Umichigan?

College Search & Selection
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Oh, come now. You’ve been on CC long enough to know better. :rolleyes:</p>

<p>The CC calendar goes like this:
[ul][li]September to December: College search process. Typical threads: “Where do I ED?!?” “OMG, I need safeties, help!!!” “Got my final SAT results. Chance me and I’ll give you a cookie!”[/li][li]December: Early admissions results. Lots of results threads. Typical thread: “Got into Yale SCEA. Should I apply to Harvard?” “Rejected from Penn ED! OMG, will all other top schools hate me forever and ever?!?”[/li][li]January to February: Applications are in. Lull. People chat about things and play games on the college forums. Typical threads: “Which colleges did you apply to?” “Rank the colleges you applied to!”[/li][li]March to May: College decision time. Typical threads: “Brown vs. Penn” “Scholarship at Pitt vs. Harvard, help!” “I didn’t get in anywhere; what do I DO?!”[/li][li]May to June: Waitlist decisions. Typical thread: “Already agreed to come to Emory but just got off waitlist at MIT. What now?”[/li][li]June to August: Another lull. Discussions about prestige. Typical threads: “What are the most prestigious universities?” “Which colleges are the best overall?” “What are YOUR predictions for this year’s US News ranking??” <---- We are here[/li][*]August: US News ranking is released. All hell breaks loose. Typical threads: “Columbia: Will it catch up with Stanford??” “Why is UCLA ranked so low?!”[/ul]</p>

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<p>“Nobody except a UMich grad would suggest that Michigan undergrad is an elite program.”</p>

<p>WoodrowWilsonJR, in academic circles, Michigan undergraduate is very much considered elite. So anybody who intends on applying to graduate school would be well served by going there. Also, most companies activelly recruit on the Michigan campus. So it is not just Michigan students and alums who think Michigan is a good university.</p>

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<p>the top students at UMich are definitely elite students, and I’m sure they get recruited heavily by firms and are coveted by grad schools. but the typical, median, average student at UMich is not an elite student by any stretch of the imagination. getting accepted to UMich, in and of itself, is not impressive. it can’t be compared to Ivies, Stanford, MIT, although it is definitely more respected than Villanova(sorry Nova). at my east coast boarding school, it received almost no respect. it was a safety for everyone with good stats.</p>

<p>the UMich boosters on this site are almost as bad as the Berkeley boosters. they make these schools, which btw I like a lot, out to be something that they are not.</p>

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<p>WoodrowWilson, I don’t think anybody claimed that Michigan was as selective as the Ivies, Stanford or MIT, or that getting into Michigan was something to brag about. Most were referring to the quality of academics.</p>

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<p>^^Didn’t you read my previous post? Michigan is more academically prestigious than Rice, WUSTL, USC, and Vanderbilt and Dartmouth. It is however a little overrated in US PA scores.</p>

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<p>Alexandre, you did not make any such claims. I regret that I may have been writing to a general audience of Michigan boosters on this site. </p>

<p>CaptnJack, if you define(as I do) an elite school as one that sends its graduates on to positions of notoriety, influence, wealth, and power, then Dartmouth crushes all public schools. The typical(number 13000 out of 26000) Mich undergrad does not see the same opportunities as a student at Dartmouth(a legendary Wall Street feeder that has produced countless Geithner types)</p>

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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-michigan-ann-arbor/762251-michigan-selectivity-10.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-michigan-ann-arbor/762251-michigan-selectivity-10.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Yet Alexandre, you claim in that thread and MANY other instances Michigan is among the top 20 selective schools? based on what? US News’ old previous dubious selectivity ranking that included yield? if they redid the rankings with acceptance rates and test scores, UMich wouldn’t be in the conversation among top schools. And this is not just including HYPSM but most other top privates in the top 25. UMich can’t hold a candle to any of the top 20 privates in selectivity. Princeton Review’s selectivity index showing Michigan with a 96 vs. all other privates in the top 20 with a 98 and above reflects this.</p>

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<p>“the UMich boosters on this site are almost as bad as the Berkeley boosters.” </p>

<p>:D Gotta admit, that’s one of the reasons I love the place. You will be hard pressed to find a group of people more proud of where they are. I doubt Blah or WoodrowWilsonJR (what the hell kind of name is that?!) will be able to change this mindset – It’s older than you are… Now, go ahead and continue your debate over the difference between a 31 and 32 on the ACT.</p>

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<p>Alexandre I didn’t look over the entire report. When I said selectivity I was talking about selectivity in the respect of which school has lower acceptance rates. Unless the report has numbers I didn’t see, nova still has a lower admission rate than Michigan’s.
WoodrowWilson I can understand that Michigan is a good school and Villanova is somewhat obscure to midwesterners, but in terms of undergrad they are very similar. Michigan definitely has better graduate programs if that is what you are talking about, but the undergraduates are very similar (look at my previous post or at alexandre’s report for both schools.) GPA’s, percent in the top tenth, SAT/ACT scores, and undergraduate program rankings are all similar.</p>

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<p>As you can see, Michigan is nowhere near to the academic quality of HYPSM. It’s only above 1 Ivy, which is Dartmouth. Michigan’s academic quality, as you can see, is overrated in US News PA.</p>

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<p>How did we come to the conclusion that UMich is overrated, Captain? Also, I am beginning to question how you earned that title.</p>

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<p>Alexandre, I’m not prepared to accept that statement, not as baldly stated. I think there’s a certain CC mythology that’s built up on this question over the years, but it’s only partly based on fact. Yes, it’s true that Michigan doesn’t meet 100% of need for 100% of OOS students; but since it’s meeting 100% of need for 90% of its total student body, and 1/3 of the student body is OOS, then it must be meeting 100% of need for some significant fraction of OOS students; otherwise, the numbers just wouldn’t add up. And relative to other leading publics, it’s easily one of the most generous–perhaps THE most generous. True, UVA and UNC Chapel Hill meet full need for 100% of their students and average 100% of need met, while Michigan meets full need for 90% of its students and on average meets 90% of need. That alone is enough to place Michigan third among the top publics. </p>

<p>But if you bore down a little deeper, it’s clear UVA and UNC are putting very little actual money on the table, because the VAST majority of their OOS students are full-pays. While Michigan supports 1/3 of its OOS students with need-based self-help aid (work/study and subsidized loans), Virginia supports only 1/5 of its OOS students with such aid, and UNC only 1/4. Since work/study and subsidized Stafford loans are basically federal money available to any student who meets the FAFSA need-based FA requirements, that figure should be a pretty good proxy for the percentage of OOS students who have financial need. So we can surmise that about 2/3 of Michigan OOS undergrads are full-pays, while 3/4 of UNC’s are, and an astonishing 80% of UVA’s OOS students are full-pays. </p>

<p>When it comes to OOS students getting actual grants or scholarships—gift aid, as opposed to self-help–UVA and UNC put even less on the table, with only 12% of UVA’s OOS students getting grants, and 11% of UNC’s. In contrast, Michigan supports 31% of its OOS students with grants.</p>

<p>School ( % OOS) / % OOS w need-based self-help / % OOS w grant / ave % of need met / % fully met</p>

<p>UC Berkeley (7%) / 22% / 22% / 90% / 50%
UCLA (7%) / 20% / 18% / 81% / 23%
UVA (26%) / 20% / 12% / 100% / 100%
Michigan (32%) / 33% / 31% / 90% / 90%
UNC Chapel Hill (18%) / 24% / 11% / 100% / 97%
William & Mary (32%)/ 34% / 3% / 76% / 16%
Georgia Tech (26%) / 27% / 10% / 74% / 35%
UCSD (3%) / 21% / 18% / 89% / 37%
Wisconsin (32%) / 18% / 16% / 75% / 21%
Penn State (25%) / 35% / 28% / 53% / 7%</p>

<p>Furthermore, Michigan puts far more of its own resources on the table to support grants and scholarships for its undergraduates, measured either in absolute dollars or in dollars-per-undergraduate:</p>

<p>School / Institutional grants & scholarships / Undergrad enrollment / Grants per capita</p>

<p>Michigan / $112.3 million / 26,096 / $4,303
UC Berkeley / $98.2 million / 24,929 / $3,940
UCSD $82.4 million / 23,290 / $3,537
UCLA / $75.9 million/ 25,415 / $2,985
Georgia Tech / $40.8 million / 12,456 / $3,275
UNC Chapel Hill / $40.8 million / 17,457 / $2,337
Penn State / $36.2 million / 36,954 / $980
UVA / $34.8 million / 13,848 /$2,513
Wisconsin / $29.2 million / 27,746 / $1,052
William & Mary / $13.2 million / 5,835 / $2,262</p>

<p>It’s easy enough for UVA and UNC to look generous on paper, supporting 100% of need for 100% of their enrolled students with need, when almost all their OOS students are full-pays. But bottom line, they’re not putting very much money at all on the table, far less than Michigan. Sure, it would be nice if Michigan could support 100% of need for 100% of its OOS students. It’s not there yet, and I realize that makes it difficult for many high-need OOS students to attend. But its FA policy ranks at the head of the class for top publics. And there are a lot of top-50 privates that are doing no better.</p>

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<p>@Hattrickty9:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/412606-how-calculate-universities-peer-assessment-score-3.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/412606-how-calculate-universities-peer-assessment-score-3.html&lt;/a&gt;
This thread will solve all your problems of academic prestige related issues. </p>

<p>Mighican’s US News PA (again, a typo previously, is 4.4). But the actual calculated PA for Michigan is only 4.24. It’s subjectively put in a higher light by its peers. That’s why Michigan is overrated. But nevertheless, it’s still a top 20 school. We can argue that if Michigan’s academic quality is as good as HYPSMs (as Alexandre argues), then so are Columbia, Penn, Duke, Chicago, Northwestern, UCLA, UVA.</p>

<p>If Michigan is NOT close to the academic quality of HYPSM as most argue here, then the closest to HYPSM are the 5-6 universities who fall in the top 10 right after (Yes, that includes Cornell, a poorly underrated fellow, and not Chicago, which is also another overrated university).</p>

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<p>“But nevertheless, it’s still a top 20 school. We can argue that if Michigan’s academic quality is as good as HYPSMs (as Alexandre argues),”</p>

<p>Please point out the part where Alexandre stated that?</p>

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Hmmm…how can 2,000 survey respondents/peers possibly think highly of Michigan?! Conclusion: They must be wrong, therefore it’s overrated… :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>“As you can see, Michigan is nowhere near to the academic quality of HYPSM. It’s only above 1 Ivy, which is Dartmouth. Michigan’s academic quality, as you can see, is overrated in US News PA.”</p>

<p>I’m still trying to find Villanova on that list…;-)</p>

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<p>Haters are always going to hate.</p>

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This below

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Oh don’t be so picky. Berkeley does well in these rankings. :slight_smile:
And why not? The sample size consists of humans. A wise Marik Ishtar once told me “Humans are nothing but a pile of subjectivity and secrets.” Does anyone here watch Yugioh Abridged? ;)</p>

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<p>As long as Texas, wisconsin, and Illinois are above Georgetown and NYU that list needs to be fixed…who on earth would be like “Illinois over Notre Dame anyday!”
I am still looking through Barrons and Michigan still says only highly competitive, compared to villanova the ivys and a lot of other private schools, which are much more competitive.</p>

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<p>It’s Friday night Nova – put down the Barrons!</p>