75% feeder score</h1>
<h1>25 Case Western, 12 attending, 1.5% feeder score</h1>
<p>Like I always say, and I think many here agree, there aren't a clear cut 10 universities that make up the top 10. It's not like the 11th university is any weaker than #10 or #9. I always maintain that well all is said and done, there are roughly 17 universities (give or take a couple), not including the LACs, that can make a legitimate claim at being top 10 universities. As the numbers above clearly show, Michigan is one of those.</p>
<p>I haven't read through your entire post Alexandre, but to play Devil's Advocate, you are kind of "cherry picking" Michigan's strengths - cutting across grad and undergrad - "mixing apples and oranges" to a certain extent.</p>
<p>I mean take endowment for instance - a quick look at that list - is one to assume that Emory, UTexas (Austin) and WashU are among the Top 11 universities in the nation? Why or why not. Figures such as total aggregate university endowment figures are kind of meaningless if they aren't adjusted for: 1) per capita (i.e. per undergrad student) and 2) adjusted for the size / breadth of graduate programs.</p>
<p>Take Princeton for example. The average undergraduate class is much smaller than at a typical research university. Not only that, it doesn't even have one of the "Big 3" graduate schools (i.e. Law, Medicine or Business) to suck up funds - yet its endowment is nearly as large as Stanford's - a school that dwarfs Princeton in sheer size of students (grad and undergrad = almost 15,000 students = more than double Princeton's grad + undergrad numbers). So even though Stanford's overall endowment ranking is higher than Princeton's, clearly Stanford's $$$ are spread much thinner than Princeton's. Not only that, at Stanford the total number of graduate students outnumber its undergrads - whereas at Princeton the number of undergrads is more than double the number of graduate students - i.e. where is the lion's share of each school's money being spent?</p>
<p>As for peer assessment, I think you should get an honorary PhD in that Alexandre, clearly no one on earth knows more about that than you do! </p>
<p>Finally, the WSJ Feeder list - it ranks Mich at #18 - I think that's about right IMO.</p>
<p>Again, at the VERY HIGHEST levels (e.g. the best and brightest undergrads) Michigan's best can probably play with the best of them across all Ivies. The problem here is that the AVERAGE Michigan student is likely to be less stellar than your AVERAGE Ivy undergrad - and the degree of variance at Michigan I'd argue would be a lot higher than at the Ivies.</p>