<p>I won't comment about academics, but in terms of prestige, lower Ivies defeat Michigan.</p>
<p>Kimfuge, it depends who you ask. In some circles, Michigan is indeed inferior to the lower Ivies. In other circles, Michigan is concidered better than the lower Ivies. However, in most refined, educated and highly qualified circles, there is no distinction between Michigan and the lower Ivies. By and large, as a rule, the further apart "prestige" and "academic quality" are, the more likely it is that you are catering to the lower common denominators.</p>
<p>Well remember prestiege and academic quality are not the same. For example Caltech is one of the best if not the best for Astronomy. However even though Caltech has a better Astronomy program than Harvard, you would be hard pressed to find someone in majoring in Astronomy at Harvard who would have rather gone to CalTech. I know this is not business but it is an example, of how prestiege doesn't equate to academic quality.</p>
<p>VTBoy, prestige and academic quality are similar, if the audience is qualified and educated. Uneducated or unqualified people's opinions on education don't really mean that much.</p>
<p>Furthermore, we are not talking about departmentmental excellence. We are talking about overall academic excellence.</p>
<p>Sakky, I dont want to get into a debate right now (maybe later) only because I dont want to be on my computer over the holidays but I do want to ask you a question. Do you honestly believe that the lower Ivies are greater than UCLA and UMICH on the west coast and mid west respectively? I have never heard you say that so now I am wondering what you think. We can look at only undergrad if you want to because the lower Ivies (and perhaps the middle Ivies) would be destroyed if we did an institution by institution comparison.</p>
<p>Now to Alexandre - once again, I have to bring up the same thing that I brought up before. The fact is, bus-ad Michigan undergrads are a group of students who are unusually interested in business careers. After all, that's why they chose to apply to the undergraduate bus-ad program. You must agree that relatively few of these people are interested in careers in academia or medicine or other such fields. Hence, I am not surprised to find that a high percentage of such students do in fact get jobs at major companies. These students are very self-selective. It's like getting a whole bunch of random NFL players and being 'surprised' to discover that they're all unusually strong and athletic. </p>
<p>What we need to do in the case of Harvard is take those particular Harvard students who are also interested in getting jobs with major companies, and look at the percentage within that group who are successful. Meaning we have to exclude all those Harvard students who would rather be doctors, lawyers, academics, and all those other fields to which Harvard students often aspire. If you look at it that way, I think it would be clear to see that those Harvard students who actually want business careers would have a very high success rate in getting such careers. </p>
<p>Finally, the question that was posed was not whether it is better to get a business degree from Michigan or Penn rather than an econ degree from Duke or Brown if you want to get straight into business. The question is, is it better to get an econ degree from Harvard. After all, that's what esrajay and I were talking about (Michigan vs. Harvard, and he was contending that getting the undergrad business degree from Michigan was better than graduating from Harvard). If you really don't think that's true, then again, ask yourself, where are all these highly prominent business leaders who did their undergrad in bus-ad at Michigan (not undergrad in something else, but undergrad in bus-ad)? If doing undergrad at bus-ad at Michigan was really so good, then shouldn't there be lots of prominent business leaders we could point to who did precisely that? </p>
<p>Again, that's not to say that doing undergrad at bus-ad at Michigan is bad. Indeed, I have always maintained that Michigan is a good undergrad school and that bus-ad at Michigan is one of the premier undergrad programs at Michigan. But look at what we're comparing it to. We're not comparing it to some scrub no-name program. We're comparing it to Harvard. To say that undergrad bus-ad at Michigan is good is one thing, to say that it's equivalent to Harvard - that's quite a stretch.</p>
<p>To shyboy13, I see that you changed the comparison and in a rather unfair way. Every school benefits from home-field advantage of some sort. The Ivies are unusually strong in the East, just like the UC's are unusually strong in the West, and Michigan is unusually strong in the Midwest. It's not fair to compare schools only within their homefield. What would be more fair is to ask yourself, say, in California, are the lower Ivies more or less respected than Michigan? In the state of Michigan, are the lower Ivies more or less respected than UCLA?</p>
<p>Like I said, you are preaching to the choir. Although it would be a difficult choice, I would pick Harvard over Michigan as an undergraduate school. But that's me. Many students have a strict desire to study Business in a structured and in-depth environment. That includes 20 different business classes taught by Business school professors, customed made for undergraduate students. It also includes a department-wide effort to help students get internships at top companies starting from the Freshman year and then, eventually, a guaranteed placement at a suitable Fortune 500 company unpon graduation. Harvard does not offer that. Michigan and Wharton do.</p>
<p>Sakky, to answer your question about regional opinions, I can say with pretty strong evidence that in the Midwest, UC Berkeley and UCLA are certainly as respected as the lower Ivies.</p>
<p>I have limited exposure to the West coast mindset. I have several friends who attended Stanford and CalTech and they usually lump Michigan with the lower Ivies, but like I said, my exposure to the West Coast mentality is as such that I do not have clear cut evidence.</p>
<p>Finally, and this is my area of experise. In Euro zone and the Middle East, Michigan and Cal have a better reputation than most lower Ivies.</p>
<p>Sakky, I was not being unfair for a number of reasons. First of all, I was just asking your opinion about regional comparability. Not only that, I was not attacking you (as I sometimes do) because I think you have your hands full already with Alexandre, UC_Benz, and esrajay and they are doing fine without me. Dont you remember that I explicitly said you never said that before? If I truly wanted to be unfair, I would have compared institutions as a whole instead of just undergrad. Instead, I chose undergraduate education to level out the playing field. I for one dont believe that an incredible public schools undergraduate program is necessarily better or worse than its incredible private schools counterpart. We have discussed this may times before without successful conclusion. Once again, I was not attempting a cheap shot comparison and I believe you answered my question.</p>
<p>What I can say quite honestly is that there is not an overwhelming number of Ivy League or Michigan grads in Los Angeles. Because higher education is something that interests me very much I tend to bring the subject up around anyone that will listen. From what I have gathered, Michigan is pretty darn respected around here. I would say that Michigan is at least as respected over here as the lower Ivies. This is just my opinion though which counts as much as yours.</p>
<p>Well, the fact of the matter is: you can get just as good a job coming out of Michigan as you can out of Harvard. Who cares what the other people are like at the school? You're not going to get a job at Goldman Sachs by saying "I have 3 friends who had 1600's on the SAT." It matters what YOU do with the school, not the other people there. Sure there may be students and an environnment that you like about one school compared to another, and the quality of the students would matter in that case; but when it comes to getting a job, it has no bearing whatsoever. </p>
<p>If someone says that you don't retain the material that is being taught at school why would it matter what school you went to? Theoretically, I could go to my local community college and be as well prepared for the job market as a graduate of Michigan or Harvard. That doesn't make sense.</p>
<p>The Harvard v. Michigan argument is senseless and it will never be solved. Both schools are equally fine institutions and neither one is going to prevent you from getting a top job; the only person that can do that is yourself.</p>
<p>UC_benz, if Harvard and Michigan are both equally fine institutions, then why is it that Harvard's yield numbers are better? Why is it that even a pro-Michigan partisan like Alexandre has admitted that he probably would have chosen Harvard over Michigan if given the choice? As a thought exercise, why would more Michigan undergrads happily transfer to Harvard than vice versa? If these 2 institutions really are equal, then there should be no reason for any of these things to happen. Are you saying that even Alexandre is being stupid by preferring Harvard over Michigan, despite the fact that you say that these institutions are equal? </p>
<p>I've been sitting here waiting for you and alexandre to hash this one out. Alexandre has specifically said several times that he himself thinks that Harvard is a better school than Michigan, and yet you do not think so, and I've seen you two gloss over this difference time and time again. Why don't you, uc_benz, try to convince Alexandre that he's wrong on this point? </p>
<p>To Alexandre, you're not comparing apples to oranges. You consistently talk as if people really have the free choice to atttend the Michigan undergraduate bus-ad program vs. Harvard. This is only true for transfer students, of which there are very few (Harvard takes very few transfer students). I believe that it is safe to say that we are restricting ourselves only to freshman admissions, as that is by far the most common method of getting into Harvard College. </p>
<p>So you take some high school senior who really wants to get a business education, and he is admitted to Michigan and to Harvard. You say that this person would be well served by going to Michigan where he has the resources of the undergraduate business program available to him. Large caveat, however. To really get at those resources, he has to get admitted to the undergrad bus-ad program as a junior, and that's not exactly trivial. What if he doesn't make it into the bus-ad program as happens every year to many applicants? Surely you must concede that that person would have been better off just going to Harvard. This person does not have access to the bus-ad program if he doesn't get admitted to it. Hence, the "expected value" of the business education must include both the possibility that you get into the BBA program, and the possibility that you don't. </p>
<p>To me, I can speak to the West Coast mentality and say that Michigan is generally not as well-respected as the lower Ivies. The same is true of East Asia. Most people from these regions who have heard of Michigan often times equate it to a football school, but not to an academic powerhouse. </p>
<p>And back to uc_benz, what do you mean who cares what other people are like at the school? Tell that to Steve Ballmer. How exactly did he manage to get hired at Microsoft in the first place? Did being roommates at Harvard with Bill Gates have anything to do with it? It's one of those examples of it's not what you know, it's who you know, which behooves you to get to know powerful (or potentially powerful) people. Harvard students are potentially more powerful than Michigan students. Why is it that Harvard College has produced 5 Presidents and Michigan has produced 1 (Ford)? Michigan produced 1 Rhodes Scholar this year, whereas Harvard produced 6, despite the fact that Harvard is significantly smaller. Look around Wall Street or the major consulting companies and notice the paucity of Michigan graduates, relative to the size of Michigan. Look at the selectivity rating of Michigan compared to that of Harvard - Michigan is easier to get into. The inescapable fact is that the quality of the average Michigan undergraduate is lower than that of the average Harvard graduate. And business success is often times about who you have in your Rolodex. Business success is largely influenced by who you know. </p>
<p>The selectivity and the network profoundly matters when it comes to what kind of jobs are available. The fact is, there are more high-end companies, particularly in the high-prestige consulting and banking industries that will recruit at Harvard but not Michigan, rather than vice versa. So the Michigan student doesn't even get a chance to recruit at these jobs. Moreover, even the large companies like McKinsey, which recruit at both, tend to reserve far more jobs slots per capita to Harvard than to Michigan graduates. Why? First of all, it's network effects - Harvard people at those companies tend to hold more political power in the company and therefore will get the company to bring in more Harvard people. And two - it's a market signalling effect. By graduating from Harvard, you are demonstrating that you are a highly motivated and qualified individual.</p>
<p>Let me argue this by analogy. Why do the major Wall Street banks like to recruit engineers out of MIT, Stanford, Caltech, and other major-league engineering programs? Those guys just spent 4 years doing engineering - what the heck do they know about banking? Nothing. Do they have any specific banking or finance skills? For the most part, no. So why are the banks hiring them? Are they being stupid? No, of course not. The specific skills are not that important. What they are after is the fact that engineering students are known to have a very strong work ethic. If anybody can work for 80 hours a week for months on end, it would be the engineering students. </p>
<p>Hence the specific skills that you learn in school are not the only thing you get out of school. What is at least as important, if not more so, is the signal you send to the market. Harvard graduates signal, if nothing else, that they can survive an extremely difficult admissions process. Engineering students from major-league engineering schools like MIT signal to the market that they have tremendous mental stamina and work ethic. Alexandre, shyboy13, you two majored in economics, so you guys should both be able to back me up on this one.</p>
<p>notice that all of the "lower ivies" and AWS are all ranked above UMICH at no. 48</p>
<p>kimfuge, that ranking is bogus, and I don't know why anyone would even use it. </p>
<p>sakky, I already said the argument is useless. I'm not going to argue it anymore because we obviously have differing opinions. You can't deny the fact, though, that Harvard and Michigan are so close that you can get the same job out of Michigan as you can out of Harvard. If I was given the chance, of course I would pick Harvard over Michigan; I'm not trying to deny that. It's obvious that Harvard is more prestigious than Michigan, that's not really an argument. However, we're arguing academics here and I believe they are essentially equal in academics. That's all I am going to say on that topic.</p>
<p>Next...you're Rhodes Scholars argument has really no merit at all. How many Rhodes Scholars are aspiring MBA's? Probably not very many. But this whole post is about business. Here are some colleges from the 2005 Rhodes Scholars winners: University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, University of Kansas, Wheaton College, Texas A&M University, Wake Forest University. Maybe since they each have one winner as does Michigan, they are on equal footing as Michigan? Try to argue that one.</p>
<p>And finally...I wasn't arguing about networking in schools. I was talking about the quality of students. Do you think if Steve Ballmer wanted to be CEO of Ford and he said he knew Bill Gates he would get the job? Somehow I doubt that. Bill Gates hiring Steve Ballmer has nothing to do with the quality of students at Harvard, but it has everything to do with being his roomate.</p>
<p>Have a good one.</p>
<p>benz, are you a student at berkeley?</p>
<p>I didn't bring up the issue of Rhodes Scholars because they are aspiring MBA's, but to refute what you said earlier about how it doesn't really matter how good the other students happen to be at your school. I believe it matters quite a bit, and it has to do with the fact that success in business has a lot to do with who you know. If you know a lot of people who are powerful, or who will be powerful, then you will probably enjoy greater business success. It doesn't matter whether those people happen to be powerful in business or powerful in some other field. As a businessman, I wouldn't mind being able to call on friends who are Rhodes Scholar winners, for they would probably be occupying high positions and even if they couldn't offer me business, they could connect me with people who could.</p>
<p>And as to your final paragraph, you know exactly what I'm getting at, I think you just don't want to admit it. You know full well that just because one school might win a Rhodes Scholarship in a particular year does not by itself mean anything. What matters is the consistency over time. I could sit down and spend time adding up all the Rhodes Scholar winners in history and I don't think you or I would be surprised to find out that Harvard would probably be the winner, and that Michigan would beat all those no-name schools you mentioned. I just don't have that kind of time. But the point stands - Harvard has consistently had more Rhodes Scholar winners than Michigan has (and Michigan has consistently had more than those no-name schools). In one particular year, you might find an anomaly, but over time, we all know where the data points will tend to congregate. I just took a snapshot of 2004 Rhodes Scholar winner data because it was easy to find and it shows that Harvard beats Michigan.. But if I really wanted to spend all the time to collate all the historical data, you know and I know that I would still find that Harvard beats Michigan.</p>
<p>Now you might say that the Rhodes Scholarship data by itself means little. And to that, I would agree with you. It is just one data point. Which is why you need to look at other data points. Consider any of the other big-name scholarships - Marshall, Truman, etc. Look at the numbers of graduates who get admitted to major law schools or medical schools. Whatever categories you want, you would have to agree that Harvard would win most (not all, but most) of them over Michigan. </p>
<p>Furthermore, let's talk about the quality of the students. Are you seriously trying to say that the average quality of students at Michigan undergrad is equal to the average quality at Harvard College? Woah - you're really really going out on a limb on that one if you really believe that. </p>
<p>And finally, you keep saying that your argument has to do with academics. Since we argue about this particular point so much, I would ask you to define exactly what you mean by academics. Even if you just want to look at the factors that can be quantified, the fact is, Harvard College spends more money on resources per student than does Michigan undergrad. Harvard College has smaller average class sizes than does Michigan. So unless Michigan happens to be unusually efficient at spending the smaller budget per student that it does have, and/or Michigan has figured out an innovative way to effectively teach larger class sizes, then it's difficult to say that Michigan really does provide an equivalent academic experience than does Harvard. </p>
<p>And let's not forget what I said before - at college, much of the learning actually occurs from other students. In fact, I would argue that most of the learning is obtained from other students, simply because you spend far more time with other students than you do with the prof. As a college student, how much time do you spend actually in the classroom as opposed to how much time do you spend with other students? Couple that with the fact that the average student at Harvard is better than the average student at Michigan, something that even a person like Alexandre I'm sure would not seriously dispute, and the overall academics at Harvard must be better. You seem to be stuck on this whole notion that all the learning is sourced from the prof, and you absolutely learn nothing from other students. I don't think you would find too many college graduates who would agree with that.</p>
<p>Like I said, I'm not arguing anymore; it's useless. E-mail me or something if you want to continue the argument.</p>
<p>*But to add one last thing: look up the top 10 winners of Rhodes, Truman, and Fullbright Scholars. You'd be surprised.</p>
<p>I should have said: winners on a per-capita basis. The fact is, raw absolute numbers obviously favor the really big schools, just because they have lots of students. This is, again, something that I said before (do I really have to go around repeating things that I previously said over and over again?). All absolute numbers should be normalized for the size of the school. </p>
<p>Hence, on a per-capita basis, if we were to look at the top 10 winners of any major student prize categories, what do you think I'm going to find?</p>
<p>WOW!!@)#!@<em>)#! So many replies ^</em>^. So in the end... </p>
<p>I at least make an attempt to go to one of the more presitigious universities but at the same time nothing is wrong with a place like Umich. </p>
<p>I need not study Business Administration as an undergrad, in fact I might be better off with economics or engineering.</p>
<p>Engineers are heavily recruited for IB because of their stamina etc., etc. and thus I could get a well paying job outta college and have the work experience I'll need for my MBA.</p>
<p>Is all this correct?</p>
<p>What is a Rhodes Scholar?</p>