Umichigan?

College Search & Selection
81

<p>

</p>

<p>What do you mean, “actual calculated PA.” Oh, I see, the calculated figures according to somebody’s model of how to get a number that approximates PA for most schools, most of the time, using non-PA factors like student/faculty ratio, SAT scores, and all the other US News metrics that are NOT PA. But that’s not the school’s “real” PA, and it doesn’t really tell us anything about whether a school’s actual PA is too high or too low, “overrated” or “underrated.” It just means there’s an imperfect correlation with a bunch of numerical factors that have nothing to do with “peer assessment.” </p>

<p>Those numerical factors, which are already counted separately by US News in its ranking system, omit a lot of things that the college presidents and provosts filling out the PA survey might take into account. Like the strength, breadth, and depth of a school’s faculties, for example—something entirely omitted from the US News ranking, unless it comes in through PA. And I’ve long maintained that it does. College presidents and provosts are paid to keep an eye on the competition and to stay a step ahead of them, or to catch up to those ahead of them if they can. One of the main ways they do this is by raiding each others’ faculties, fighting to prevent their own faculty being poached, and competing head-to-head for talent both in lateral hires and in the entry-level market. They know which faculties they envy, and which they think they’re got a step on; and they know how they generally stack up in head-to-head competition. The University of Wisconsin doesn’t win many head-to-head battles with Harvard, for example, but they probably win a goodly share against Iowa. In fact, I suspect this is what presidents and provosts know most about, and think most about, when filling out PA surveys. And it’s important, critical information about a school’s standing that isn’t otherwise reflected in the US News ranking, information that has nothing to do with SAT scores and alumni giving rate and other so-called “objective” factors. That’s why it’s called a “peer assessment score”: it reflects how a school is viewed by its peers. Collegehelp’s model based on all the OTHER US News metrics may approximate the PA score for most schools, most of the time. But that doesn’t make it the “actual” PA score. A school’s “actual” PA score is its PA score.</p>

82

<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!” </p>

<p>Because you say so…</p>

83

<p>

</p>

<p>Well, I know a lot of university faculty—as well as a few presidents and provosts—who would say Illinois completely dominates Notre Dame in the area of faculty quality. Better engineering and computer science. Better physics. Better chemistry. Better biological sciences. Better English department. Better poli sci. Better psych. Better history. Business, maybe about equal, and I’m sure Notre Dame has it all over Illinois in the theology/religion department, but apart from that it’s hard to think of many academic disciplines where Notre Dame’s faculty is anywhere near as distinguished as Illinois’.</p>

<p>Now I already know your next move: you’re going to say, “But what about test scores, and admit rate, and s/f ratio, where Notre Dame is far stronger than Illinois?” My reply: those things are already counted separately in the US News ranking; counting them again toward PA would be double-counting. On the other hand, faculty quality is considered nowhere else in the US News ranking. I believe it does factor heavily in the PA score.</p>

84

<p>Most faculty at ND would never get a sniff from Illinois or Wisconsin or Michigan. Not even in the same league.</p>

85

<p>CaptJack, I never said Michigan was equal to HYPSM academically. The schools I compare Michigan to are Cal, Cornell, Northwestern, Penn, UVa and Wisconsin.</p>

86

<p>^ 2,000 academics collectively say Michigan = Duke.</p>

87

<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.” </p>

<p>Blah, it is hard to define selectivity. In retrospect, I don’t think it is possible to clearly state which are the most selective universities in a specific order. I do not think that there are more than 20 universities (not including LACs) that are truly more selective than Michigan, but I would agree that there are many universities as selective, and depending on the measure of selectivity, some of those universities would indeed be more selective.</p>

<p>“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>

<p>I have not seen the 2011 Princeton Review, but according to the 2010 Princeton Review, Michigan’s selectivity rating was 99. At any rate, PR is really not that accurate, so I don’t think it should be used as a source.</p>

88

<p>Every university in the us news top 20 is more selective than michigan…why is it so hard for Alexandre to admit this? michigan has a top 30 us news ranking because of its PA score, which is in turn based on Michigan’s amazing grad/professional/research programs. Michigan undergrad is nothing special and a nonbiased person would rank its undergrad selectivity at 50th or worse. i say this as someone who applied(and was accepted) to Mich and has always liked the school since a few relatives have attended.</p>

89

<p>“Michigan undergrad is nothing special and a nonbiased person would rank its undergrad selectivity at 50th or worse. i say this as someone who applied(and was accepted) to Mich and has always liked the school since a few relatives have attended.”</p>

<p>I guess that says it all.</p>

90

<p>One thing I would like to bring up. I don’t think US News rankings are going to be very dominant come the next years and decades.</p>

<p>As the world becomes more and more international/globalized as it already is becoming, and as information and peoples spread across the globe moreso than the past, people are going to start looking moreso at international rankings than US rankings (Internationals already do).</p>

91

<p>International rankings are completely rubbish and no intelligent human being even considers them. At least USNWR uses sound methodology and includes solid measures of institutional academic excellence though a bit more auditing on its end would be nice.</p>

92

<p>“No intelligent human being even considers them.”</p>

<p>I find that a very extreme word choice for one and personally believe that their methodology is not perfect, but no worse than US news can be. It’s all a matter of opinion.</p>

<p>I have lived in 5 different places in 3 different countries and have friends going to schools (including what many what call top schools) everywhere from Asia to Europe to North America (I am not international in college though). And they place stock in international rankings, and… they ARE intelligent human beings (I’m sorry that comment was insulting).</p>

<p>Fact of the matter is, an international student would like to know where his country’s schools place in regards to the rest of the world, and they give the best judge to this. And another fact is that the world is becoming more international, so just having rankings for the US will not suffice in the longer run.</p>

93

<p>No need to explain your views Goldenglobe. Anyone who uses superlatives when discussing subjective matters is usually going to be rebuked somewhere along the way. Nothing is ever 100% in these types of discussions.</p>

94

<p>lol and where does ARWU place IIT? </p>

<p>Everyone knows IIT is a much more cutthroat place than MIT.
Everyone I meet seem to acknowledge that ARWU boasts chinese universities while Times boasts British universities. Bias!</p>

<p>Such prevailing bias doesn’t exist in USNWR.</p>

95

<p>USNWR prevailing bias is for private schools…</p>

96

<p>@CaptnJack</p>

<p>I don’t really want to get too much into this discussion as it’s very subjective and has nothing to do with the OP. But I’ll talk about it briefly.</p>

<p>Now, you can’t really compare an IIT with an MIT in the sense of selectivity. India is MUCH larger than the US (population wise) and it is natural that there will be more people applying to IIT there. Also, in India, its engineering or medicine, everything else is looked down upon. You will thus have many more people applying to engineering programs in India than in other schools. Through engineering, people from IITs aspire to go into fields not necessarily within engineering.</p>

<p>Where MIT excels above all other Universities (in engineering), is the opportunities and research that they may provide to students. The resources and faculty in MIT are far greater than the resources and faculty that an IIT has. The engineering students at MIT, I would daresay, are far more interested in pure engineering research than students in the IITS. I have nothing against the IIT’s and I think they are amazing universities, my own father went to one of them, but even he said that the US engineering universities are far superior to them due to the research and money they have.</p>

<p>You can’t judge a university internationally based upon selectivity or GPA or ACT/SAT because these just differ in different parts of the world based on numerous factors such as population. But what you can judge international universities by is the amount of research that they may provide, and the opportunities that may provide to their students through this research. Research is given by money (endowments). It’s no coincidence that some of the best ranked universities in International rankings have very large endowments even though that is not a large part of their methodologies.</p>

<p>The best professors go the the places where they may research the most (true academics care more for knowledge than money). The best international students will go to where these professors are. They give students who are interested in their fields the best places to be for their fields in the world because of the research. I believe it’s fitting because the research of today is what creates the world of tomorrow (research breakthroughs are also what gains much prestige for universities), but that’s another matter entirely.</p>

<p>The IITs will become higher ranked in those rankings when they can provide the same research opportunities that MIT can provide. Then they will draw the best students from all over the world, not just India.</p>

<p>As far as your bias factor, the top 25-30 Universities in the world are pretty similar in all the rankings give or take a few schools (No Chinese schools in ARWU and British schools are anyway great).</p>

<p>Nonetheless, my point with all of this is that, whether or not the methodology is correct or not (which is completely based on opinion and not on College Confidential beliefs), more people are starting to look at those rankings as legitimate, and this trend will continue as the world grows more international.</p>

97

<p>I want to say that all of the schools mentioned in this thread will give anyone amazing opportunities. What matters more than the school is how well a person utilizes the opportunities provided to them. And I find it stupid when people say, well if a person from X school with similar stats vs someone from Y School with similar stats were there, then the person from X school will get into a grad program because he went to that school. </p>

<p>That sort of situation won’t come up if a person utilizes the resources the school provides him or her well (which the vast majority of people won’t). So, at this level, it is dependent more on the person than on the school.</p>

98

<p>Maybe it’s fair to conclude that on average, UMich undergrads would rank a bit below the top 15 or so elite privates, but that the school has a larger variance in student quality. So the worst students at UMich are much worse than the worst students at say, Dartmouth, but the top students at UMich are about as good.</p>

99

<p>The problem with this debate is it’s so student centered. People here failed to realise that (all) universities comprise of:</p>

<ol>
<li>students</li>
<li>faculty</li>
<li>facilities</li>
<li>resources</li>
</ol>

<p>when one of the four components is lacking, the academic quality suffers. The standard suffers. And in all these four given components, Michigan scores very, very highly, much higher than some of the Ivies, actually. Therefore, Michigan is an elite school. And, in totality, as a university that offers advance instructions, it is much more elite than some of the Ivies and other elite privates. The real peer schools of Michigan are: Chicago, Northwestern, JHU, Berkeley, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, UCLA, UVa and to a lesser extent, Rice and CMU. HYPSM are clearly superior. Dartmouth, Brown, WashingtonUSL, Emory, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and the like are in a league below Michigan’s. Again, I’m talking about Michigan as a university and as a whole.</p>

100

<p>The quality of Michigan’s students varies. In 2008, one of the top four math (high school) students in Michigan went to Michigan, where two others went to Stanford and one went to Yale (my son was one of them). My son’s other schoolmate from his elite prep school who got 2400 on SAT also went to Michigan. A lot of top students in Michigan prefer to stay in Michigan.</p>

<p>For out of state students, I can only say what I know in some of the areas in New Jersey: Michigan competes with NYU, USC, and clearly loses to Rice, JHU, Northwestern, etc. The sample is about 20 kids I met who went to Michigan in the past few years. I think that USNWR plays an important role here.</p>