<p>Michigan’s 3% figure refers to classes taught only by grad students.
24% are taught by “Faculty & GSI”. So what percentage of all teaching is done by grad students? According to the same Michigan site (for 2006-2007):
“GSI Teaching as a Percent of Total: 21%”.
([Information</a> About Graduate Student Instructors at the University of Michigan](<a href=“http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/gsi-sa/teach.html#percent]Information”>http://www.vpcomm.umich.edu/gsi-sa/teach.html#percent))</p>
<p>So I don’t know, maybe the US News figure was conservative? Without clear standards for how we define and measure these things, it’s a little hard to tell.</p>
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<p>In my 4 years at Chicago, I recall having only one TA. That was for a biology lab. That was years ago when the College was smaller. Maybe things have changed. </p>
<p>Discussion featured prominently in Chicago’s first and second year Core courses then (and now, I’m pretty sure). The way it typically worked back in the day was that an experienced political science or philosophy professor might sit down with ~15 students who have read from Aristotle’s Politics and ask a question like, “What does Aristotle mean by justice?” I would not want or expect a TA to lead that kind of discussion.</p>
<p>I would go with Michigan- it’s easier to get a high GPA there. I know someone who went to Chicago intending to become a doctor but found it impossible to get a high GPA with the hard sciences. He got a good MCAT but a 3.2 and could not get into ANY US medical school. However he did get into international med schools and ended up going to school in Guatemala, which he thought was a great experience and a good education. He is now in US residencies. Something to keep in mind</p>
<p>tk, in my four years at Michigan, I had 6 TAs. All of them led discussion groups. None of them taught classes. I would not so readily dismiss TAs or underestimate their ability to lead discussions. TAs are typically 3rd or 4th year graduate students. Given the quality of Chicago’s and Michigan’s graduate programs, and their selectivity, TAs would not be a step down from full time faculty. Those same TAs are a couple of years away from being faculty at other top universities. Of my 6 TAs, 5 were excellent. The one that was not was highly qualified but did not possess was not sufficiently comfortable communicating in English to be optimal (he was Turkish). But I must make it clear; TAs are not commonplace at Michigan, and they seldom teach undergrads.</p>
<p>I would go with Michigan- it’s easier to get a high GPA there. I know someone who went to Chicago intending to become a doctor but found it impossible to get a high GPA with the hard sciences. He got a good MCAT but a 3.2 and could not get into ANY US medical school. However he did get into international med schools and ended up going to school in Guatemala, which he thought was a great experience and a good education. He is now in US residencies. Something to keep in mind</p>
<p>At any “good school” (of which there are many), getting a high GPA in the pre-med pre-reqs will not be easy. Those are the weeder classes and A’s are often limited. I do agree that it can be tougher to “grab those limited As” in a top school that is loaded with high-achieving pre-med students. </p>
<p>After spending time on that forum for pre-meds, it’s clear that even the top schools that are known for grade inflation, that grade inflation is much less in the science and pre-med courses. It’s not unusual to see an Ivy student post a lowish GPA with nearly no hope for a med school acceptance. Some will fight “tooth and nail” to get into those schools, only to find that their med school chances are dashed because their GPAs suffered because they’re in classes full of super-stats kids. </p>
<p>Med schools will not give you a pass for having a lower GPA from a top school. </p>
<p>I’m not saying that UMich won’t have its share of high stats kids in science and pre-med courses. It will. </p>
<p>If you’re a strong student with good study and homework habits, then pick a school where your stats are within the upper quartile. If you’re in the middle quartile, then you may find yourself with the B’s instead of the A’s.</p>
<p>You’re going to need a high Science GPA (Bio, chem, math, physics) and a high cumulative GPA. Protect that at all costs. A very high GPA will trump a slightly lower MCAT at many SOMs.</p>
<p>I don’t doubt that many graduate students at Michigan or Chicago are ready to lecture or to lead discussions on some kinds of materials. I attended the first history classes taught at Chicago by its current Dean of the College, who is now a popular and respected presence on campus and a distinguished historian. He was a very good lecturer then. I’m sure a year or two earlier (before he got his PhD) he also would have been very good. </p>
<p>What I doubt is that the average 20-something PhD candidate has the maturity and experience to lead the kind of discussion typical in a UofC Core course. The issue isn’t just knowledge of the material. Just as important (more so, really) is the professor’s ability to keep students on topic, to stick to the evidence in the text (or specimen), to look at it from a variety of perspectives, to refrain from showing off, to accept criticism, and so forth. That kind of mentoring tends to benefit from age and experience.
That’s good … but then how is it that Michigan’s own data shows GSIs teaching 21% of total student credit hours? Maybe the rate was much less than that in your department, or for some reason Michigan’s number overstates the TAs’ contributions.</p>
<p>U.Mich. has SO many more undergraduates----you almost have to choose the honors program at Mich. to get close to the smaller and more intellectual environment that you would have at UChicago. I would agree with whoever told you before you posted that UChicago could be a once in a lifetime opportunity and you’d be foolish to pass it up if the financial aid makes them comparable in price. As someone said, it’s #4 in the country for a reason.</p>
<p>I can see why they do that. It kind of seems like a fruitless task though. What’s the point in asking undergraduate what their thoughts are about critical texts in the Western canon that are highly esoteric and generally lack consensus among scholars?</p>
<p>Try giving an undergraduate The Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals and having a professor ask the undergrads what Kant means by a ‘good will.’ I can guarantee you they’ll fall flat on their faces if they just struggle with the primary text.</p>
<p>The way lectures are done at UCLA (and Berkeley from what I can tell from the podcast I’m listening to) is professor is like “Aristotle talks about justice in the Politics and says “Justice is X.” As an Aristotle scholar, I interpret Aristotle’s statement about x being a support of y. but scholar B at university U says that he takes x as being support of z.” discussions are generally like "grad student: did you understand what ‘x’ is and why it supports y, and why the professor supports this interpretation over the other one?’ etc.</p>
<p>oh, and according to John Rawls, for Aristotle, justice is fairness ;)</p>