<p>joshua,
In the latest US high school graduating class, there were 340,000 Top 10% students which would probably qualify them for honor status in their high school. Please explain how, if 25,000 of them applied to a school (eg, U Michigan or Northwestern or even Stanford) and there were far fewer places available (6000 at U Michigan, 2000 at Northwestern, 1500 at Stanford), then how would you decide who gets in and who doesn't?</p>
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Both schools are great academically, Mich is less stressfull and more fun.
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<p>In another thread it says that Wisconsin is less intense than Michigan. Comatose, are we then here in Madison?</p>
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6000 at U Michigan, 2000 at Northwestern, 1500 at Stanford
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<p>Umich has more top of the line students than NW or Stanford. Remember, we are talking about the top of the crop, cr</p>
<p>rabban,
I think your point is that SAT scores are an important component of the college application process and plays an "Important" role in admissions decisions for U Michigan as well as for Northwestern.</p>
<p>Your point about large numbers of top SAT scorers is accurate for UC Berkeley (3668 students). U Michigan also scores well with 1645 scorers over 1500 which is almost identical to U Florida (1639) and only a little behind U Virginia (1723).</p>
<p>Following is a more complete list of 1500 scorers and how these students are represented on each college campus. </p>
<ol>
<li> Caltech 62% of the students, or 567 students</li>
<li> Harvard 50% 3333</li>
<li> MIT 49% 2007</li>
<li> Yale 46% 2513</li>
<li> Princeton 40% 1953</li>
<li> Stanford 37% 2435</li>
<li> Dartmouth 36% 1486</li>
<li> Duke 35% 2282</li>
<li> U Chicago 32% 1501</li>
<li> U Penn 32% 3110</li>
<li> Rice 32% 1030</li>
<li> Brown 32% 1998</li>
<li>Columbia 30% 2198</li>
<li>Northwestern 25% 1998</li>
<li>Wash U 25% 1882</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins 23% 1278</li>
<li>Tufts 22% 1115</li>
<li>Georgetown 22% 1478</li>
<li>Cornell 21% 2805</li>
<li>Emory 18% 1148</li>
<li>Notre Dame 18% 1505</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon 17% 981</li>
<li>Vanderbilt 16% 1026</li>
<li>UC Berkeley 16% 3668</li>
<li>W & M 13% 711</li>
<li>Case Western 13% 514</li>
<li>Brandeis 12% 399</li>
<li>U Virginia 12% 1723</li>
<li>Georgia Tech 12% 1470</li>
<li>USC 12% 1977</li>
<li>UCLA 11% 2791</li>
<li>RPI 11% 543</li>
<li>BC 10% 893</li>
<li>U Rochester 9% 414</li>
<li>NYU 9% 1891</li>
<li>U Texas 7% 2516</li>
<li>Wake Forest 7% 278</li>
<li>U Illinois 7% 2013</li>
<li>UC San Diego 7% 1349</li>
<li>Tulane 7% 535</li>
<li>Lehigh 6% 291</li>
<li>U Michigan 6% 1645</li>
<li>U North Carolina 5% 892</li>
<li>U Florida 5% 1639</li>
<li>UC Santa Barbara 4% 708</li>
<li>U Washington 3% 844</li>
<li>UC Davis 3% 721</li>
<li>Penn State 2% 687</li>
<li>U Wisconsin 2% 561</li>
<li>UC Irvine 2% 470</li>
</ol>
<p>I think that I can sum up the conclusions that this thread has produced about Northwestern vs U Michigan:</p>
<p>Quality of Student Body: Clear advantage to Northwestern</p>
<p>Strength of Graduate School Placement: Clear advantage to Northwestern</p>
<p>Reputation of faculty among academics: Push</p>
<p>Quality of football program: Clear advantage to U Michigan</p>
<p>Haha, hawkette! Very well-put. :)</p>
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Strength of Graduate School Placement
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Don't you mean just law-medicine-MBA? If you are talking about general graduate school placement (e.g., Political Science, East Asian Studies, Psychology, etc), Michigan has the clear edge as Michigan has many more top 10 graduate departments. You would think that Michigan grads would do well applying to these departments.</p>
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[quote]
The only reason why people think Stanford students are smarter because they are well provided at Stanford and Stanford is more prestigious. In other words, Stanford's better academic resources, better faculty, better housing, etc, makes people think the students there are smarter. But the truth is -- they are all smart.
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<p>And how do you define smart? Stanford students are clearly more intelligent than UCR's. Stanford is prestigious for a reason, and it is mostly because of its great student body and resources. Their student body is diverse and has various strengths. Stanford builds a class that is multi-talented. Also, for the sake of a fair comparison, UC Berkeley is much better than UCR too. Why? Their student body is intelligent and their faculty are great. I don't hear much about UCR at all, even though it's a UC just like Berkeley. There's not as much prestige to it because they are below the level of Stanford and UC Berkeley. They don't enroll so many talented applicants. Why do you believe that UCR is at the same level as Stanford?</p>
<p>I live in Michigan, and I've never even heard of anybody here taking an SAT prep class.</p>
<p>Strength of student body: Impossible to measure, probable edge goes to Northwestern.</p>
<p>Graduate school placement: Roughly the same, assuming we are comparing apples to apples.</p>
<p>Reputation of faculty: Again, hard to measure, but slight edge probably goes to Michigan</p>
<p>Quality of athletics: Michigan</p>
<p>GoBlue81,
You are correct. The conclusion of the thread is that Northwestern’s graduate school placement is superior to U Michigan for Law, Medical and MBA schools as measured by the WSJ Feeder School ranking. Thanks for the clarification.</p>
<p>Care to prove that Hawkette? It is pretty evident that when it comes to graduate school and professional placement, Michigan and Northwestern are even.</p>
<p>Alexandre,</p>
<p>I think you are in a state of denial. U Michigan is a fine state university, but my impression is that you consistently overrate the school and exaggerate its prowess for both graduate school and professional placement. A lot of supporting evidence has been presented that supports the conclusions that this thread has reached, including that Northwestern has a superior record for graduate school placement for Law, Medical and MBA schools. If you have facts that counter this, rather than your usual declarative statements (which are not supported by facts and merely reflect your opinion), then please present them.</p>
<p>Care to show me the evidence Hawkette. So far, you have done nothing but regurgitate meaningless manipulated statistics that prove absolutely nothing. The fat is, according to the most complete study to date, 3.7% of NU students end up enrolling at top 5 Law Schools, Medical Schools and MBA programs compared to 2.7% of Michigan students. And Hawkette, youe constent insults reflect poorly on your charcter. I am not the one in denial here. The entire academic and corporate world ranks Michigan among the top 15 undergraduate institutions in the US. That is a FACT that all your statistics can never wash away.</p>
<p>Alex,
At least I have some facts to support my arguments. </p>
<p>I find it interesting (and humorous) that you call the numbers that I have presented “meaningless” and “manipulated” considering that you frequently use the same numbers (eg, the Wall Street Journal survey) in your posts. I would not even have known that the WSJ survey existed except for the fact that you used it to promote U Michigan in one of our prior disagreements.</p>
<p>As for those WSJ numbers you post above (Northwestern at 3.7% and U Michigan at 2.7%), I think we have exposed the 2.7% number as inflated due to the inclusion of U Michigan Law in the survey. A truer number likely is about 2.0%. In any event, both are well below Northwestern's numbers. A differential of 1.0% is 37% higher for Northwestern; a differential of 1.7% is 63% higher for Northwestern. </p>
<p>As for my comment that you consistently make declarative, unsubstantiated statements that overrate U Michigan and exaggerate its prowess, your latest post is a perfect example. </p>
<p>“The entire academic and corporate world ranks Michigan among the top 15 undergraduate institutions in the US. That is a FACT that all your statistics can never wash away.”</p>
<p>Among academics, I might grant you that perch as the Peer Assessment scores reflect that. As for the corporate world, your statement is laughable. </p>
<p>The bottom line in all of this should be that good students attend both Northwestern and U Michigan. On average, Northwestern’s students are stronger. U Michigan’s true peers for student body quality are schools like Boston College, NYU, Georgia Tech. Not Northwestern. But that certainly does not preclude a top student at U Michigan (or BC or NYU or GT or UT) from doing well in school or life. </p>
<p>For undergraduate equivalents, U Michigan’s true peers are U Virginia, UC Berkeley, U North Carolina, U Texas, U Florida, U Wisconsin, U Washington. By contrast, Northwestern’s true peers are the lower Ivies, U Chicago, Wash U, Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame.</p>
<p>I have to agree. By numbers, Michigan just isn't up there. </p>
<p>Hawkette, I would argue that Vanderbilt and Notre Dame are not peers of Northwestern.</p>
<p>BY SATs alone:
Collegeboard:</p>
<p>Northwestern: 1320-1500
UPenn: 1330-1510
UChicago: 1320-1530</p>
<p>Cornell: 1280-1490
Johns Hopkins: 1290-1490
Vanderbilt: 1280-1460
Notre Dame:1230-1460
Emory: 1270-1430
NYU: 1210-1410
Michigan: 1210-1410</p>
<p>Hawkette, I dont think the WSJ stats are manipulated, but they are limited. I have often said that the survey is interesting and good, but it would be far better if it included the top 15 rather than the top 5 programs and if Engineering were also included in the mix. And I agree that Michigan Law helps Michigan in the WSJ survey. Then again, Michigan Law is one of the top Law schools in the country, so the fact that it enrolls many Michigan students is a plus for the University. And having one of its programs included in the survey doesn't alter the numbers as much as other schools like Chicago, Penn, Columbia and Yale, all of which had two of their programs included in the survey. Harvard had three of its programs included in the survey. When all is said and done however, a 2.7% vs 3.7% difference is not that significant, especially when you consider that NU is known for being very "pre-professional". I would expect that a larger percentage of its students seek professional graduate programs than Michigan, which in turn would yield a higher ratio of students enrolling into top graduate professional programs.</p>
<p>"The bottom line in all of this should be that good students attend both Northwestern and U Michigan. On average, Northwestern’s students are stronger. U Michigan’s true peers for student body quality are schools like Boston College, NYU, Georgia Tech. Not Northwestern."</p>
<p>You may be be correct. I always said that measuring student body quality is tricky, especially when comparing state schools with private universities because most students attending private schools really take the SAT seriously whereas most students attending state schools don't take it as seriously. Furthermore, state schools report the SAT scores differently. Those two factors alone probably drop the SAT range and mean by a significant amount at state universities. But in the end, as you say, if there really is a difference, it is in the quality of their student bodies, not in the quality of academics and reputation. I have never tried to argue that Michigan and Northwestern have similar student bodies, chosing instead to say that both have excellent student bodies but that it is impossible to compare them without a common frame of reference. What I do insist upon is that in terms of academic excellence and reputation, Michigan and Northwestern are pretty even. </p>
<p>"For undergraduate equivalents, U Michigan’s true peers are U Virginia, UC Berkeley, U North Carolina, U Texas, U Florida, U Wisconsin, U Washington. By contrast, Northwestern’s true peers are the lower Ivies, U Chicago, Wash U, Duke, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame."</p>
<p>Vanderbilt, Texas, UNC, Florida, Wisconsin, Boston College, UDub etc..., the schools you say are all peers of Michigan (not a bad thing mind you), all have a lower ratio than Michigan according to the WSJ survey. In fact, none of those schools made the top 50! So where exactly do you come off saying that they are peers of Michigan, even though there is a significantly larger gap in the ratio of their students enrolling into top graduate professional programs than the small gap between Michigan and NU?</p>
<p>By the way, I always list Cal and UVa as Michigan peers. Along with Cornell, NU and Penn, those two publics are the closest thing to Michigan in terms of overall undergraduate education.</p>
<p>"k&s here are two facts. NW has a higher percentage of SAT scorers. Michigan has more high scorers."</p>
<p>Michigan is 3x the size of northwestern, that data is really inane.</p>
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[quote]
Vanderbilt, Texas, UNC, Florida, Wisconsin, Boston College, UDub etc..., the schools you say are all peers of Michigan (not a bad thing mind you), all have a lower ratio than Michigan according to the WSJ survey. In fact, none of those schools made the top 50! So where exactly do you come off saying that they are peers of Michigan, even though there is a significantly larger gap in the ratio of their students enrolling into top graduate professional programs than the small gap between Michigan and NU?
[/quote]
You say comparing student bodies using test scores is irrelevant but then you cite one single factor, who is going on to graduate degrees, as your evidence for comparison later?</p>
<p>elsijfdl, you really should chose a handle that is easier to spell! Anyway, my point was in the context of graduate school placement, not in the context of the quality of the student body, which I have always maintained to be impossible to measure.</p>