<p>And that’s precisely the point of contention - why not? What’s so bad about? What does it matter? If you want a truly top-ranked engineering program, you don’t have to go to Harvard or Yale. I think that’s rather simple advice. </p>
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<p>I don’t think anybody here is arguing that Harvard or Yale are great at everything, and in particular, that some schools are better at some things than are other schools. </p>
<p>As a case in point, Berkeley, MIT, and Michigan are better at undergraduate business than Stanford is. On the other hand, Stanford and Harvard are better at medicine than Berkeley is. All 4 of those schools are better than MIT when it comes to law school. Agreed?</p>
<p>Why not? Should Michigan not field any sports teams where they don’t dominate the polls and NCAA championships? It’s like they are using their football brand name to convince others that they are great at every sport, when in fact they are not. So what? Maybe they are just trying to offer a full range of sports - dominating where they can and seeking to improve where they are weaker (to the extent they can afford to). Does that mean that Michigan does not deserve to be called an “elite” sports school? Of course not.</p>
<p>It’s the same with HYPSM and academics. They dominate in field after field. The fact that you can point to one field where they don’t dominate doesn’t mean they aren’t elite institutions. It just means they’ve got one area where they can improve. Why is that such a cosmic issue for you?</p>
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<p>With the exception of in your mind, they are all considered elite everywhere. You have merely redefined elite to specifically exclude some of them. I suppose you can twist the definition of elite to include or exclude pretty much any school you care to choose, but that won’t change the reality of anything.</p>
<p>Michigan is not HYPSM. It is not considered a top elite. That is my point. Btw, currently Michigan is not one of the top 5 elite sports schools in this country. So that point rings hollow as well.</p>
<p>Regardless of Michigan’s current level of athletic prowess, the point stands because whichever schools <em>are</em> in the top 5 will also be weak at some sports. There is no school that dominates in all sports; there is no school that dominates in all academic fields.</p>
<p>There I disagree with you coureur. While there are no universities that teach all academic fields, there are some top schools that are elite in every discipline they have. Stanford, Berkeley, and Michigan are three I can think of off the top of my head. They don’t have ANY weak departments/schools. I’m more than certain there are other schools as well that are similar. That’s the crux of this whole thread since I hijacked it.</p>
This is admittedly somewhat true at the undergraduate level, but certainly not at the graduate level. The non-zero scores in the last NRC ranking:</p>
<p>1. MIT
2. Berkeley 3. Harvard
4. Princeton
5. Caltech 6. Stanford
7. Chicago 8. Yale
9. Cornell
10. UCSD
11. Columbia
12. Michigan</p>
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That’s a rather slippery slope. How do you determine if a department is elite? Celtic Studies at Berkeley, Folklore at UNC, Near Eastern Studies at Michigan, or Egyptology at Brown. None of those have either the largest or best department in those fields. Should they simply eliminate those programs?</p>
<p>Going by that thinking, schools like Northwestern, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, and Brown might as well shut down. After all, you got rid of most of their programs! :p</p>
<p>Going by that thinking, schools like Northwestern, Duke, Carnegie Mellon, and Brown might as well shut down. After all, you got rid of most of their programs!</p>
<p>Not shut down IB, just not be considered among the best of the best. My point is that no tippy top elite should have ANY weak college/school/program/majors in them. They don’t have to be top 10 or even 20, but they should be at least in the top 25. Otherwise, what makes them so elite academically in the first place? Btw, Berkeley, UNC, and Brown are also not considered HYPSM.</p>
<p>Michigan loses the cross-admit battles to each of HYPSM - a point that even a UM superfan such as Alexandre would surely admit. If you don’t like it, what can I say? Take it up with them. Ask all of the students who got into UM and Harvard and chose the latter why they did so.</p>
<p>Nobody is saying that UM is a bad school. It’s surely a top school by any reasonable measure. I support UM and have ties to it. But at the end of the day, most students who are at UM would rather be going elsewhere but couldn’t get in (or couldn’t afford it). </p>
<p>Like I said in the previous thread, departmental rankings, frankly, don’t really matter for most undergrads, for they’re not going to be researchers. They’re not going to spend much time interacting with the faculty. Most of their time will be spent interacting with other students, which is why student quality matters as much as it does.</p>
<p>MIT’s humanities programs - philosophy excepted - are not ranked in the top 25. Humanities are far more popular among the greater student population than is engineering. </p>
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<p>From an undergraduate standpoint, what makes them elite is that the top undergrads prefer to go to those schools. Yes, I understand that that is tautological, but such is the nature of an inherent sociological phenomenon like education, whose value is largely predicated on the quality of the students around you. Like I said, much - perhaps most - of the actual education of any college is actually derived from the other students.</p>
<p>But to make that claim you have to conveniently ignore the areas where Stanford, Berkeley, etc. aren’t so hot - as sakky and other have been pointing out to you (post #81):</p>
<p>“As a case in point, Berkeley, MIT, and Michigan are better at undergraduate business than Stanford is. On the other hand, Stanford and Harvard are better at medicine than Berkeley is. All 4 of those schools are better than MIT when it comes to law school. Agreed?”</p>
<p>It seems to me that the fact that HYPSM schools are more academically famous than Michigan is for some reason just eating you up inside. So you keep trashing those schools and redefining “elite” to fit your point of the moment in the hope of somehow changing the facts. But it’s not working. Tomorrow Michigan is still going to be a great school and HYPSM are still going to be more famous. Sorry.</p>
<p>sakky: Are you deliberately being obtuse? Let me state it again. Harvard is weak in engineering. It is a top five school, top one to many in this country. It should not have a weak engineering program. It gets a pass for having one, because it’s still considered a top five school no matter what. That’s all I’m saying. Furthermore:</p>
<p>“But at the end of the day, most students who are at UM would rather be going elsewhere but couldn’t get in (or couldn’t afford it).”</p>
<p>And you base this on what? That is a very arrogant and condescending statement.</p>
<p>It seems to me that the fact that HYPSM schools are more academically famous than Michigan is for some reason just eating you up inside. So you keep trashing those schools and redefining “elite” to fit your point of the moment in the hope of somehow changing the facts. But it’s not working. Tomorrow Michigan is still going to be a great school and HYPSM are still going to be more famous.</p>
<p>I have no problem with any of these schools being more famous or elite than Michigan. I do have a problem with some of them being given more credit than they should for being weak in certain areas.</p>
<p>“But to make that claim you have to conveniently ignore the areas where Stanford, Berkeley, etc. aren’t so hot - as sakky and other have been pointing out to you (post #81):”</p>
<p>How can any institution be weak in a program they don’t teach? This is getting very silly. Harvard has an engineering school. Harvard is not strong in engineering. Geez!</p>
<p>Is that an insult? Want to call in the moderators? Consider this your one and only warning. </p>
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<p>And what we are saying is that you don’t need to have a top ranking in every possible program to be a top school. </p>
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<p>I’m sorry if it hurts, but it’s true: Harvard beats UM (and, frankly, every other regular university) in cross-admits. Truth is truth, whether we like it or not.</p>
<p>Alexandre knows UM inside and out, and I’m quite sure he would agree. Ask him if you don’t believe it.</p>
<p>Look, I went to one of Harvard’s rivals for undergrad. Yet I’ll freely admit that most students there would rather have gone to Harvard but just didn’t get in. I don’t think that’s a particularly embarrasing admission. Let’s face it, whether we like it or not, Harvard is Harvard.</p>
<p>What do you mean? Of course an institution is weak in a program they don’t teach - simply by definition. You can’t be strong in a program you don’t even have. </p>
<p>Which again gets back to what I was saying before - why is not even having a program at all somehow better than having a program that isn’t as (relatively) strong? One would think that something is better than nothing, is it not? </p>
<p>I agree with you, this is getting very silly.</p>
<p>Exactly who’s giving them more credit than they should? I think everybody here is agreeing that Harvard’s engineering is relatively weak, compared to some of its other programs. </p>
<p>I’ve also noticed how you’ve repeatedly and conveniently made no mention whatsoever of MIT’s humanities programs, which MIT does offer. </p>
<p>If you have problems with what some other people that are not on CC may have said about Harvard and engineering, fine, take it up with them. Nobody here is arguing with you on the specific point that other schools have better engineering than Harvard does.</p>
<p>^^^That’s not what you stated earlier. You said most Michigan students would have preferred to go elsewhere. I totally disagree with that statement. MIT is the Massachussetts Institute of Technology. I wouldn’t expect them to be great in certain humanities. I see your point however. So I guess a few of the so called top elites get passes in certain areas. But since they get the very best students because everyone is spoon-fed from birth that these are the best schools in everything, they are still the top elites. Now I got it.</p>
<p>And they would have. They just didn’t get in, or perhaps couldn’t afford it. </p>
<p>Consider this thought exercise. Imagine I could take the entire UM entering class and offer each and every one of them admission to their choice of any one of HYPSM (and let’s also ignore cost for the time being). I’m quite certain that the vast majority would take it, and I’m sure Alexandre would agree. Be perfectly honest with yourself, and I think you would agree. </p>
<p>Nor do I find this to be particularly shameful. For example, most Berkeley students would rather be going to one of HYPSM. Heck, many YPSM students would rather be going to H. I don’t find that to be particularly controversial.</p>