Undergrad path for MBA admissions

Graduate School Business School - MBA
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<p>Sakky, educators and corporate recruiters usually rank Michigan's undergraduate education among the top 10 in the nation. That is not a lie. You can look it up. Employment and graduate school opportunities are as good at Michigan as they are at the lower Ivies. And I am not talking of absolutes. I am speaking in relative terms. Michigan students get the same types of jobs/capita and the same packages as students at the lower Ivies. </p>

<p>The reason I picked Michigan over 4 of the Ivies is because several people in high places (Harvard and Chicago professors, CEOs of top 5 IBs, MIT and Columbia PhDs and Wharton and Columbia MBAs) all agreed that there wasn't a difference between Michigan and the 4 Ivies in question.</p>

<p>Also, Michigan's applicant pool is not weaker than that of the lower Ivies. But Michigan's entering class is at least twice bigger than that of any of the lower Ivies and Michigan has schools other than Arts and Science and Engineering. So Michigan has a more diverse student body.</p>

<p>And Sakky, most Engineers would never consider going to law school. The thought of having to read hundreds of pages on a nightly basis does not appeal to them...nor does the nature of the Legal field of study.</p>

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<p>And I have also seen the same corporate recruiters rank the entire Ivy League in the top 10. As well as MIT and Caltech. As well as Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore. As well as Stanford. As well as Duke. That's a pretty darn big top 10 there, wouldn't you agree? I don't know, in my world, 10 actually equals 10. You can't have more than 10 schools in the top 10. So which ones in particular are you willing to kick out of the top 10, if Michigan supposedly belongs? Go ahead - say specifically which ones you think Michigan is better than, at the undergraduate level. </p>

<p>I too have my share of profs, CEO's, and other high people who say that there is a substantial difference between the lower Ivies and a place like Michigan. So you have your "experts" and I have mine. So where does this road take us? Nowhere. That's why we have to use objective measurements. Let's face it - selectivity matters. Faculty resources matter. Financial resources matter. All these things matter. USNews says so. Or are you saying that USNews is not a good ranking system? Is USNews being stupid when it uses those categories in determining its ranking system? Why don't you come right out and say it - you think that USNews is being stupid, right? Don't be shy, come right out and say it - you think they're stupid. Yet if you really think it's being stupid, then why exactly do you keep appealing to it? Either you believe in the USNews ranking system or you don't. If you don't, then don't keep using it as evidence. </p>

<p>You also speak about the Michigan applicant pool. I think what you really mean to talk about is the matriculation pool (who cares about the applicant pool - what matters is who gets in and decides to comes). Are you sure that Michigan's matriculated pool is not weaker than the lower Ivies? Really? Well, USNews says that it is so, in no uncertain terms. With the exception of Cornell with which Michigan is tied, Michigan is less selective than all the Ivies. That's what it says. Are you saying that USNews is lying or wrong?</p>

<p>Finally, most engineers wouldn't consider law school because they have to read hundreds of pages on a nightly basis? Is that a fact? And do you think that most engineering students actually 'enjoy' the lifestyle of an engineering student, with the endless problem sets and projects, and the massive stress? If anything, I would interpret that to mean that engineering students have a strong work ethic, so having to read hundreds of pages a night is not particularly scary to them. Nor is putting up with a field they don't particularly enjoy. Let's face it - lots of engineering students are studying engineering not because they really like it, but because engineering tends to pay well. We both know it's true. If tomorrow, engineers were paid the same starting salary as liberal arts majors, we both know that the vast majority of Michigan engineering students would drop the major and study something else. </p>

<p>Also, I'm not talking about just any law school. We were talking about top law schools. So that is the frame of reference. It is of course true that engineering students probably don't want to go to a scrub law school. But if they were offered automatic admission to an elite law school, you must know that many if not most of them would take it. For example, if Michigan engineering students were offered admission to, say, Michigan Law, you know a lot of them are going to take it. Not all, but a lot. Why? The calculation is simple - Michigan Law would just be another 3 years of studying (but since they already put up with 4 years of hell, what's another 3?), and once they graduate, they would make far more money than if they had taken an engineering job upon graduation. And as we both know, a lot of engineers are really in it for the money. Not all, but a lot. That's why, to repeat myself, if engineers didn't make more money than other people, very few people would be studying engineering. The number of people who actually enjoy engineering is a small minority. Most people figure - why should I put myself through the pain of an engineering degree if I can relax and study something easy and still make the same money? Hence, many engineers are, in effect, mercenaries and will go wherever the money is. Graduates of Michigan Law tend to make very good money, so it is natural that engineering graduates would go there if given automatic admission.</p>

<p>Finally I would ask you this. Why is it that at elite engineering schools like MIT, Stanford, and Berkeley, two of the prime destinations for engineering graduates are investment banking and management consulting? Why? What exactly does engineering have to do with IB or MC? I remember at one particular year, out of the entire graduating class of 85 chemical engineers out of Berkeley, a full quarter of the class took jobs in IB or MC. It would have been a lot higher, except that obviously not all the engineers had an IB or MC offer. So many of them did take regular engineering jobs, but not many of them wanted to. They'd also rather have that job in IB or MC. Why is it that every year, McKinsey fever hits the MIT engineering seniors? Not just the MIT-Sloan seniors, but also the engineering graduates? Why? The same sort of fever seems to hit the Stanford engineering seniors every year. Why is that?</p>

<p>I think this makes the contention that engineers would never consider going to law school a very dubious one. Lots of engineers at the elite engineering schools apparently have no problem with taking a 100-hour a week banking jobs on Wall Street or consulting jobs with McKinsey - but they won't consider going to an elite law school because it has too much work and too much reading or that the nature of the legal field of study does not appeal to them? Yeah, because we all know that you don't have to do much reading on a nightly basis as a banker or a consultant. And we all know that the nature of the investment banking field is one that really suits engineers. Honestly, the 100-hour a week investment banking lifestyle doesn't suit anybody, yet lots of engineers are willing to do it anyway. The point is, if they're willing to put up with MC or IB, then why wouldn't they be willing to put up with the law lifestyle?</p>

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<p>Sakky, LACs and Research Universities should not be compared. They offer completely different products. And there are, as I have mentioned before, 17 universities that can legitimately claim to be top 10 universities. I have said it many times. The difference between #6 and #17 (Brown, Cal-Berkeley, Caltech, Chocago, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Northwestern and Penn) is impossible to measure. </p>

<p>By that reckoning, the selectivity difference between the 8th most selective university in the nation and the 18th most selective university in the nation is also insignificant. Like I said above, there are over 1,000 universities. But the applicant pool to Michigan is similar to the applicant pool that applies the lower Ivies. Obviously, Michigan is much bigger and has a much more varried group of colleges within its Walls, so it is difficult to compare. But according ot statistics, Michigan, Cornell, Penn, Northwestern and Duke draw many of the same applicants. </p>

<p>As for Engineers, I repeat, they do not apply to Law school...for the most part. That does not mean that no Engineer ever applies to Law school. But at Michigan, roughly 1% of Engineers apply to Law schools as opposed to 60% of Political Science Majors and 40% of Economics Majors. Those numbers are not made up. Last year, just 7 of Michigan's 1,000 graudating Engineers applied to Law School. Engineers apply to Business school at a much higher rate because it is a natural progression in an Engineer's career. And many Engineers are recruited aggressively by IBs and MCs because of their quantitative skills, and Engineers are attracted to those jobs because they are quantitative in nature. But Law schools do not actively recruit Engineers and Engineers do not typically seek out careers in the legal field.</p>

<p>Finally, I think the USNWR is flawed. It is a good ranking, but it can be misleading. I think the USNWR should have a ranking based purely on academic reputation and selectivity. All the other criteria, which I feel are important to different people in varrying degrees) should be listed, but not used to rank the schools. For example, I have nothing against Washington University, but ranking it ahead of Brown, Cal, Chicago, Cornell, Johns Hopkins and Michigan is not exactly sending an accurate message to applicants. And ranking Penn in the top 5 (ahead of MIT and Stanford) is also not very accurate. That does not mean that Penn and Washington aren't awesome universities. They are. But they are ranked slightly higher than they should be.</p>

<p>Anyway Sakky, you are not going to convince me that Michigan is not one of the top 10-15 universities and I am not going to convince you that it is. University rankings isn't an exact science. There are many variables that one can point to to make her/his case. So let us leave it at that.</p>

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<p>Honestly - do you think that LAC's and research universities should not be compared? After all, at the end of the day, both of them offer bachelor's degrees. And besides, it's not like they draw upon entirely different pools of applicants. Plenty of people apply to, and get accepted to, both research universities and to LAC's. So what are you going to tell somebody who got into Amherst and into Michigan? Are you saying that this person has no way of figuring out which one is better? </p>

<p>And besides, I used the LAC's as a method to disprove your previous statement that your 'experts' think that Michigan is one of the top 10 in the nation for undergraduate education. Your direct quote was "Sakky, educators and corporate recruiters usually rank Michigan's undergraduate education among the top 10 in the nation. That is not a lie. You can look it up." OK, then, let's investigate that claim. If that claim is true, then who would be in the top 10, or more specifically, who isn't in the top 10? Michigan is now in the top 10, as well as HYPSMC. I would also argue, and I'm sure your experts would find it hard to disagree, that Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore are also in the top 10 (and why shouldn't we be including LAC's - after all those experts didn't say anything about looking only at research universities, they said top 10 for all undergraduate education). So that's the entire 10 right there. So no room for Berkeley. No room for Duke. No room for anybody else. Or in other words, what your 'experts' are saying is that Michigan is better than Berkeley, Duke, and all the others when it comes to undergrad education. That's a rather strong claim to make, don't you agree? What that tells me is that that claim is dubious. </p>

<p>About your claim that the difference between the 8th most selective and the 18th most selective school is insignificant. Oh really? Let's investigate that. Let's use some rules of logic. Consider this line of logic. Let's say it's true that the 8th and the 18th most selective schools are insignificantly different in terms of selectivity. Then, if I can show that, say, the 8th and the 6th most selective schools are also not significantly different, then you would have to agree that the 18th and 6th most selective schools are not significantly different, right?</p>

<p>According to USNews, the 8th most selective school had an 25/75 percentile SAT range of 1330-1520, and 88% of their freshman were in the top 10% of their class. The 6th most selective school had an 25/75 SAT range of 1340-1560, and 90% of its freshman were in the top 10% of their class. Yes, there is a difference in % admitted, but I think that the % admitted number is misleading, simply because it doesn't take into account self-selectivity (Michigan has an unusually high % admitted number of 53%, but I don't dock Michigan points for that, because Michigan's applicant pool tends to be self-selecting). The point is that the 8th most selective school does not seem to be very much less selective than the 6th most selective school. Right?</p>

<p>But what is the 6th most selective school? It's Stanford. So if you truly believe that there is little difference between 18th and 8th most selective, and I have just demonstrated that there is little difference between 8th and 6th, then the logical conclusion is that there is little difference betweeh 18th and 6th, or in other words, that the difference in selectivity between Michigan and Stanford is small. That's what the logic tells you. Do you believe that? Do you believe that the difference in selectivity between Michigan and Stanford is small? Yet that's what the logic leads you to. </p>

<p>Hence, this is a proof by contradiction. I took your line of logic, and I took it to an absurd conclusion, which means that the line of logic must be flawed.</p>

<p>Finally, about the whole law school thing, how many times do I have to explain my point. My point is just because some people do not apply to a top law school does not mean they are not interested in a top law school. My point is just because some people do not apply to a top law school does not mean they are not interested in a top law school. My point is just because some people do not apply to a top law school does not mean they are not interested in a top law school. I just said it three times because it seems that this point is not getting across. Yes, Michigan engineers don't apply to top law school very much. But that doesn't mean that they are not interested in top law schools. I said it before, I'll say it again, if you were to actually offer those engineers guaranteed admission to a top law school (like Michigan Law), you and I both know that a lot of them would take it. They don't apply because they don't think they can get in. Lots of engineers have low grades and so they know they don't have a shot at getting in, so they don't bother to apply. But if somebody just handed it to them, they would take it. Hence, that proves that just because somebody does not apply, does not mean that that person is not interested. </p>

<p>Here's the scenario. I go to all Michigan engineering seniors and I give them guaranteed admission to Michigan Law. But it's an exploding offer - in the sense that if they don't take it this year, they're not going to get it in the following year. {Lest you think that's unfair, let it be known that job offers are also inherently exploding - if a company offers you a job and you turn them down to do something else, you can't come back a year later and be guaranteed of getting an offer from that company again}. You must agree that many of those Michigan engineers would take the admission offer. Not all, but many. I know I would have. </p>

<p>What that shows you is that those Michigan engineers are in fact interested in attending a top law school. If they really weren't interested, then none of them would take the offer. But you and I both know that many, if not most would. So, again, the point is that just because people don't apply doesn't mean that they're not interested.</p>

<p>If that still doesn't convince you, consider this. I know I'm never going to make it onto the Boston Red Sox roster, so I'm not going to waste my time trying out. But, hey, if the Sox offered me a roster spot, you really think I'm going to turn it down? Ha! You're darn right I'm going to take it. I don't try out because I know my baseball skills suck and I'm never going to make it onto the roster. But just because I don't try out for a roster spot doesn't mean that I don't want it. Heck, I would say that millions of guys would want to be a member of the Sox. But you don't see millions of guys coming down to Sox spring training trying to get on the team. Only those people who actually think they have a reasonable shot at getting onto the team are actually going to spend time to go through the process of trying out, and that's clearly not me or most other guys. But we would very gladly take the roster spot without thinking twice if it was handed to us. </p>

<p>Finally, I think it is entirely appropriate for USNews to use things like financial and faculty resources. Hey, if a school chooses to built out its financial and faculty strength, then the school deserves to have its ranking boosted. Conversely, if a school does not built out its programs, well, then it deserves to lose ranking points. You can't just live off of glories from the old days. Let's face it - Penn and WU have been aggressively building up their programs and so they deserve to be rewarded for those efforts. If Stanford and MIT doesn't like being ranked lower than Penn, then Stanford and MIT should also build out their programs, and if they don't do that, well, then they deserve to lose ranking points. The same is true of all the other schools - if somebody builds out programs and you don't, and consequently, you end up ranked lower than that other guy, well, that's your own fault for not keeping up. </p>

<p>Again, the point is not that I ever said that Michigan undergrad was bad. I'll say it again, it's quite good. But to say that it's in the top 10 or even in the top 17, or better than the lower Ivies, is a rather strong claim that I must object to. I agree that certain Michigan undergrad programs are very strong, and clearly deserving of at least a top 10 ranking, if not higher. But Michigan undergrad as a whole? That's too strong of a claim.</p>

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<p>LACs are completely different as institutions go. The degrees are not that different, but we are comparing universities, not degrees. And yes, most companies have maybe 4 or 5 LACs on their list of "strategic campuses" as opposed to 15-20 or so research universities. LACs may have great students, but in very short supply. Harvard, for example, has over 1500 students who graduate every year. Almost all of them are gifted. Penn and Cornell have roughly 2,500-3000 (2,000-2,500) students who graduate every year. Of those, 80% are gifted. Michigan and Cal have about 4,500 students who graduate each year. About 60% (3,000) of those are gifted. A LAC only graduates 300-500 students each year. Even if 80% of them were gifted, we are talking about 250-400 students. Not worth the effort by most company's estimates. IBs recruit somewhat heavily at Williams, Amherst, Haverford, Swarthmore and maybe Pomona. That is it. They recruit much more at places like the Ivies, Chicago, Georgetown and Michigan. </p>

<p>You certainly like to differentiate. You see a world of difference between a 1400 and a 1300 on the SAT. I do not. I got a 1540 on my SAT, pre-centering era. That's the equivallent of a 1600 today. I struggled to maintain a 3.5 GPA at Michigan. Of course, that was good enough to get me into top graduate programs, but many students with 1300 and 1400 on their SATs were better students than I.</p>

<p>I agree that financial resources are important. It is a recent belief, and Michigan is on board. 15 years ago, Michigan was not even one of the 25 wealthiest universities. Today, it is the 6th wealthiest university. At the rate it is going, Michigan will move into second place by 2010. But alumni donation and graduation rates are not very telling. Schools that have many engineers have lower graduation rates. </p>

<p>I disagree about your theory about Engineers and Law school. If Engineers wanted to go into Law, they would major in a field related to it. Most Engineers hate studying fields like History, Political Science or Literature and the majority would never wish to become lawyers. If what you suggest were true, why don't more of Michigan's 3.6+ Engineering students apply to Law school? Roughly 200 Michigan students graduate from Engineering with 3.6+ GPAs annually. If those guys wanted, they could get into top 10 Law Schools. And yet, only 7 applied from the school of Engineering last year. From MIT, THE #1 Engineering school on Earth, only 60 of their 1,000 graduates went to Law school. At least 50 of those were Political Science and Economics majors! Are you telling me that of the 600 Engineers who graduate from MIT, not more than 10 could get into top Law schools? Sakky, you have an issue with admitting when you are perhaps wrong. That is not a good quality.</p>

<p>At any rate, you can object to the conjecture that Michigan is a top 10-15 university all you want. It is your opinion and you are entitled to it. I am sure some people share your opinion. But like I said, in academe and industry alike, Michigan is generally regarded as one of the top 10-15 undergraduate institutions in the country. At the graduate level, it is considered on of the top 4 or 5.</p>

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<p>Alexandre, in your first paragraph, once again, you are not properly characterizing the issue of per-capita job offers. It is of course true that the LAC's are so small that many of the top companies won't show up. It is easier for them to recruit at a very large school like Michigan where they will see lots of candidates.</p>

<p>But that's not the issue. Once again, the issue is whether that translates into being good for the individual student. The individual student at Michigan will get to see more top companies recruiting at Michigan. But so what? At the same time, that student will also be competing against many students to get any of those jobs. When a top IB like Goldman Sachs shows up to Michigan to recruit undergrads, you're going to be getting boatloads of Michigan undergrad students showing up to try to get a job. Conversely, sure, a guy at a LAC might not see many top companies. But for the ones that do show up, an individual student will be competing against far fewer students to get a job with that company. The point is, it's not about the number of companies that show up, or the absolute number of jobs that they are handing out, but rather the per-capita jobs or the per-capita chances of an individual student to get such a job. </p>

<p>And you say that it is I who likes to differentiate? No, it is actually you who likes to differentiate. Again, to repeat my example, you said it yourself, the difference between the 8th and 18th most selective school is negligible. Yet I have also shown than the difference between the 6th and 8th most selective school is also negligible. It should then follow that the difference between the 6th and 18th most selective school is negligible. What that means is that Stanford is only negligibly more selective than Michigan. Quod Erat Demonstrandum (QED). I used your own logic (not my logic, but yours) to come up with what we surely both agree is an absurd conclusion. Question - do you believe that Stanford is only negligibly more selective than Michigan? If you do not, then you need to retract your statement that there is a negligible difference in selectivity between the 8th and 18th most selective school.</p>

<p>Financial resources as an absolute number are not what is important. What is important is per-capita financial resources. What does it matter if Michigan has huge amounts of money if the per-capita resources are small? What you care about as an individual student is how much the school is willing to spend on you as an individual, not on how much the school is spending on the aggregate student body. USNews and I both agree that financial resources should be measured on a per-capita basis. </p>

<p>About your contention that engineers hate studying history, law, or whatnot. Well, to be perfectly honest, a lot of engineers hate studying engineering. Engineering is hard. I said it before, if engineers didn't make high starting salaries, you and I both know that a lot of engineering students would switch to something else. You must agree that there are many many engineering students at Michigan who quite honestly, don't really like engineering. They're doing it for the money. </p>

<p>Hence, what does it matter if engineering students hate studying history, law, or the like? Many of them are already studying something they don't like, which is engineering. So what's the difference between studying one thing you don't like and another thing they you also don't like? At the end of the day, for many of those students, it's about the money. </p>

<p>You also ask about why don't more of the strong-performing engineering students don't apply to law school. Well, if Michigan is anything like most engineering students, then, to be perfectly honest, many if not most of the strong-performing engineering students are foreign nationals, particularly from Asia but also from Russia, Germany, and the like. If you're a foreign national and English is your second language, then most likely you feel you don't have strong English skills, and so you don't think that you will be admitted to law school because you will probably have get a poor LSAT score. So they don't even bother. But again, that doesn't mean that they wouldn't want to go to a top law school. Once again, it has to do with the fact that they feel that they can't get in, so they don't try. But if they got the offer, they'd probably take it. After all, it's practically impossible to flunk out of a top-tier law school. Even if they go and rank at the bottom of their law school class, they're still probably better off than if they had simply worked as engineers.</p>

<p>Also, the other factor is that, again, if Michigan is anything like other elite engineering schools, then the students who do exceptionally well are the ones who truly like the subject and these people tend to want to get their PhD's. I never said that nobody likes engineering. Some people obviously really like it. And for them, I agree that they would be far more interested in getting a PhD in engineering than going to a top-tier law school.</p>

<p>But, again, that's not the point, because the 200 students who do well are clearly dwarfed by all the engineering students who don't do well. You must agree that it is a painful and sad life to be a struggling engineering student, always worried about being expelled, just barely hanging on. They clearly cannot be enjoying what they are doing. You talk about engineering students hating to studying history, well clearly, these particular students are REALLY hating studying engineering. So why don't these students just switch to an easier major? Answer - money. Many of them figure, well, my grades suck, but I've already done a lot of the coursework in the major, so I might as well complete the degree and get a relatively well-paying engineering job, because I gotta get some compensation for all my pain. Now this guy, with his poor grades, know he isn't getting into a top law school. But do you think he would refuse an offer of admission if it was offered to him? Hardly. In fact, I would argue that of all the engineering students, it is precisely these people who would want it the most. </p>

<p>Hence, it is precisely the not-so-good engineering students, who make up the vast majority of the graduating class, who would be most interested in getting into a top-tier law school. The ones who are doing well are tend to be either foreign nationals and/or are the ones who really like engineering, so I agree they have little desire to want to attend a top law school. But for the ones who are not doing that well, you know they want it. And they make up most of the graduating class. It therefore follows that many if not most engineers would like to take my offer. So perhaps you are the one who needs to admit to being wrong?</p>

<p>In academe and industry alike, Michigan is not 'generally' considered to be a top 10-15 undergraduate institution. Some parts of academe and industry may consider to be so. Others not. But the pont is, this is not a 'general' consensus by any means. Particularly if you include the LAC's in the equation.</p>

<p>Finally, once again you bring up the graduate-school thing. How many times do I have to say it? We're not talking about graduate school. We're talking about undergraduate only.</p>

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<p>Per capita job offers at Michigan is incredible. Only Carnegie Mellon and MIT have higher placement levels. 90% of Michigan students looking for jobs (40% go straight to graduate school) are employeed within 3 months of graduation. And mean starting salaries are comparable to schools of equal quality (Penn, Duke, Columbia, Cornell, Northwestern and Chicago).</p>

<p>I agree that Michigan is not as selective as Stanford. So I take it back. There is a bit of a drop in selectivity between the 6 most selective schools (H,P,S,Y,M and Caltech) and the rest. But there isn't much of a difference between the #10 and the #18 most selective universities in the country. </p>

<p>Per capita financial resources at Michigan is not exactly as high as the ellite private universities, but it is catching up quickly. In 1990, Michigan had roughly $15,000/student. Today, that number has mushroomed to $150,000/student. Schools like Penn, Cornell and Columbia were at the $50,000/student mark in 1990 and they are now at the $250,000/student mark. Michigan will overtake them in the next 5-6 years. That's because Michigan just recently got into the whole alumni donation band wagon. But Michigan alimni base is the largest in the US (450,000) and it is the 4th wealthiest/capita. Few schools stand a chance in this domain. It is estimated that my 2010, only Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford will be wealthier than Michigan, even when talking in per capita terms. </p>

<p>Finally, in academe and industry, Michigan is most certainly considered a top 10-15 undergraduate institution. You seem to be a huge believer in the USNWR. Academe gives Michigan a 4.6/5.0 rating for undergraduate academic excellence. That is for undergraduate education. That's good for a 6-way tie with Chicago, Cornell, Duke, Johns Hopkins and Penn at #9 in the nation. Michigan has enjoyed that position (between #7 and #10) since the USNWR started in 1985. And as I point above, industry really loves Michigan...5 industries in particular. Manufacturing (Engineering and Business majors), Pharmaceuticals (Bio and Pharma majors), IB and MC (over 20% of Michigan's undergrads seeking work ends up at a Wall Street IB or at a top MC firm) and IT (Intel, Microsfot and Cisco love Michigan). So it is not limited merely to Engineers and Business majors. Economics, Math and Political Science majors do very well. I majored in Economics. I got a job with Lehman Brothers before I graduated. Most of my fellow classmates who did not go to PhD programs had jobs with top IB or MC firms.</p>

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<p>Once again, let's not confuse the issue. When I say per-capita job placement levels, I think you know that I mean across disciplines (do I really need to type everything out, or don't we know each other well enough by now that we know what we both mean?). It is simply not fair to compare electrical engineers against poetry majors when you're talking about jobs. We have to have a fair, apples-to-apples comparison. Otherwise, we once again have to fall back to the absurd scenario that Georgia Tech is somehow a better school than Princeton because I once showed that Georgia Tech graduates make a higher average starting salary than do Princeton graduates. </p>

<p>And what do you mean "just recently got into this whole alumni donation bandwagon thing"? According to USNews, which I know you love so much, Michigan ranked #120 among national universities in % alumni donation rate, and not only that, but I think Michigan actually used to be ranked higher in this category (somewhere in the 90's a few years ago, I believe). Hence the data strongly suggests that Michigan is actually getting a smaller percentage of its alumni to donate than it did in the past. The only way this could be compensated for is if the ones who are still donating are becoming proporionately more generous, and there is little evidence of this. If you have something, I'd like to see it. The only exception I can see is the recent Ross donation, yet that was a business-school only donation, and only helps those undergraduates who are in the BBA program, yet I have never disputed that the BBA program is a good one. Doesn't exactly help all the thousands of other undergrads, now does it? </p>

<p>Finally, hello, once again did I not say that you cannot say that Michigan is a top X undergraduate institution by just 'conveniently' ignoring the LAC's? But why should we ignore them - academe doesn't ignore them. AWS graduates are highly successful in getting into top graduate schools and in getting high-profile jobs. If Michigan really is a #7-#10 institution, you are basically saying that Michigan is a better undergraduate institution than AWS. What evidence do you have of this? </p>

<p>And again, once again, here you are cherry-picking what you want to see out of USNews. I seem to see that USNews doesn't look upon other things at Michigan too highly. For example, what's up with Michigan's USNews ranking in faculty resources, hmm? Are you saying that faculty resources aren't important? So you just pick up USNews and just see what you want to see, and intentionally turn a blind eye to the things you don't want to see. USNews as a whole ranked Michigan #23 - a far cry from being a top 10 or a top 15 institution, even if we were to ignore the LAC's. What exactly do you have to say about that? Like I said, either you accept all of USNews, or you accept none of it. You can't just pick and choose what you like, and ignore what you don't like. Take all of it or take none of it. What's your choice?</p>

<p>And finally, again, you can't just talk about certain Michigan graduates who are doing well. I have never said that MIchigan was a bad school. The dispute is Michigan really a top 10-15 institution/national university and/or is Michigan better than the lower Ivies. I know perfectly well that Michigan graduates do quite well. The question is are they doing better than the graduates of the other institutions. Furthermore, that comparison has to be done on a per-capita and apples-to-apples basis (you can't go around comparing chemical engineers to poetry majors). Do Michigan graduates do well? Of course they do. The question is are they doing better than the others.</p>

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<p>Sakky, you assume too much. I do understand your point. I confuse nothing...nor am I confused. I am not a moron you know. I simply disagree with you. </p>

<p>You seem to think that only few Michigan alums enjoy the success that Ivy League students enjoy. The fact is, the average Michigan alum is as well off and enjoying the same type of success (financial, professional and social), on average, that the alums of other top universities are enjoying. </p>

<p>You also seem convinced that Michigan is better in Engineering and Business than it is at general undergraduate education. That is an incorrect assumption. A study conducted in 1996 surveyed the top 30 Economics programs, asking key faculty to list the best undergraduate programs at producing future Economists. Michigan was #8 among undergraduate institutions. Economics is actually one of Michigan's average departments. Michigan is much stronger in departments such as Political Science, Psychology and History and just as strong in subjects such as English, Mathematics, Biology and Physics. But average at Michigan means top 15 nationally. Chemistry, Michigan's weakest department, ranks #21 in the nation.</p>

<p>LACs can certainly be included in the debate. I think they are too different to research universities to make a fair and accurate comparison, but what the hell. Even then, Michigan is still one of the top 6-20 universities in the country as far as academe and corporate America are concerned. We are talking about a university's ranking based on the experience and factual ratings given to them by academe. That would be the peer assessment rating in the USNWR. I do not disagree with the USNWR system, but my stand has been, and remains, that Michigan is one of the top 10-15 undergraduate institutions according to academe and corporate America. Not according to the USNWR formula. According to academe, Michigan is tied at 9th place among research universities. If you include LACs, it is tied for 11th place. Academe gives Michigan a 4.6/5.0 academic rating for undergraduate education. If you can name me more than 10 universities (LAC and research) that get a better score, let me know. Corporate America hires and pays Michigan graduates at similar rates (I am talking about per capita, not exceptions) as it does students from the lower Ivies and schools like Duke, Amherst, Chicago etc...</p>

<p>Now if you want to talk purely in terms of the USNWR forumla, I am affraid you will have to debate with somebody else. I personally do not take my cue from a mere magazine. I listen to the experts. I refuse to accept that Penn is better than Stanford and MIT. I refuse to believe that Washington University is better than Chicago, Cornell, Michigan and Johns Hopkins. I also refuse to believe that a university can jump 5 places or drop 7 places in the ranks in the course of one year. And yet, that is what the USNWR does. The only rating that matters to me is the one that comes from the experts. In the case of the USNWR, that comes in the form of the Peer Assessment rating. </p>

<p>As far as alumni donation goes, Michigan has pushed very hard over the last decade and a half. Not in terms of the percentage of alums giving but rather in terms of amount of $$$ they give. Michigan has 450,000 living alums, compared to Dartmouth's 70,000 living alums or Princeton's 100,000 alums. Obviously, it is not going to be able to get the same high %age of alums to donate. But those who are donating are donating a lot. Michigan's endowment and budget have increased by 1,000% in the last 15 years, compared to 300%-500% at schools like Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, Penn, Brown etc... Michigan has already overtaken all of those schools in absolute terms (we were way behind them in absolute terms 15 years ago) and is expected to overtake most of those schools in terms of financial resources/capita by 2010. There is nothing the smaller schools can do. Michigan's alumi base is the 4th wealthiest per capita. It is actually the second wealthiest overall. </p>

<p>And no, Michigan alums are not doing better than the alums of the lower Ivies. I never said they were. But they are doing just as well...on a per capita basis.</p>

<p>Anyway Sakky, let us cease this debate. It is clear that you strongly believe that Michigan is not on par with the lower Ivies and other top 10-15 universities. It is equally clear that I believe that it is. We both have facts to support our believes. But facts alone will not prove anything. It is obvious that we aren't going to convert the other by debating this point. </p>

<p>So what say you we return to doing what we set out to do in the first place...help students in their search of their ideal college.</p>

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<p>You guy just wrote a thesis paper on colleges. Why have no one mention a person quality or a person motivation to get where they want to be or people that chase their dreams?</p>

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<p>Michigan on par with any ivy? What are you smoking? My peers who went to Michigan didn't have a prayer at any ivy. Also, if you are in state, it's even easier. All of Sakky's arguements easily prove this.</p>

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<p>Alexandre, once again, let me repeat my points.</p>

<p>I never said that only a few Michigan grads are successful. My point was that on a per-capita basis, on an apples-to-apples comparison (meaning comparing people who graduate in the same major), Michigan grads are not doing as well as other graduates of what I believe the true top 10 undergraduate programs are. Does that mean that Michigan grads aren't doing well? Not at all - I have always said that Michigan undergrad is indeed a strong program. But not as strong as the top 10 are. </p>

<p>The confounding factor is that Michigan runs a lot of preprofessional programs like busad and engineering, and it is of course true that graduates of those programs earn a lot of money as befits their major. But that by itself means nothing. I've said it before, I'll say it again, Georgia Tech graduates make more starting salary, on average, than do Princeton graduates, but does that mean that Georgia Tech is a better school than Princeton? Hardly. What it really means is that Georgia Tech graduates more engineers than Princeton does. On an apples-to-apples comparison, Georgia Tech does not match up well with Princeton. By the same token, on an apples-to-apples comparison, Michigan does not match up with the top 10. That doesn't mean that Michigan is not a good school, it just means that it doesn't belong in the top 10. The fact that corporate American pays Michigan grads well does not fly, because, like I said, the preprofessional Michigan students will obviously get paid well, just like the proprofessional Georgia Tech graduates will get paid well. Are you willing to stand up and say that because Georgia Tech graduates get paid better than Princeton, Yale, and Harvard grads, that Georgia Tech must be a better school than HYP? If so, don't be shy, come right out and say so. </p>

<p>Now about your assertion of undergraduate program rankings - honestly, do you believe it? Don't you think those rankings are heavily heavily influenced by research productivity, which has little to do with undergraduate education (for few undergrads actually engage in research). Let me put it to you this way. In those rankings of yours, where is the economics program of Amherst ranked? How about Swarthmore? How about Williams? Go ahead, take a look, and tell me what you find. Oh, I see, they're either not ranked at all, or if they are, they are ranked suspiciously low. Hmmm. So I suppose from that, we must conclude that anybody who majored in economics at Amherst received a shoddy education, is that true? After all, since the ranking of the department is low, the education must be bad, right? </p>

<p>That, far and away, is the most serious problem with any of these particular "departmental" rankings. They are heavily weighted towards research, and those schools that do very little research (like the LAC's) get shafted. I don't dispute that the Michigan economics department does lots of fine research, but whether that translates into a strong undergraduate education is a different story. But fine, have it your way, but then you have to stand up and say that the LAC's suck, absolutely suck, at undergrad education because they don't have any highly ranked departments. If that's what you believe, then go right ahead and say it. You think they suck- right? </p>

<p>And here you are, once again, picking and choosing what you like from the USNews ranking, but ignoring the rest of it. You can't do that. Again, you take it all, or you take none of it. You can't say "Well, I like what USNews measured here, but I don't like what USNews measured over here". You're just picking and choosing whatever happens to be convenient to you. You quote USNews when it is convenient for you to do so, but ignore it when inconvenient. In particular, USNews has pointed out specific problems with the Michigan undergraduate program, namely faculty resources and alumni giving. You've got to admit that this dents the strength of Michigan. </p>

<p>Ahh.. and alumni giving, what of it. We'll just have to wait and see about what happens with the whole Michigan alumni donation thing. What I do know is that Michigan has quite a mountain to climb in terms of endowment per student. I don't doubt that on an absolute scale, Michigan should have more money than the small Ivies, after all, Michigan is such a big school. Yet being ranked #120 in the national universities in the alumni giving rate does not bode well. It means that Michigan has do squeeze out a tremendous amount of money out of that small slice of alumni who do give. Will that happen? Who knows. I'm certainly willing to come back here in the year 2010 and admit defeat if in fact Michigan has surpassed the lower Ivies in terms of endowment per capita, if you are willing to do the same if Michigan fails.</p>

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<p>Well the fact of the matter is that the top schools are all relatively equal. </p>

<p>Okay, so you go to Harvard, what will that get you? That will give you a higher chance of actually obtaining the job. </p>

<p>But I'm sure most people (I don't know why you wouldn't) aspire to greatness in their respective field. A degree from Harvard or Yale isn't going to get you that far, it takes personal initiative after the first two or three promotions. So would you rather go to Harvard and get to the "analyst" position and stop there, or would you rather go to Michigan and move on to the ranks of vice-president and such? And vice versa. See it really doesn't matter as much as you two like to think it does; it depends wholly on the person at hand.</p>

<p>Especially in investment banking, the main motivation for pursuing that career is the salaries involved. The top 2% of people in the United States make over 200,000 a year; do the math: .02*250,000,000= 5,000,000. Do you really think that all of these people graduated from Harvard, Princeton, and Yale? Noooooooooope. It all depends on the person at hand.</p>

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<p>It is absolutely true that it is fundamentally up to the person to take charge. Nobody disputes that.</p>

<p>On the other hand, you said it yourself, there are certain things you can do to increase your odds of success. Going to the best school that you can is one of them. Nobody, certainly not I, ever said that going to a top school guarantees your success. There are no guarantees in life. What you can do is push the odds to your favor.</p>

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<p>Please. You're trying to justify to YOURSELF why you're saying what you are saying. You know just as well as I do that an IBanker from Michigan = IBanker from Harvard. Sure you could generalize and say that Harvard students are "better"; however, for every Harvard grad you give me, I could reply with one Michigan grad. </p>

<p>Anyways, the arguments in this thread are based on the USNews rankings. The USNews rankings are bogus. The academics at Michigan are just as good as any at Harvard. If you're going to bring up trivial differences I could say that 3/3 isn't 1; its .99999... . But there's no sense in doing that, its too close to quanitatively measure the schools to an exact number. </p>

<p>Ratings like "alumni giving rate" and "acceptance rate" and this is the kicker "PREDICTED 2003 grad rate" don't mean anything. Sure you might look at these things when actually selecting a university, but they shouldn't mean anything when ranking one over the other. I could go find a college that has a higher "PREDICTED 2003 grad rate" than Harvard's 92%, but does that mean it's better? Not necessarily. Anybody who takes USNews rankings number for number is severely mislead.</p>

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<p>UC-Benz, I gave up on this argument. It cannot be won or lost. But I cannot let you fight the good fight alone! LOL </p>

<p>It really depends on priorities and what one values. I do believe that comparing Michigan to Harvard is a bit of a stretch. Actually comparing any university other than Yale, Princeton Stanford and MIT to Harvard is a bit of a stretch. But I do agree that a person can accomplish anything at Michigan. It is generally agreed by top faculty, adcom committeess at top graduate programs and by corporate recruiters that Michigan's undergraduate education is one of the top 10-15 in the US. I have yet to see a ranking by academe or by corporations that did not rank Michigan on par with the lower Ivies. </p>

<p>Sakky, I never said Michigan could do as well as the Ivies using the USNWR formula. I never said that Michigan, using the USNWR formula was as good as the lowe Ivies. What I said and I will continue to say, is that according to corporate recruiters and academe, Michigan's undergraduate education is on of the top 10-15 nationally, even when you do not consider the schools of Engineering and Business. </p>

<p>You continuously go back to saying that the reason Michigan alums do so well is because of Michigan's Engineering and Business programs. You make it sound like most Michigan students are Engineering or Business majors. Of the 4,500 undergrads who graduate annually, only 1,200 (roughly 25%) major in Business and Engineering. Cornell's Engineering and Business programs are just as big as Michigan's. MIT and Penn are actually more heavily loaded with Engineers and Business majors. How come graduates of those schools aren't making more or getting better jobs than Michigan graduates? The fact is, even non Engineering and non Business majors are doing as well as their counterparts at other top 10-15 undergraduate universties. They are getting into the same calibre graduate schools and corporations at the same rates as students from other equally good universities such as Brown, Columbia or Chicago.</p>

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<p>Oh please, I think you are the one who is trying to justify to yourself. </p>

<p>It is of course true that an IB from Michigan is just as good as an IB from Harvard. But that's not the point. The point is that it is easier to get into IB in the first place if you come from Harvard. Yeah, once a guy is in, it doesn't really matter. But you first have to get in. Getting in is easier if you come from certain places.</p>

<p>Now if you want to say that USNews isn't a valid rating, well, good, because that's something I've been saying all this time. My point is that you can't pick out certain things from USNews and use that as a basis for your argument. Either you use all of USNews, or you use none of it. You can't use USNews whenever it is convenient for you to do so, but then ignore it when it's inconvenient. </p>

<p>You also say that there's something wrong with generalization, as if that by itself serves to dismiss my arguments. The fact is, much of life is based on generalizations. When an insurance provider charges higher premiums to smokers than to non-smokers, that is based on the general fact that smokers tend to have worse health than do non-smokers. Now, do ALL smokers have poor health? Do ALL non-smokers have good health? Of course not. But in general, the trend holds. Similarly, in general, Harvard students do better than Michigan students. Is that true for every single case? Of course not. But in general, it is true. To say that this generality is unimportant is the same thing as me telling people that just because not all smokers are in poor health, then smoking must not be dangerous. So for every smoker you give me that is dying, I can give you one smoker that is in perfect health. But what exactly would that prove? What is important are the averages and the general trends, because that determines behavior on the aggregate. </p>

<p>Now if Michigan and Harvard really are academically equivalent, then why is it that if you take all high school seniors who are admitted to both Michigan and Harvard, why do an overwhelming percentage of them (not 100%, but close to it) turn down Michigan for Harvard. Hey, if they really are academically equivalent, then why should they strongly prefer Harvard as much as they do? Are you saying that they're all stupid for doing that? Go ahead, come right out and say that if that's what you think. All those people who have turned down Michigan for Harvard for academic reasons are stupid, because everybody knows that those 2 institutions are academically equivalent, right? </p>

<p>Finally, I think you either misspoke or you are engaging in a straw-man when you said the following:</p>

<p>"I could go find a college that has a higher "PREDICTED 2003 grad rate" than Harvard's 92%, but does that mean it's better? Not necessarily."</p>

<p>Uh, USNews doesn't ever say that a school that has a higher predicted graduation rate than Harvard would NECESSARILY be better. It never said that. USNews takes a wide range of attributes, puts them in a formula, and then comes out with a ranking. Just because a school is better at one particular category doesn't necessarily make that school better than another, and USNews never said that it did. It's an aggregate of several categories that determines whether a school is better than another.</p>

<p>But in any case, defending the methodology of USNews is not the point here. I don't defend the methodology. You are free to criticize it. The reason why I brought it up is that if somebody is going to use USNews as a basis as to why a particular school is good, then I am perfectly justified in also using USNews to disproving that argument. If you live by the sword of USNews, you can die by that same sword. Anybody who uses USNews to justify the top-10 status of Michigan is living on very dangerous ground.</p>

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<p>Hah! I guess you're accusing me of using the USNews? That is astonishing considering I am the one criticizing it; I would never use it to quantitatively judge schools like it is intended to be used for. So I have no idea why you're bantering about the USNews when I'm the one saying it has no bearing whatsoever. </p>

<p>Once again you are generalizing. "Harvard students do better than Michigan students." What proof have you of this? Certainly you can take the top Harvard students and say they are better than the bottom Michigan students. Similarly, I can take the top Michigan students and say they are better than the bottom Harvard students. You seem so set on deeming one superior to the other; did it ever occur to you that they are equally good institutions?</p>

<p>"Go ahead, come right out and say that if that's what you think." You seem to be infatuated with that line. I would NEVER go as far as to judge the people who go to one college over another. That is ludicrous.</p>

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<p>Alexandre, now I see your last post, and I wonder why you consider uc<em>benz a brother in arms. After all, he has said that there is no important academic difference between Harvard and Michigan, something that even you do not agree with. So looks like you and uc</em>benz have something to discuss. Why are you allying yourself with somebody you don't agree with? Heck, let me take a front-row seat and watch you justify to uc_benz why you think he is wrong, and that you think Michigan is not as good as Harvard. This will surely be interesting.</p>

<p>Now alexandre, it is true that you never said that according to the USNews formula, Michigan would do as well as the lower Ivies. And I never said that you did that. My point is, you can't just pick and choose whatever suits you in the USNews rankings in favor of Michigan, and ignore the rest. If you're going to appeal to USNews to bolster Michigan, then I am free to also appeal to USNews to denigrate it. Live by the sword, die by the sword. What you should be doing is repudiating ALL of USNews, including the parts of USNews that favor Michigan. But you can't just take the good stuff and ignore the bad stuff. </p>

<p>Once again, you fall back to your old shibboleth of 'corporate recruiters and academics' . I said it before, I'll say it again, you have your experts, and I have mine. I too have corporate recruiters and academics who would not consider Michigan in the top 15. A fine school? Yes. In the top 15? No, simply because they consider (at least) 15 other schools to be better. So we're left at the same impasse - you have your experts, and I have mine. In fact many of my experts would fill their top 15 with the 8 Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, AWS, and ond of the following: Berkeley, Duke, Chicago, Northwestern, and Wellesley. I think you must agree that that 15 is a quite reasonable group. Are you saying that my experts are way off in choosing that group as their top group?</p>

<p>Finally, in your last paragraph, oh man, you really struck out there. Not even close. In fact, I have actually developed some healthy respect for you in this discussion. And I'd like to think that I'm a man of honor, so I hate to do this to you. But you really need to do your homework.</p>

<p>Your quote:"How come graduates of those schools [for example, MIT] aren't making more or getting better jobs than Michigan graduates?</p>

<p>Here are the salaries for 99-00 for Michigan engineers. Not all Michigan undergrads, just Michigan engineers.</p>

<p><a href="http://career.engin.umich.edu/MISalary.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://career.engin.umich.edu/MISalary.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Here are the salary numbers for 99-00 for all of MIT. Not just for engineers, but for all of MIT, but that's OK, we'll use it anyway. </p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/career/www/salary/sal2000.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/career/www/salary/sal2000.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>So according to these numbers, the average bachelor's degree holder from MIT who went to work for industry got an average starting salary of 51.7k. That's ALL of MIT, not just the engineers. Clearly not all MIT students are engineers. Many major in hard-science like physics or other less remunerative degrees. According to the Michigan numbers, only 3 engineering majors at Michigan were able to exceed the average of ALL of MIT - the Michigan majors of Computer Science+Engineering (at 56.1k), Electrical Engineering (at 51781), and Materials Science ($52.7k). So 3 engineering departments at MIT were able to exceed the average of ALL of MIT. I thought you said that Michigan was doing better than MIT. </p>

<p>And if you were to average the salary for all Michigan engineers (not all Michigan undergrads, just the engineers), you will see that clearly the average salary for Michigan engineers is less than the salary of all MIT graduates (not just the engineers, but all MIT grads). So I've let Michigan pick out only its engineers, whereas I include all MIT students. Hence, I've stacked the deck against MIT, and MIT wins anyway. </p>

<p>Care to retract your statement about how Michigan is doing better than MIT? As a man of honor, I will let you do so without penalty.</p>

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<p>Uc_benz, I am not accusing you of using USNews. I am merely wondering why you don't take on Alexandre with the same fury that you're taking on me. After all, he has said himself that he thinks Harvard is better than Michigan. He is the one who invoked the use of the USNews "peer-reputation" score several times. So maybe you and Alexandre have a lot to talk about. I'm sure he would like to hear your opinions on why he is wrong when he says that Harvard is a better school than MIchigan. I'm sure he would like to hear why you think that invoke any of USNews, including the "peer reputation" category is wrong. I promise to stand on the sidelines while you two hash this out. You two clearly have a lot to talk about.</p>

<p>And about how Harvard students do better than Michigan students by taking top students or bottom students or whatever. OK, fine, then by the same logic, I can argue that my local community college is just as good as Michigan. After all, I can take the top students at my local community college, compare them to the worst student at Michigan, and determine that my local community college is better. If you say that I have no evidence that Harvard is not better than Michigan, then I can equivalently say that you have no evidence that Michigan is better than my local community college. So we're left with the situation where every single school, from Harvard all the way down to the puniest community college is exactly the same. You want to go down this road? If so, fine, we'll take that road. To paraphrase your own quote, did it ever occur to you that my local community college and Michigan are equivalent institutions? </p>

<p>And besides, it's not up to me. It's up to the students themselves. Answer the question - if Michigan and Harvard are in fact equivalent institutions, then why do so many students prefer Harvard over Michigan? Are they dumb? Answer the question, please. </p>

<p>Finally your last paragraph is an interesting one indeed. You say that you don't go around judging people. So if people seem to prefer Harvard over Michigan, and you don't judge them, then you are implicitly conceding that Harvard must be a better choice. If it wasn't a better choice, then why would people prefer it? </p>

<p>I simply don't see how you're going to be able to square this circle. If Harvard and Michigan really are equivalent institutions, then there really is no reason for people to prefer one over the other. The fact that they are doing so indicates that either people are being dumb, or that the original premise is false. Since you don't want to judge people, then looks like you have no choice but to concede that the original premise is false.</p>