<p>It's probably the third highest at our HS in terms of number of people going there. Our public school is on the east coast and is full of affluent people.</p>
<p>I'm not trying to start a dispute or anything. I'm just wondering why this is.</p>
<p>Our local hs seems to send fair number too, considering it is a public hs not in Michigan. One girl got a great merit scholarship, I know.</p>
<p>do you know what majors people in your high school are going for?
I am from public high school in IL and I hardly know anyone even applied to Michigan(about 1-2%?)
and seriously about 50% of my class went to UIUC..
I knew Michigan is pretty popular in east coast, but your situation sounds like Michigan is a in-state school for your state. lol
What state are you in?</p>
<p>I'm from the East Coast as well. UMich was (and still is) extremely popular among my school and the other schools in the area when I was applying back in 2005. It's held in very high regard on the East Coast, especially in New York.</p>
<p>From personal experience, I would even go as far as to say that East Coasters think more highly of UofM then Michigan residents.</p>
<p>afruff: Given the NY has the second highest population at Umich, this is not a surprise.....What is more curious to me is why NY has soooo many more acceptances and enrollees than neighboring states....Our guidance office here in NJ is actually in the process of attempting to find out why.......Nevertheless, UMich LOVES NY kids especially Long Island and Westchester......</p>
<p>Michigan's reputation is definitely better outside of Michigan. I got the feeling most people regard it as a better school than MSU, but don't really know why or how much better. I have a list of schools that receive the most applications in every state. Stuyvesant high school in NYC has the most number in new york state. The other schools on the list are very good schools as well.</p>
<p>I'm in MD not NY. Acoording to last year's class stats MD has one of the highest (if not the highest) number of students in UMich to state population ratios.</p>
<p>Biggest feeders to Michigan from MD (with 30+ applications per year)</p>
<p>Bethesda Chevy Chase
Thomas S Wooton
Walt Whitman
Walter Johnson
Winston Churchill</p>
<p>NJ has a few with 30+ applications per year as well:</p>
<p>Marlboro
Millburn
Tenafly</p>
<p>keefer: You wouldn't happen to have acceptance rates from these schools, do you?.....as I mentioned earlier, our guidance dept is trying to figure out why we have so few acceptances to UMich year after year even though stats match up (or are higher) than others.....also, could you PM me the top 10 from NJ?</p>
<p>UMAlumni.com:</a> Volunteering & Giving</p>
<p>i got my info from that site, doesn't list specific acceptance rates, only lists by application size(small, medium, large).</p>
<p>Keefer: thanks so much....boy, does this explain alot.......</p>
<p>Keefer, this makes me sound like an arrogant Michigan student, but I think most people I know within Michigan regard Michigan as a much, much better school than MSU. Plus, Michigan students are known to have that arrogant attitude that I probably display...
It is probably true that most out-of-state/international people have a much higher opinion of Michigan, though. Just read Alexandre's post on "Is Michigan weak in any way?" That's the impression a lot of people who know about colleges and such get about Michigan. Or, at least, people tend to run across that fact that some aspect of the college (i.e. If you're interested in good hospitals, you run across a lot of stuff about the University of Michigan. If you're interested in political science, you know a lot of research comes from the University. If you're interested in sports, you know Michigan is an overall good sports school).</p>
<p>Folks in the midwest in general, are not very elitist, at least not as much as the east coast folks. Most in-state folks I've met tend to have a very cavalier attitude about college admissions, with an emphasis on the education/school, and not on the acceptance part. While everybody knows that Michigan is a far more selective school, they also tend to think highly of the MSU education. Most of the instate students take the SAT/ACT once, and apply to Michigan, MSU or somewhere like EMU, they are very good students, and most could get into far more selective schools, but they usually choose not to apply. I knew of several hs valedictorians with 1400+ SAT that were in-state that didn't apply to anywhere else other than Michigan and MSU.</p>
<p>It takes some adjustment as a student from new york, but over time, I've grown to appreciate this as a very positive aspect of Michigan students.</p>
<p>^^Chrsitine, yes that is rather arrogant and not even true -- I'd tend to differ with your statement. Most Michigan people don't consider UM a "much, much" better school than MSU. Some U-M students do, but not across the state. U-M's considered generally better, but many bright kids in the state apply to both schools, with some preferring MSU even when -- yes believe it -- they're also accepted at U-M.</p>
<p>I didn't mean the quality of the students was worse than MSU, I meant that there was a combination of Michigan arrogance among students and reason for people to believe that Michigan was a better school. I'm being honest when I say that just about literally every in-state student I know at Michigan, and I know a variety, thinks Michigan is far superior to MSU. I hear a lot of comments like "well, they go to MSU, you can't expect much better" or "yeah, that's where the dumb people from my high school went."</p>
<p>
[quote]
Most Michigan people don't consider UM a "much, much" better school than MSU. Some U-M students do, but not across the state. U-M's considered generally better, but many bright kids in the state apply to both schools, with some preferring MSU even when -- yes believe it -- they're also accepted at U-M.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't agree with you on some of this.</p>
<p>Most of the 'average' people in Michigan don't have an opinion on the academic differences between Michigan and Michigan State. This is not too surprising - folks in Michigan are worried about keeping their jobs safe in a difficult economy, not about who which institution of higher learning is intellectually superior. Besides, conversations about MSU and UM center around college sports, as these two schools are both powerhouses and rivals in the sports world.</p>
<p>The only (in-state) people who do consider which of these schools is academically stronger are students who are either considering these schools for college, or are already enrolled in one of the two colleges, or, more rarely, alumni of the schools. In my experience, it's agreed upon by most students that UM is the superior academic institution. Yes, there are ocasionally cases where a student admitted to both schools will pick MSU, but I think this is due far more to special programs that exist at one school or not the other. For example, journalism majors at MSU, or one of the various degrees in the James Madison College. Or, the 7 year direct med program that MSU offers. These are all very specific, specialized cases though, and do not involve very many people.</p>
<p>That's not to denigrate MSU though, because it is the second strongest academic institution in the state. Many high school graduates in Michigan simply don't attend any form of college. Many more attend 2-year colleges to get associate degrees, or attend community colleges. Of the ones who do attend 4 year colleges, most go to somewhat weaker institutions like Northern, Western, EMU, Grand Valley State, Ferris State, and the like. Academically stronger students attend research colleges like Oakland and Wayne State. The wealthier students who can afford private school attend colleges like Lawrence Tech, Kettering, or Kalamazoo College (all small schools that offer distinct advantages that other schools do not.) Only pretty strong students attend Michigan State and Michigan, so I don't think any is too offensive in suggesting that Michigan is a stronger institution.</p>
<p>"In my experience, it's agreed upon by most students that UM is the superior academic institution...Only pretty strong students attend Michigan State and Michigan, so I don't think any is too offensive in suggesting that Michigan is a stronger institution." -- tetrahedr0n</p>
<p>What the average Michigan person feels, who has know orientation towards college (like the GM worker going to trade school trying to make ends meet) is irrelevant to this conversation; no more relevant to some Virginia, Blue Ridge “hillbilly” thinks about a great school like the University of Virginia cause, chances are, he may have never even heard of it… It depends on who you talk to. In Michigan and American academic culture, in general, U-M is considered better than MSU, that’s obvious. But what some/many realize, or come to realize, that the difference isn’t as great as some believe. I have too many friends at Michigan who think it’s overrated – I’ve known many who have transferred “down” (allegedly) to MSU as a result… I think the “huge” gap Christine talks about is largely from U-M people or those dreaded U-M wannabees who only know of Michigan from sports and some academic discussion. </p>
<p>I don’t look at it as “offensive” if people suggest Michigan is stronger because, after all, it’s their opinion anyway. I can’t change the way people think… There are some people, less of them, or less vocal, certainly, that feel MSU is better than U-M; and no, these folks are not just spouting off in defiance, they really feel this way: that MSU’s got a better campus, is more undergraduate oriented, has more one-on-one opportunities, friendlier, less pretentious --- .</p>
<p>tetrahedr0n, it is unfair to say that all bright kids who choose MSU over U-M do so because of 1 particular program. In some cases, yes, but for most, they prefer MSU as a school; good students generally don’t compartmentalize: “that James Madison College is great so I’ll choose MSU over U-M even though I know U-M is great and, overall, MSU is crap or even mediocre… A lot of U-M convince themselves of this because the simply can’t deal with the fact that there are some, actually, a lot of bright people (parents and student/children) who feel MSU is the better academic school/experience…</p>
<p>ie., Michigan State people know they’ve got a great school, they just don’t have to shout it from the hills the way U-M people do, leaving some of us to be suspicious as to really, how certain they are U-M, in their own minds, is really as great as it is. My MSU friends always note, you certainly don’t hear Ivy League-ers pump their schools so much as U-M or, like other great non-Ivy colleges Berkeley, Virginia, Chicago, Notre Dame, etc, constantly try and compare themselves to Harvard or the Ivies, in general as some U-M people do when, after all, it like MSU is a large STATE university. Spartans chuckle at the fact a whole lot of Wolverines are under serious self delusion about their school. It's actually amusing and those outside the MSU-UM rivalry, find it even more so...</p>
<p>The short of it: I recognize U-M’s a great school (somewhat overrated) with a somewhat better reputation than MSU, but I realize MSU is a great school in its own right (somewhat underrated)… Remember, with most things in life, the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle. Those who think U-M is way up here and MSU is way down there, academically, have probably OD’d on the Wolverine Kool-Aid.</p>
<p>No one ever said they thought MSU was way down there. And I personally think that the nation as a whole underrates Michigan because it's a state school.</p>
<p>Back to the OP, Michigan has a very strong reputation in several locales. In fact, in some of those areas, Michigan's reputation as one of the country's leading universities exceeds its reputation in its own state! Here are some areas that really recognize Michigan as an elite university:</p>
<p>1) New York City:
- Michigan is one of the top 10 feeder schools among major Wall Street firms.
- NYC Law firms love Michigan Law school
- Major consulting firms also recruit quite heavily at Michigan.</p>
<p>2) Washington, DC
- Many of the Capital's power brokers are Michigan alums.
- Michigan's Political Science department, ranked 1 in American Politics, is one of Washington's main think tanks.
- Several Political Science professors serve as advisors and consultants to the White House and State Department.
- Michigan's Law School is among the most highly recruited by DC Law firms.</p>
<p>3) Silicon Valley
- Michigan alums, like Bill Joy (Co-founder of Sun Microsystems), John Holland (Father of Genetic Algorithms), Chris Langton (Father of Artificial Life), Lary Page (co-founded of Google), Claude Shannon (Father of Digital Circuit Design and Information Theory) have helped shape Silicon Valey.
- Companies like Microsoft and Google recruit dozens of Michigan students annually.
- Michigan Law is very highly recruited by San Francisco law firms.</p>
<p>4) Chicago
- Michigan's proximity to Chicago (connected directly by I-94) has inevitebly linked those two entities for over 100 years. In Chicago, I would say that the University of Chicago, NU and Michigan form a sort of Holy Trinity (HYPSM are probably more well regarded anywhere in the country of course). </p>
<p>Michigan also has a very strong reputation in parts of Western Europe (Germany in particular) and parts of East Asia (China, Japan and Korea in Particular).</p>