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<p>Seems slightly inconsistent…</p>
<p>“That may be your experience at tOSU, but I don’t think bclintonk experienced that at UMich.”</p>
<p>Ouch! I almost forgot why hawkette dislikes Michigan so much. She thinks it’s no better than her alma mater, the University of Ohio State!</p>
<p>One of my Wisconsin history profs called his time teaching at TOSU his time in the desert.</p>
<p>ucb/rjk,
You may not be aware, but there are very few highly selective colleges where an unhooked student does not need BOTH a strong transcript/GPA and high standardized test scores. Certainly none of the USWNR Top 20. Furthermore, as the only standardized number that we have available to us in judging student quality, the standardized test score, with its high correlation to students with strong transcripts/GPAs, is our best clue to student quality. </p>
<p>As for the jabs about The Ohio State University and the quality of its student body compared to U Michigan, let’s compare and put it in context on a national basis. How strong is the student body at Ohio State and U Michigan and some of the nation’s top privates? </p>
<p>If you measure by standardized test scores and what they portend (see above), you’ll discover that the difference between Ohio State and U Michigan is the same as the difference between U Michigan and schools that Alex/rjk would love to consider as peers, eg, a top private like Duke or Brown or Vanderbilt. </p>
<p>SAT CR 25/75</p>
<p>540-650 Ohio State
590-690 U Michigan
660-750 Duke
650-760 Brown
660-750 Vanderbilt</p>
<p>SAT Math 25/75</p>
<p>580-690 Ohio State
640-740 U Michigan
680-780 Duke
670-780 Brown
690-770 Vanderbilt</p>
<p>SAT Writing 25/75</p>
<p>540-640 Ohio State
600-700 U Michigan
660-760 Duke
660-770 Brown
660-750 Vanderbilt</p>
<p>ACT 25/75</p>
<p>25-30 Ohio State
27-31 U Michigan
30-34 Duke
28-33 Brown
30-34 Vanderbilt</p>
<p>Ohio State’s level is as close to U Michigan as U Michigan is to Duke and Brown and Vanderbilt. I’ll let the reader judge if the respective student bodies can be considered as peers, but IMO it’s pretty clear that they are not. </p>
<p>Plus, my guess is that the dunderhead factor carries thru as you progress thru the different levels of selective colleges. </p>
<p>barrons,
Oh, the faculty isn’t that bad at tOSU…:rolleyes:</p>
<p>
Sure does…even into adulthood and very prevalent on internet message boards.</p>
<p>I’m feeling nice today so I’ll throw Hawkette a little treat–I think TOSU has improved the quality of the UG student body as much as anyone over the last 20-30 years. It has gone from open admissions to very selective. I’m sure this has impacted the quality in the classrooms too.</p>
<p>Now if she would just admit that Michigan is the superior university and stop trying to bring it down the the level of UOS…</p>
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</p>
<p>Oh, no? The students in Michigan honors have every bit the academic qualifications as students at the Ivies (MINIMUM 1400 SAT CR+M and 3.8 UW GPA, or roughly equivalent to the top 3/4 of the entering class at Harvard). As for the quality of the “critical discourse,” it was every bit as high in my honors philosophy classes at Michigan and in the graduate-level courses I took there as a junior and senior as it was later when I was a graduate student in that same field at a prominent Ivy (I won’t say which one but let’s just say it was at the HYP level). Heck, I taught HYP-level undergrads. As did a number of my peers who came out of Michigan philosophy and attended Ivy league grad schools. Methinks ye know not of what ye speak.</p>
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<p>I actually agree with you, hawkette. And that describes to a “T” my experience at Michigan, studying philosophy as an undergrad. Excellent students? Check. Small class sizes? Check. Knowledgeable professors who are effective at communicating/leading students? Check—AT LEAST as good as those at the HYP-level Ivy where I went to grad school.</p>
<p>"The students who study philosophy at the Ivies/Duke/Stanford/MIT are academic all-stars by the way who are very intellectual. "</p>
<p>Love how the Dukie loves to throw his school in with HYPSM. Not with a PA score of only 4.4</p>
<p>Barrons,
Thanks for the treat. Very tasty! </p>
<p>Rjk,
U Michigan is a fine place. Never said otherwise. However, I think there are several dozen places that are superior destinations for undergrads. Sorry if you can’t accept that. </p>
<p>Btw, LDB’s comment on Duke was about student quality, not reputation within academia.</p>
<p>Bc,
A fair reading of my posts would reveal that I concur that there is a segment of students at all of the top publics, including U Michigan, that would be statistically competitive with those in attendance at most of the top privates, including those referenced above (Duke, Brown, Vanderbilt). The selectivity data comparisons that I regularly make deal with a school’s entire student body and thus the clear conclusion that U Michigan’s student body rightfully belongs much farther down the list. </p>
<p>On class sizes, many top publics like U Michigan have Honors programs which give the student a more intimate experience than is regularly available to undergraduate students. I like these programs. I wish that there were more of them. </p>
<p>As for the quality of your personal experience, it’s nice to hear that it went so well for you. I don’t know how long ago that was or how relevant it is to today, but glad you were happy. </p>
<p>Finally, pleased to know that we agree on the major criteria that I often refer as most determinative for the undergraduate learning experience, ie, </p>
<ol>
<li>Excellent students</li>
<li>Small class size</li>
<li>Knowledgeable professor who is effective at communicating/leading students</li>
</ol>
<p>I’ve been posting this since 2006. If anything, my conviction has strengthened over the past 4+ years that these factors, along with the institution’s resources & willingness to use them on undergrads, are the keys in judging and comparing the various learning environments that an undergraduate student will potentially enter.</p>
<p>
Where did I lump in Duke with HYPSM? The “Ivies” designation I used include schools like Dartmouth and Brown which have lower PA scores than Duke. I was talking about the quality of the student body anyhow, where Duke compares favorably to HYPSM and Stanford in particular. </p>
<p>Does UMich not stress critical reading skills in its liberal arts curriculum offerings?</p>
<p>I think Hawkette is spot on with her analysis by the way.</p>
<p>
University of Michigan is overrated, especially on college confidential, it may only be before long that many learn as your compared the two schools above that Ohio State University is a much better school than University of Michigan.</p>
<p>^^ Coolbreeze, as others have stated previously, I am sick and tired of your bias against Michigan because the school rejected you. Many people receive bad news and rejections in life; get over it and move on. There’s no need to constantly criticize the university when several months ago you ventured the Michigan forum regularly. Your behavior is childish and disgusting.</p>
<p>In all fairness tenisghs, coolbrezze was not too fond of Michigan, even before they rejected him. He did grow up in Lansing afterall! hehe!</p>
<p>
Jeez… I am simply posting information in reply to others. If I can not post my personal views or back up facts about University of Michigan on cc because of my history with the school than that is simply childish and disgusting on your part. So simply, tenisghs you should be more calm when reading my post or simply do not read it at all. To attack my comments is just negative on your part. This is cc, and cc is where we deliver information on universities whether it’s our personal view or not.</p>
<p>^^ In every single thread, if anyone mentions Michigan, he never has anything positive to say. At least most Spartans are not crazy like Coolbreeze – they show respect where it’s due! ;)</p>
<p>Coolbreeze – It’s one thing to convey your opinions; it’s another to deliberately isolate and criticize one school because it rejected you. Your information is hardly factual.</p>
<p>Hawkette, in your SAT/ACT comparisons, did you:</p>
<p>1) Adjust for superscoring (you should add 20-30 points per section to schools that do not superscore if you haven’t)</p>
<p>2) Check if the school leaves out a chunk of ACTs from students who submited SATs? Those schools are not providing accurate figures and should be left out when comparing ACT ranges and avergaes. I am fairly certain that Brown and Cornell are straight forward and include all ACT results submitted in their calculation, but most private universities do not.</p>
<p>3) Include students enrolled outside the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Business and Engineering? If you did, you would have included a sizeable chunk of students that, despite truly enriching the Michigan community, do not exist at most top 20 private universities. Those students do not have academic credentials that match students enrolled in the colleges of LSA, Business and Engineering but they are enrolled in separate colleges (Nursing, Kinesiology etc…) and do not usually take classes in the colleges of Business, Engineering or LSA).</p>
<p>If you haven’t adjusted for the above, your comparison isn’t really fair or valid. If you did, there is something wrong with your calculation. Michigan’s mean SAT, when adjusted for the three points above, is roughly 0-70 points (out of 1600) lower than those at top 20 private universities, not including HYPM and Caltech. I said it before and I will say it again, the top 50%-75% of Michigan’s undergraduate student body is similar in academic ability to the top 75% of the student body at non-HYPM and Caltech top 20 private universities. The difference in student bodies is negligible. </p>
<p>Furthermore, once you get past intro-level courses (students usually only take a half dozen such courses throughout their college years), there is no noticeable difference in class size (or the use of TAs) between schools like Cal, Michigan and UVa and most top 20 private universities. </p>
<p>Again, unless you actually audited the classes that those private universities listed and how they listed them, your comparison will be incomplete. I randomly looked at the Economics courses offered at a certainly Southern private university that you admire a great deal. In the fall, one of their faculty members will be leading 2 Macroeconomics leactures and 1 Microeconomic section. Another professor will be leading 3 Statistics for Economics lectures. I noticed that sort of practice taking place at another elite prive university, where one faculty member is responsible for two lecture sections for the same course. I saw that happening at least twice in the same semester at that particular private university. In fact, there was a professor who was responsible for four lectures. That never happens at Michigan. One faculty will only teach one lecture. Tell me Hawkette, is it fair to compare “class size” under those conditions? The classes certainly seem smaller at that Southern private university and at the other private elite, but the professor is responsible for as many students. </p>
<p>While in college, I personally compared notes with several friends who were fellow Econ majors at Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Northwestern and Stanford and class sizes for similar courses were virtually the same. We all placed out of intro Econ courses, so we did not compare 100 level courses, but in all other ways, class sizes were comparable. Many of the classes I took in less popular majors (such as Anthropology, Chemistry, Mathematics, Philosophy and Physics), were in fact tiny and taught by tenured faculty. </p>
<p>As for Ohio State, what makes them inferior to Michigan is not their student body, which as you point out, is virtually identical to Michigan’s. What separates OSU from Michigan is its weaker faculty (how many top 10 departments does OSU have? and top 20 departments?) and its lack of resources. This said, OSU is improving in leaps and bounds. At this rate, I think that in the next 10-15 years, it will be counted among the public elite.</p>
<p>Wow, I simply cannot believe that lesdia just said this about the students at one of the top institutions in the world…and the “honor” students at that:</p>
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<p>rjk, yep, classic lesdia</p>
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<p>hawkette, aren’t you forgetting something here that you have continuously mentioned in the last few months that is just as important?</p>
<p>aren’t you forgetting your strong arguments about the importance of having a great baseball team at the college?</p>
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