US News Rankings?

College Search & Selection
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<p>ACA, first of all, I always clearly state Michigan, Cornell and Brown, along with 8 or so other universities are all legitimate top 10 universities. Everybody who reads my posts knows that I am a firm believer in grouping universities, rather than ranking them. I would never think or state that Michigan is better than Brown or Cornell. </p>

<p>Secondly, the peer assessment score is a rating of academic excellence. The other criteria used by the USNWR are interesting to be sure, but meaningless. I personally don't really care about them since all I care about is the opinion of the academic community. </p>

<p>Michigan attracts many top students. Each year, 1,500 students with 1400+ SAT scores come to Michigan. That's as high as the number of students with 1400+ at most top 10 universities. But as we both know, Michigan is huge, and has a commitment to the State of Michigan. As such, it will also accept and enroll students of a lesser quality. All in all, like I said, the top 60% of Michigan students have SAT scores in the 1300-1600 range. The mid 50% SAT range at Cornell and Brown is 1300-1500. As such, it is fair to say that more than 50% of Michigan students are Brown or Cornell material. </p>

<p>I do not have a link that states that Michigan LSA is one of the top 10 cmapuses for major companies. However, from experience as a recruiter for Goldman Sachs, Ford and Eaton, I can tell you that it is. Besides, last year, I know for a fact that 34 Michigan undergraduate students joined Goldman Sachs. Of them, 10 were from Ross, 3 were from the CoE and 21 were from LSA. I would assume that Goldman Sachs is not unique. </p>

<p>And once again, UVA does not have a better student body than Michigan. Why do you conveniently ignore the figures that were clearly posted in the official UVA/UM links provided above. The SAT ranges, GPA ranges and class ranks of Michigan and UVA students were identical. The mean SAT score at UVA is not 1380, it is 1330. The mean GPA is not 3.9, it is 3.75. Michigan has those exact numbers. The links provided by both schools say as much. </p>

<p>And like I stated above, among research universities, Michigan was #17 in placing students in top 5 graduate programs. UVA and Cal were slightly below Michigan. Caltech, Cornell, Northwestern, Penn, Johns Hopkins and Rice were slightly above. All of those schools are pretty equal.</p>

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<p>I will disagree with your selectivity claim because your links show higher SAT's for UVa and a MUCH lower acceptance rate.</p>

<p>I guess we will have to agree to disagree on peer assessment. I believe it should be about 40% of a college's ranking. I mean as an economics and business student, I am a firm believer of the idea of supply and demand. If a college is TRULY deserving to be ranked highly, then it will be in high demand and lots more applicants will CHOOSE it over other universities. </p>

<p>However I have work to do and I'll just say we agree to disagree over what a University's ranking should be based upon. </p>

<p>PS: The mean score at UVA is definitely not 1330 and the avg gpa is definitely above 3.75. How do I know this? This was the exact stats at my friend's public high school at Oakton Virginia in Fairfax County. 21181 Vienna on Sutton Road. The links you've provided do not show that Umich and UVA are equal. In fact, they show UVA has a higher avg SAT score with max in the 700+s for 50% of apps. This you cannot deny from your own links.</p>

<p>Apart from agreeing to disagreeing about peer assessment vs acceptance rate and yield, our only thing to argue about now is selectivity and quality of undergraduate student body.</p>

<p>This I will prove to you in the subsequent post.</p>

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<p><a href="http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/fallapp.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://students.berkeley.edu/admissions/fallapp.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>As you can see, Berkeley (top 20) deserves to be top 15 or top 10 much more than Umich.
(28%) (21.5%) --First is % for CA, 2nd for non CA acceptance rate</p>

<p>Average SAT I scores (middle 50%) Verbal: 590-710
Math: 630-740
The mid 50% has high in the 710 and 740's, much higher than Umich's avg high in the middle 50%.</p>

<p>"Average unweighted GPA 3.82"</p>

<p>I will agree that Umich/UVA/Cal are all pretty equal except that it is easier to get into Umich undergrad than these two schools. That is one thing you cannot deny and that is what we are disagreeing on. I believe selectiviy and acceptance rates determine a college as much as you think peer assessment does.</p>

<p>I guess that's all there is really left to say. Thanks for the argument though as it made me actually look up links for once and tempted me to spend 15 bucks. (Did you like how I guessed your alma mater 2 posts before you confirmed it? :) )</p>

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<p>You are wrong, as usual. I have already posted this so I am only repeating myself. </p>

<p>UVA (according to the official UVA website):
Mid 50% SAT Verbal: 600-710
Mid 50% SAT Math: 620-720
Mid 50% SAT: 1220-1430
Mid 50% ACT: 25-30
Top 10% class rank: 87%
Mean unweighed GPA: N/A</p>

<p><a href="http://www.virginia.edu/stats&facts/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.virginia.edu/stats&facts/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Michigan (accordong to the official UM website):
Mid 50% SAT Verbal: 590-690
Mid 50% SAT math: 630-730
Mid 50% SAT: 1240-1400
Mid 50% ACT: 26-31
Top 10% class rank: 90%
Mean unweighed GPA: 3.75</p>

<p><a href="http://sitemaker.umich.edu/obpinfo/files/umaa_freshprof.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://sitemaker.umich.edu/obpinfo/files/umaa_freshprof.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Cal (according to you):
Mid 50% SAT verbal: 590-710
Mid 50% SAT Math: 630-740
Mid 50% SAT: 1200-1450
Top 10% class rank: 98%
Mean unweighed GPA: 3.82</p>

<p>I agree that it is easier to get into Michigan than it is to get into Cal or UVA, but the quality at those three schools is identical, as the factual numbers above clearly show. But I repeat, Michigan, Cal and UVA are bound to certain standards that private schools aren't. They cannot pick and chose tyhe highest SAT sections...only the highest SAT combined score in one sitting. As such, they suffer a slight disadvantage of 40 points or so. I personally think that a difference of 100, let alone 40, is meaningless, but you seem to think otherwise.</p>

<p>I also find your demand and supply analogy quite interesting if not amuzing. I majored in Economics myself you know. Of course, according to basic economic theory, all decisions are based on the assumption that people are rational and have perfect access to accurate information. Well, at least according to the laws of perfect competition. But I think we can both agree that 17 year old high school students aren't highly rational and don't have access to much information. Afterall, if they did, the University of Chicago would have a yield rate well above its current 35%.</p>

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<p>Your are right Accepted... The average UVa SAT is not 1330--it is 1320 according to UVa's own Data Digest.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/data_catalog/institutional/data_digest/adm_total.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.web.virginia.edu/iaas/data_catalog/institutional/data_digest/adm_total.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>