<p>Actually rjk, UCLA and Michigan used to both have a 6% international student rate, but in the past 3 years, UCLA has seriously increased its rate to 11%. That is not a result of UCLA’s increased popularity (UCLA’s popularity has always been extremely high), but a result of a new UC directive to accept more international students. I suspect it has to do with the UCs wanting to improve their financial situation, and since international students are more willing to pay OOS tuition for UCs than OOS Americans, increasing the number of international students as opposed to the number of OOS students has proven to be a more effective strategy. This move has come at a price; the decreased selectivity standards at the UCs. The two schools that I am familiar with here in Dubai had over 10 UCLA admits this year, compared to only 2 or 3 that were admitted into Michigan, although just as many applied to both universities. </p>
<p>You are correct Alexandre, It seems that UCLA has at least 2,000 more international students than Michigan these days. </p>
<p>Beyphy mentioned weather, and I think someone tried to deflect that (I’m looking at you rjk :P), but if you’re not used to the Michigan winters, they can be particularly brutal. That said, I came from an extremely warm climate (think So Cal/Texas/Arizona/Florida) and I held up just fine. This past winter was the worst on record (first time since 1978 we had a snow day!), so I doubt it’ll get much worse. And it just makes you appreciate the good weather that much more.</p>
<p>^^^Seriously, weather is overrated when selecting a college. Millions of students attend colleges in colder climatrs and seem to survive just fine. </p>
<p>
Not sure why you think weather is overrated; its certainly a factor one could consider when determining where they will live for a period of at least 4 years. Also, not sure of the relevance of good schools being in colder climates when comparing two specific schools. Seems like you are really stretching to push UM.</p>
<p>Sorry mom and dad, I am not going to go Harvard because it gets cold in January. Ditto for Yale, Princeton, MIT, Chicago, Columbia, Northwestern, etc. etc. etc. </p>
<p>CHD, usually students who get into top universities have higher priorities than the weather. In fact, most would not even list the weather among their first 10 priorities. From the list below, it is fairly evident that there are more good universities in cold winters than in warm weather:</p>
<p>WARM WEATHER SCHOOLS:
California Institute of Technology
Claremont McKenna College
Harvey Mudd College
Pomona College
Rice University
Stanford University
University of California-Berkeley
University of California-Los Angeles
University of California-San Diego
University of Southern California
University of Texas-Austin</p>
<p>COLD WEATHER SCHOOLS:
Amherst College
Boston College
Bowdoin College
Brown University
Bryn Mawr College
Carleton College
Carnegie Mellon University
Colgate University
Columbia University
Cornell University
Dartmouth College
Grinnell College
Harvard University
Haverford College
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Middlebury College
New York University
Northwestern University
Oberlin College
Princeton University
Smith College
Swarthmore College
Tufts University
University of Chicago
University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Vassar College
Wellesley College
Wesleyan University
Williams College
Yale University</p>
<p>That’s why Stanford has the lowest admission rate. There are not many warm schools to choose from on the top level, ;)</p>
<p>Seems to be a lot of schools missing from that list Alexandre. How about:</p>
<p>Georgia Tech
Virginia Tech
UVA
UNC
Duke
Plenty others</p>
<p>Additionally, if you’re counting Pittsburgh and Princeton as cold, then the overwhelming majority of people in the US live in cold weather places. </p>
<p>Vanderbilt, Wash U, Florida</p>
<p>If you don’t consider Pittsburgh to be in the cold country, neither are Boston, Jersey, and New York.</p>
<p>You UM “kool-aid drinkers” are missing my point. Regardless of where other schools are located, we were comparing two schools and we were thinking about a variety of criteria in comparing them. The location of other schools is completely irrelevant to that analysis. </p>
<p>Also, I understand that several of you don’t consider weather important - maybe its because you really don’t or maybe because that’s a negative whe ncomparing UM to certain other schools. Either way some people do consider it important. And its not, “Sorry mom and dad, I am not going to go Harvard because it gets cold in January.” but more - mom and dad I’ve considered numerous factors about two schools and based on this detailed analysis I’ve chosen x. I know you may not be happy if x doesn’t equal UM, but seriously, respect other people’s ability to prioritize for themselves please.</p>
<p>“Additionally, if you’re counting Pittsburgh and Princeton as cold, then the overwhelming majority of people in the US live in cold weather places.”</p>
<p>Bingo. Somebody finally gets it!</p>
<p>Vladen, I said “warm whether schools”. It snows in DC, Baltimore, Durham, St Louis, Charlottesville, Chapel Hill, Atlanta, Winston Salem and Nashville. Those may have mild winters compared to Boston, Chicago and Detroit, but they have winters nonetheless. The average lows at all those cities in December, January and February is in the 28-35 degree range. I stand by my initial statement that there are more cold weather schools than warm weather schools. By warm weather schools, I mean T-Shirt weather year-round, not winter coat weather 40% of the school year.</p>
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<p>@Alex - you are very good at developing definitions that enhance the argument of UM versus other schools. However, its obvious that your definitions are arbitrary and regardless of how you define things Atlanta is a warmer city than Ann Arbor - typically by about 20 degrees.</p>
<p>How does this strengthen my argument about Michigan vs UCLA? UCLA is a warm weather school. </p>
<p>^Good point. I concede that it doesn’t. But you did develop a definition that strengthens the argument for UM against other schools, especially those in Atlanta.</p>
<p>You generally seem very reasonable. Yet I’ve been very frustrated by numerous posts by you and several others that seem to be slanted towards UM. I’ve pointed it out a few times over the last few days. I have no dog in this fight, I’m really just an observer expecting to see the best advice available on these threads. Am I missing something? Is it wrong for me to point out what I’ve been pointing out?</p>
<p>I don’t know why people are trying to diminish how important weather is. I side with CHD on this argument, weather should definitely be a concern if you’re coming from a warmer climate to Michigan. Alexandre, your claim that weather doesn’t fall in the top 10 for important criteria during the college selection process is baseless. For some people, weather is a huge issue.</p>
<p>And to piggyback off of CHD’s comment about “Sorry mom and dad, I am not going to go Harvard because it gets cold in January…” You guys are forgetting the last part of the statement - it ends “… I’m going to Stanford instead.”</p>
<p>I have not debated the merits of attending Michigan over Atlanta schools in this thread. I did present valid points in the Michigan vs UCLA discussion in the first page of this thread.</p>
<p>^Fair enough. But you developed categories for evaluating schools based on weather. What was the point of that? Is it to use those categories at some point to compare schools? If it was simply to support the argument that there are more cold weather schools than warm weather schools it was not a good use of time since that argument is not relevant to comparing UM and UCLA. I recognize that I followed you on this tangent, but I’ve been feeling the need to point out the slant that seems to regularly appear in Um vs. X discussions.</p>
<p>@thestudmuffin - I’m glad to see we can be on the same page sometimes </p>