<p>Its peer schools are not Columbia, U penn, Duke, JHU, Cornell...that is delusional. Its a great school, but by the objective measures its not a top 15 school. Its a top 20/25. I recently met a kid who is going to be a sophomoric at Ross and after talking to him for awhile....he said something like if I had better SATS I would have definitely went to Penn or Columbia over Michigan, they are better. Michigan kids are not as smart. Ok, he is from instate, but still...it makes a point.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Its peer schools are not Columbia, U penn, Duke, JHU, Cornell...that is delusional. Its a great school, but by the objective measures its not a top 15 school. Its a top 20/25. I recently met a kid who is going to be a sophomoric at Ross and after talking to him for awhile....he said something like if I had better SATS I would have definitely went to Penn or Columbia over Michigan, they are better. Michigan kids are not as smart. Ok, he is from instate, but still...it makes a point.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>In-state kids will always under-rate their school. It's invevitable, because the difficulty of getting into UM is much less for in state kids than out of state kids, which is why they think that UM is so easy to get into. </p>
<p>I will agree that the average Michigan student is not as smart as the average Penn or Columbia student, but the kids in Ross and Engineering are definitely as smart if not smarter than your average Penn or Columbia student.</p>
<p>Bescraze, try to stick to facts. Everybody else on this thread is.</p>
<p>^ It appears Columbia doesn't provide a separate statistical profile of its engineering admits, but it does report that its acceptance rate for engineering is twice as high as that for Columbia College (17.6% engineering, 8.68% for the much larger Columbia College class, combined rate 10.4%). So you'd have to assume the SATs for engineering students at Columbia are somewhat lower than the overall undergrad middle 50% range of 1400-1540.</p>
<p>Penn also does not provide a separate statistical profile for engineering or for Wharton, but it reports an overall freshman middle 50% SATs ranging from 1320-1530. Midpoint between the high and low end of that scale would be 1425 (though we don't know whether the actual median is above or below that mark).</p>
<p>Michigan reports a single median figure of 1390 for its entering engineering class, and 1450 for Ross "preferred admits" (accepted into the 3-year Ross BBA program while applying for freshman admission to the University). This would put Ross pre-admits slightly above the presumptive median for all Penn students, and Michigan engineering admits just slightly below the Penn median---but very close, with probably a 90+% overlap between the two groups.</p>
<p>I'd say statistically there's very little difference between the overall freshman class at Penn and the engineering admits and Ross pre-admits at Michigan. Columbia's overall freshman class is a little stronger than either of these but that's got to be largely on the strength of the extremely selective Columbia College.</p>
<p>Regardless of acceptance rates, I can say that UMich is highly regarded over here in Virginia and, from what I hear, throughout the United States. It is a prestigious and reputable school.</p>
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Phelps isn't a Wolverine, he is a fish! But he did attend the University of Michigan
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Natalie Coughlin has been said to have better overall swimming talent, she's A LOT cuter, and a Bear to boot... :p</p>
<p>Did Phelps actually attend Michigan? I know he left Maryland after graduating from HS and moved to Ann Arbor because his swim coach was named head coach at UMich. Because he was accepting endorsement money, he'd forfeited his amateur status and couldn't swim for Michigan, but has served as a volunteer assistant to his swim coach. But I'm not sure whether he ever enrolled in school there.</p>
<p>I've seen it reported multiple times that Phelps "attends classes" at Michigan. I've always assumed this means he's not a full-time student, spending most of his time on his own swimming and serving as a volunteer assistant to his long-time coach Bob Bowman who is now the men's head swim coach at Michigan, as well as a coach at Club Wolverine, the not-for-profit swim club where Phelps trains. Club Wolverine developed as a vehicle to allow Michigan varsity swimmers to continue to train at a high level during the off-season from collegiate swimming. As a proud Wolverine, I say that's close enough for us to claim him, and the University does---they list Phelps as one of 26 athletes and coaches representing Michigan at the Beijing Olympics.</p>
<p>The one major area that top publics like Umich lag behind the top privates is the AVERAGE stats (SAT, grades, etc.) of the incoming freshmen class. Other areas like quality of programs, graduate students, faculty, peer assessment, etc. are comparable to the T15 schools and in many cases exceed HSM, Caltech, and Chicago. So if Michigan, a not-so-populous state, did not have to accept a large number of in-state students by law and could shrink its undergraduate student body, its selectivity score would have gone up significantly. And voila, you would have a Columbia or Penn in Ann Arbor.</p>
<p>^ Michigan a "not-so-populous state"? With 10.1 million residents, it's actually the 8th most populous state. Nowhere near California, Texas, NY or Florida to be sure, but not so far behind Illinois (12.8 million), Pennsylvania (12.4 million) or Ohio (11.4 million).</p>
<p>And Michigan does NOT "have to accept a large number of in-state students by law." Unlike many state universities, Michigan has no statutory mandate to accept a given number or percentage of in-state students, and it has no cap on OOS students who currently make up about 35% of its student body, very high for a public university. It could, if it so chose, shrink its undergraduate student body, though that might threaten the fairly modest level of appropriations it still gets from the state (reported to be down to about 10% of its annual revenues). I don't think it's headed in that direction; instead, it's trying to expand the size of the faculty to bring down its s/f ratio a little. But I agree, at the top end of its class it can match anyone. Middle 50% SATs in its Honors Program range between 1410-1550, easily in the HYPS range. It's hurt statistically in US News by the lower end of its class.</p>
<p>Thanks, bclintonk, for correcting a factual error in my post. I underestimated Umich's undergraduate selectivity for sure.</p>
<p>gadad, I realize that Wikipedia isn't the best source for information, but according to them, he did attend the University of Michigan from 2004-2008, majoring in Sports Marketing and Management. I don't know how accurate that is.</p>
<p>Michael</a> Phelps - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>Michael Phelps did attend and graduate from the University of Michigan. Here's another link about his famous diet in Ann Arbor: </p>
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As a whole, only HYPSM are better than UMich
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And so you answer a myopic statement with an broad sweeping (and incorrect) one?</p>
<p>calicartel. Incorrect in who's eyes? Yours? If you look at department rankings, Michigan is a peer of every school that butchokoy mentioned. He failed to mentioned Northwestern, your school. That is also a peer of Michigan.</p>
<p>No one can deny that Michigan provides a superior graduate education (humanities, social sciences and professional schools) for which its departmental rankings are most well-known, than many schools, including the Ivies. Attending any of the graduate departments (majority nationally ranked top 15 ) at Michigan is prestigious and rewarding enough.</p>
<p>Butchokoy, I think you would probably agree that Berkeley is an overall stronger school than Michigan. Yes?</p>
<p>tenisghs. Here's a shocker for you. The vast majority of Michigan's undergraduate programs are also top 15.</p>
<p>I don't want to be mean or anything, but what are UMichigan's strengths again (that are like, t10 or t15, pls make note) other than medicine, and political science?</p>
<p>I am not really acquainted with Michigan's strengths outside these areas.</p>
<p>Here is an example from the college of engineering Phead. Academic Year 2007-2008, According to U.S. News & World Report </p>
<p>Graduate 2008
Undergraduate 2007<br>
Aerospace Engineering 5 3<br>
Biomedical Engineering 11 9<br>
Chemical Engineering 12 11<br>
Civil Engineering 8 7<br>
Computer Engineering 6 7<br>
Electrical Engineering 6 5<br>
Environmental Engineering
5 3*<br>
Engineering Science/Engineering Physics N/A 5*<br>
Industrial and Operations Engineering 2 2<br>
Materials Science and Engineering 7 3<br>
Mechanical Engineering 4 4<br>
Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences 1 N/A</p>