<p>Which one is more prestigious and well known around the US?</p>
<p>Prestige is in the eye of the beholder; certainly Michigan is more well-known. It’s got a hugely popular football team and an enormous alumni base. </p>
<p>My questions to you are: are you in-state for either? They’re both among the most costly schools for OOS students. (Worth it if you don’t take on considerable debt, but costly.) And what do you want to do, and where do you want to work? My kids were OOS at W&M and had quick success finding work in the DC area because the school is so highly esteemed there. But anyone who could hire you in DC almost certainly knows that U-M is also a great school.</p>
<p>They are both prestigious and well known enough to impress people familiar with US colleges.
In many cases, the best choice is Michigan if you live in Michigan, W&M if you live in Virginia, and some other college if you live anywhere else and need financial aid. </p>
<p>^exactly what TK said:
In addition, the atmosphere is rather different. W&/ is smaller, more personal, not at all about big spectator sports, and very intellectual, in a historical town. UM is huge, really into football and sports rivalry, smart&driven but not necessarily “intellectual”. Two totally different schools. Both would cost you about $50,000 a year OOS and the only financial aid you could hope for would be $5,500 in federal loans (subsidized plus unsubsidized.)
Have you been admitted to both or are you just asking because you’re a junior considering either?</p>
<p>I am OOS UMich and In state W&M, which one is easier to get into for me (I have not been admitted)? I don’t have a concern with money, and which one is better for job recruiting in the NE? Thanks! </p>
<p>You may not have a concern with money, but your parents might. And as a parent, I would have a hard time accepting my kid attending Michigan OOS vs. W&M (or UVA) in-state, and I say that as someone who will be paying the full-ride for my kid to a Top 20 LAC. The difference between UM and W&M isn’t so great that the cost difference can be justified in most cases. She also got a merit offer from a few good schools that I don’t regret turning down, but if they had been a little bigger, it might have made a difference.</p>
<p>I agree that I’d have a hard time accepting Michigan OOS for W&M in-state. The quality difference between the two just isn’t large enough to justify the cost difference imo. (FWIW, Michigan’s ranked as the 4th best public school in the country by US News; W&M is ranked 6th.) Your two best options are W&M and (if you can get accepted into it) UVA.</p>
<p>Just to clarify, there are a few cases where UM would be worth the price - if you wanted to be an automotive engineer, for instance, but for most programs, save your money and apply it to a good grad school or downpayment on a house.</p>
<p>William and Mary is listed as the number one public school in the country for undergraduate teaching (2nd or 3rd overall). I believe academically, WM is better than UM (except for engineering), and the small class sizes at WM and internship opportunities are incredible. There are also a large number of WM alums in the northeast. If you’re into sports, WM is somewhat polarized. There are a good number of students that live and breath sports, that paint up and lose their voices at every football and basketball game, then there are some that don’t really care about sports and will maybe come to the homecoming football game.</p>
<p>" I believe academically, WM is better than UM (except for engineering)"</p>
<p>I believe academically Michigan is better than W&M in virtually every comparable discipline. </p>
<p>yeah, I was kinda waiting for you to jump in here, rjkofnovi. I have to agree with you. W&M is small potatoes. UMich is big time. Still, no school is worth the difference in costs btw the two. I have no horse in this race.</p>
<p>The two schools have extremely different cultures. William and Mary is an excellent choice for the more serious student who may want to avoid a focus on sports. Has an excellent reputation and I have always felt it is significantly under-rated. I have little experience with University of Michigan but am aware of the reputation of it’s engineering school and it’s football scene.</p>
<p>If you’re into big schools with large classes and big sports then UMich is for you. You’ll start out with giant lecture hall classes and then move into your small classes (similar to VA tech) there’s nothing wrong with that many do well in that system. William and Mary isn’t “small potatoes” just ask Robert Gates or the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission. Michigan is an incredible school, honestly if you’re more into the sciences, Michigan (or UVA or VT since you’re in VA), are probably better choices, but if you’re a social science person, then W&M is the way to go, you have small classes all four years and professors are highly involved in students’ academic lives. The sports are more polarized at WM however, either you’re a die hard that goes to every football and basketball game, or you maybe go to one or two games a year. </p>
<p>The schools are two different personalities, it’s like saying “who is better Harvard or Williams?” they’re both great. </p>
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<p>If you are referring to faculty research production, this is surely true.
If you’re referring to the quality of undergraduate programs, I’d say the jury is out, but the available evidence favors W&M.</p>
<p>W&M has smaller classes and higher 4y graduation rates. It has higher PhD production rates adjusted for program sizes in the 4 disciplines I’ve checked (English, history, psych and biology) against NSF data using my own calculations (“trust but verify”). US News ranks W&M 3rd for quality of undergraduate teaching; it ranks Michigan 12th. I don’t have much confidence in this measurement, but there it is. For student selectivity, they are very close.</p>
<p>“William and Mary is an excellent choice for the more serious student who may want to avoid a focus on sports.”
Good gracious. UM has a few serious students and has produced:
26 Rhodes Scholars
7 Nobel Prize Winners
17 MacArthur Foundation Winners
18 Pulitzer Prize Winners
More than 250 congressman and a President
Many, many prominant CEOs
etc.</p>
<p>You don’t have to focus on sports in anyway at UM if so are not inclined. You’ll find many many with your same interests. But, most great students also take great pride in the school spirit.</p>
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Surprising for a school a quarter the size of Michigan. </p>
<p>Michigan offers engineering. W&M does not. Engineering majors, who make up about 1/4 of the undergraduate study body, almost always require an additional semester to graduate. I would expect the six year graduation rates to be nearly identical. </p>
<p>Choosing between Michigan and William & Mary is easy…assuming cost of attendance is not an issue. That’s not because one is “better” than the other, or “more prestigious” than the other, but because they are significantly different. Again, what makes them different has nothing to do with how “intellectual” the students are, or how gung ho they are about sports. W&M students are not more “intellectual” than Michigan students, if such a criterion could even be measured. Neither one of those schools can match Chicago’s or Columbia’s intensity in this regard, but both hold their own. It isn’t even statistical. Teaching quality, class size, graduation rates and selectivity between those two universities do not vary sufficiently from each other to be determining criteria. Both universities are recognized for teaching quality, they have identical graduation rates (91%) and their entering Freshmen classes are virtually indistinguishable. </p>
<p>What makes them different is their academic philosophy and campus culture. Michigan is a large research university, similar to Cal, Cornell, Northwestern, Penn, Texas-Austin, UCLA, UIUC and Wisconsin-Madison. W&M has more in common with quasi-LACs, like Boston College, Emory, Georgetown, Tufts, Vanderbilt etc…Michigan/Ann Arbor is liberal, W&M/Williamsburg is more center-left. If there are any doubts before visiting the two schools, there shouldn’t be any after visiting. In all cases, visiting a campus before choosing to attend is a must. Not doing so could lead to a very costly mistake.</p>
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<p>Not by enough to justify spending double on one of them, anyway.</p>
<p>However, note that over 18% of Michigan’s classes have 50 or more students, compared to less than 9% at W&M (source: US News). If you truly don’t care about cost, I would think this is one way in which they are significantly different. Michigan is big; W&M is relatively small. Michigan is a research powerhouse; W&M is more undergraduate-focused. Each has pros and cons. If you do care about class sizes and the amount of student-faculty engagement, you can try to find enrollment numbers in the online course listings for the kinds of courses you care about. It may be the case that most of Michigan’s big classes are concentrated in pre-med courses you won’t take or in intro courses you’d skip. Or it may be the case that at Michigan more than at W&M, most of your first two years will be spent in very large lecture classes supplemented by TA-led discussion sections. The up-side to a bigger school is that you’ll get more courses to choose from. Michigan also will have a bigger alumni presence in many cities and job sectors. Not everyone works in a field where that matters, but to a few posters the “alumni network” seems to be a fairly big deal. </p>
<p>Aren’t you tired of telling other people OOS rate is not-worth-it even for very prestigious schools with superb academic offerings like Michigan, W&M, UVa and the like? So, attending UMich or UVa as an OOS is ridiculous whilst attending Emory, Vanderbilt, Rice and the like as an OOS - for the same rate - is not? Really? </p>