OT: Unfair knock on Michigan academics...
http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/rise/football/news/story?id=3880326
Stanford recruit Shayne Skov on why he chose the Cardinal over football powerhouses...
"Schools like Michigan and Penn State, the way I look at it, when you graduate, unless you're one of that select percent and going on to NFL, you're just like any another graduate,"
Skov sees Stanford as a striking opportunity to set himself up for life with an education from a school that has produced 18 Nobel Prize laureates and four Pulitzer Prize winners. He said he also considered Notre Dame (No. 18 **in US News rankings), Virginia (No. 23) and USC (No. 27), among other schools.
But he mentions Michigan (No. 26 -- in the flawed US News rankings where Michigan gets screwed in their metrics for being a large public university) as an example of a football school with bad academics? I don't want to blather about how awesome a school Michigan is, especially on signing day...but really? Can't help but think this smells of Harbaugh's doing...
For the record Stanford and Michigan are even with 7 graduates who have are Nobel Laureates, Stanford has more graduate and research attendees for obvious reasons. I won't get into other metrics where we are elite and are pretty much second to Stanford in terms of D1 schools. I'm just miffed he had to cite Michigan, the D1 school with arguably the second best academics as an example.
Whatever, its signing day...lets go get our snake oil on!
February 4th, 2009 at 12:34 PM ^
Sigh. Virginia is also a large public university. So is UCLA, so is UNC. So is Cal. Michigan is about the 26th overall school because it's LSA program is not highly rated. That and it's admissions standards are well below Stanford, Duke, and other Top 15 universities.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:47 PM ^
you're right - but I think UVA, Cal and Michigan get really screwed for that reason, and others to a lesser degree.
The admissions standard for Michigan is 50% most public colleges are at like 35% and everyone else is like 20-something. I know that is a huge factor in their equation.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:54 PM ^
No, on average those schools are worse. It's just a fact. When your average SAT is 1450+ vs 1250, regardless of how you feel about standardized tests, we're talking about a different caliber of student here.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:37 PM ^
Actually, our "academic reputation score" (or whatever it's called now) ranks in the teens. Our biggest "problem" in the rankings is our alumni giving rate, which, like that of most public universities, isn't very high (not in the top 100). That, more than any other factor, drags us down quite a bit. Conversely, Notre Dame's academic score isn't great, but it usually ranks #1 in the country in alumni giving, which allows it to sneak into the top 20.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:38 PM ^
Because the average LSA grad makes substantially less with a UM degree than with a Ivy Degree. Thanks for playing.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:45 PM ^
That is a one hell of a leap in reasoning you're making there. There are any number of reasons why public universities don't get as much in donations as private ones. The most-cited one is that since they get taxpayer money, a lot of people don't feel like giving "twice".
February 4th, 2009 at 3:47 PM ^
That makes no sense in terms of Alumni giving. Only a very small portion of your taxes go to the school you went too, and in addition, people that went to private schools pay the same taxes.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:51 PM ^
Whether we actually pay a lot or a little, the perception is that the schools are getting a lot from the state, so that donating on top of that is a waste of time and money. This is consistently the most-cited reason why alumni of public schools in general (not just U-M) don't give at a high rate. Of the forty schools with the highest giving rates (per U.S. News), NONE is public. Are you going to argue that no public university in the country produces highly-paid graduates? (Some of the schools in that top 40 are small liberal arts schools, not necessarily big names.)
February 4th, 2009 at 3:54 PM ^
The average public school tuition is like $10k a year. The average private school tuition is like $30k a year. I think it has much more to do with the people that can afford private school than what they pay in taxes.
February 5th, 2009 at 12:36 AM ^
The USNews ranking system is biased against public schools; that's not a new idea.
Look at their ranking methodology:
http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/best-colleges/2008/08/21/how-w…
As college football fans, we all know about the problems with rankings. That being said, the quality of education at Michigan is definitely what you make of it.
February 5th, 2009 at 9:59 AM ^
It's not biased against public schools just because public schools don't excel in the rankings. No rankings can be unbiased be removing areas places don't excel at, because then all you have is a mass of everyone ranked the same. Then they wouldn't be rankings. Everyone's not a winner.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:36 PM ^
... sometimes these kids just echo the selling points that are used by the coaches that recruit them. It's no secret Harbaugh has thrown his alma mater under the bus wrt academics.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:37 PM ^
He's right, a Michigan degree is worthless for most football players.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:38 PM ^
The Michigan of the (far) West. (had to do it.)
February 4th, 2009 at 12:41 PM ^
I love Michigan, love my degree and think it's a top notch school... but this idea that it's one of the best in the nation really needs to die. It's very high on the list, maybe top 25... but the LSA program is seriously not up to par.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:41 PM ^
Stanford is a significantly better academic institution than Michigan. They also graduate over 95% of their football and basketball players (Michigan is around 65%). If he wasn't a football player, it would be a better choice purely from an academic standpoint, and, as a football player, it is a better school from an academic standpoint.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:49 PM ^
i completely agree with you and Brodie who posted before you. I never said that Michigan should be compared with the likes of Stanford. My point was why this recruit had to cite us as an example rather than like LSU
February 4th, 2009 at 12:54 PM ^
I think the OP's point wasn't that Stanford isn't a better school than Michigan. No one with a brain would claim that. The point is Skov saying that somehow Michigan is worse than a Notre Dame, USC, or Virginia, because that's just plain false. And one only needs to look at the number of Michigan players who have found success after school besides those going into the NFL. You really aren't "just another graduate" at Michigan when you played football.
And I say this as someone who didn't go to Michigan for undergrad, so the value of my Michigan degree doesn't really have anything to do with what people think of the undergrad programs. Skov is just plain wrong.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:48 PM ^
University of Michigan is in the top 25 in almost every category as a University from Academics to Sports. We are very well diversity, IMO. There are not many schools that can say that.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:50 PM ^
24 others?
And forcing diversity through an affirmative action program that you maintain after the state that funds you bans it... not really something to brag about.
February 4th, 2009 at 12:51 PM ^
to quote my reply to an earlier reply,
"i completely agree with you and Brodie who posted before you. I never said that Michigan should be compared with the likes of Stanford. My point was why this recruit had to cite us as an example rather than like LSU"
February 4th, 2009 at 1:04 PM ^
You completely missed what he meant by diverse. Diversity here was not in reference to the number of students of under-represented race, but in reference to how we are diverse in terms of academics and sports. Michigan is an academically sound public university with quality sports programs, and there are few others that can say that.
edit: on a completely related note, as a half-black student at the University, it's really not that diverse. I'd say over 80% of the students here are white.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:05 PM ^
Unless you're on North Campus, where 50% are Asian.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:17 PM ^
The irony of this is that I'm making my post from a CAEN lab, where a good 50% of the people in here are of some brand of Asian/Middle Eastern descent. I had to base my broad generalizations on my memories of Central Campus (being a CS major, I haven't been down there lately for class!).
February 4th, 2009 at 12:57 PM ^
Harbaugh seems to be continuing to burn the bridge he already ignited with his earlier comments about UM.
I always thought he would want to go back to Ann Arbor someday. Apparently, somebody there profoundly offended him.
What's really funny is that his original comments were that he wasn't allowed to major in what he wanted to, but he has chosen coaching for a profession.
Harbaugh currently makes more money as a coach with his UM degree than he would with the average degree from Stanford, but he still whines about UM.
What a spiteful asshole.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:15 PM ^
What, exactly, did Harbaugh do now? I see no proof that Harbaugh did ANYTHING wrong or that he even said anything negative about Michigan to any of his '09 recruits.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:17 PM ^
1. Come on, how much of his salary does he owe to his Michigan degree? $.50? He has the job because he was a famous football player who got a job at a tiny school, succeeded, and moved up. That's on him, not his fucking degree.
2. Harbaugh is not quoted in that article once. The only mention is that Skov thinks Harbaugh is an up-and-comer.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:21 PM ^
Exactly, but, unfortunately, it doesn't stop some people from making up shit about Harbaugh and trashing his character.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:00 PM ^
Stanford is obviously a much better academic institution than Michigan. However, when adding football into the equation Michigan is probably the best balance of a strong football program as well as having a great academic program
February 4th, 2009 at 1:21 PM ^
That would be true if Michigan's football players actually participated in the same academic program as the general student population. They don't. The vast majority get Bachelor's of General Studies and are carefully guided through the least rigorous classes. As a friend of a former scholarship football player from Stanford, I can assure you, they don't do that.
Also, Stanford has, bar none, the most successful Athletic Department in the Country. They've won the Chairman's award around 75 billion times.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:41 PM ^
Actually, the large majority are in Kinesiology. Generally, only the better students coming in get admitted to LSA. BGS is not the blow-off you make it sound like. The main advantage is that there is no foreign language requirement and that (and this can be crucial for athletes) there is more flexibility in scheduling classes. When you have 20 hours a week of practice, that can require you to be creative in your scheduling.
February 4th, 2009 at 4:00 PM ^
BGS isn't neccesarily "easy", but it can easily be made so.
February 5th, 2009 at 12:09 AM ^
I was a BGS and albeit I declared really late, but believe me, my curriculum was NOT easy.
But interesting this topic came up... I came across this NYTimes article recently. It questions academics at Michigan.
http://thequad.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/14/academics-questioned-at-mic…
February 4th, 2009 at 4:01 PM ^
Stanford football players find the easiest majors and classes all on their own.
What was the name of that Stanford major that is, in essence, their own version of General Studies? I'm too lazy to look it up, but Stanford's program was discussed in this forum not too long ago.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:01 PM ^
UM was second only to Cal w.r.t. public universities in the ratings. That's about as high as we'll ever get unless we "go private."
However, I'm not sure I get it when some of these football players pick one school over another when both schools are in the top 30 schools in the nation. The fundamentals that score Stanford higher than UM are pretty slight when you're talking about the top 25-30 schools in the nation. These differences might make a difference to someone on an academic scholarship, but not so much for the average athlete. It's like a type II skiier getting worked up about the small differences between two models of racing ski... for his level of skill, either one is going to put him on his ass.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:18 PM ^
Behind Berkley, UVA, UCLA, and tied with UNC.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:39 PM ^
We've certainly slipped in the last couple of years. Cal I can deal with. UVA and UCLA is hard to accept; especially UCLA. How can California have TWO state schools above us?
February 4th, 2009 at 1:42 PM ^
3 times the people in the state?
February 4th, 2009 at 1:58 PM ^
That might explain quantity of schools, but not quality. Otherwise, Ohio would have better schools than just about any state in New England.
February 4th, 2009 at 5:54 PM ^
California is much wealthier and more progressive than Ohio. And there are 36 million people here. New England is different because of how old the universities are there, but few of them are big. If you think of California as 2 different states (north and south) as many of us do, it's pretty proportional. Norcal has a great private and a great public, as does SoCal. It makes sense.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:55 PM ^
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/national-search/p…
We are a few spots ahead of UNC, and one spot behind UCLA and one spot ahead of USC. That still amazes me that the state of California has so many top schools.
February 4th, 2009 at 6:58 PM ^
USC is a private school.
How meaningful are the US and World News rankings anyway? I remember when I was looking at schools I was told to ignore them, because there is a lot of weird stuff in the formula for them. Anyone know if that's a widely held opinion among experts?
February 4th, 2009 at 7:05 PM ^
It is the most widely recognized ranking of colleges, but that doesn't necessarily mean a lot of people care what a college is ranked, only that if you do, you probably prefer this list.
A faculty member at Michigan is one of the members of the board that does the selection for the US News rankings, and he said he is the only member representing a public school, and that the criteria in place make it difficult for a public school to be ranked highly. One criterion he mentioned was the alumni giving rate, which looked at what percentage of alumni donate. Whereas Michigan has an alum who gave 100 million (Ross) the list would rather see 100,000 alums give a thousand each. Even though the result is the same.
Some publication in London ranks the top Universities in the world, and UM is something like 18th. On Earth.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:42 PM ^
I was at UM from 1996 - 2000. When I applied, Michigan was about 5 to 6 spots below UVA and a little ahead of Cal. When I graduated, UM was 10 spots below UVA, and tied with Cal.
February 4th, 2009 at 2:33 PM ^
I'm not bent out of shape by Skov's comments; he also mentioned Penn State. If others across the country want to draw the silly inference that Michigan is a substandard institution, that's their problem. There's no doubt that Stanford is a tremendous institution, and Skov will get a fantastic education there. It's also a private institution, so for an apples-to-apples comparison, US News & World Report ranks the public universities. Cal is #1, UVA is #2, UCLA is #3, and we're in the 4 spot. They assign points to the schools, and one point each separates UM, UVA, and UCLA. Hardly a huge difference, IMHO.
Heck, I've got two degrees from UM, and if a kid of mine was accepted to Stanford I'd encourage it if I thought it was the right fit. That being said, the notion that a football player can't get a great education at Michigan or Michigan State or Florida State is silly. It's up to the individual first and foremost, and is also greatly influenced by the athletic department's goals and standards. I'm under no illusion about the UM athletic dept's policies on accepting and shepherding some players through UM; anyone who thinks that a certain percentage of kids aren't in UM literally only because how well they play ball or hockey or run track is naive.
Back when I was in school I had the occasional athlete in a class that didn't seem too interested, but I also had fellow students in UM's architecture school back in the '70s who were damn smart and hardworking guys.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:56 PM ^
i guess i didn't make this clear, because guys like chitown blue continue misinterpret me, but the point of my post was frustration NOT that Skov thinks Stanford is better than Michigan (which they are) or that ESPN thinks UVA, ND, etc are better (disagree but obviously debatable) but with the fact that he mentioned Michigan as an example of a worthless degree for football players rather than say, ALMOST every other school in the country(like why couldn't he have said Oklahoma or Florida State)?
lets not get into this debate whether football players get held to a different standard here. it's obvious they do. and of course stanford does holds that double standard to a much lesser degree than Michigan. debating academics of a school is OF COURSE meaningless when it comes to football players. It's that the perceived reputation of their degrees differ depending on the school.
February 4th, 2009 at 1:59 PM ^
most of us GOT the point of the original post.
I can't say I was surprised to see who responded to it, and where the thread went.
Also, I'm sure it was coincidence that he mentioned Michigan.
...
February 4th, 2009 at 2:01 PM ^
I got your post, I just took issue with the large public school being what keeps Michigan down.
February 4th, 2009 at 2:36 PM ^
My point is that you can't HAVE the debate without mentioning that U of M football players, the 60% who graduate, DO get largely useless degrees. What he said is, basically, true. I guess that's what I mean. Are there schools that are even more embarassing? Yes. With that, I agree.
February 4th, 2009 at 6:30 PM ^
Isn't that on the players themselves as well though? I mean, if a player wants to get a real degree, they can give it a shot. Or make themselves a real general studies interdisciplinary program. I realize it's probably tough to do some of the majors due to the football time commitment, but it's possible.
The problem is that in some of the majors, especially in engineering, most of the football players just aren't of the same intellectual caliber as the rest of those in the major, and I'm sure the academic advisors are well aware of it, so they get steered away from those into something where they at least have a chance of succeeding. And for these guys who just qualify under Big Ten standards and wouldn't get into the university otherwise, it's a pretty limited set.
And anyone from Stanford, Northwestern or Notre Dame that tries to tell you that they don't let in players that are well below the caliber of the general student population at large is a liar. They wouldn't be able to compete if their players had to even come close to the academic standards of those schools. And, yep, those players by and large end up in an easy major at those schools too.
And that easy degree from Stanford or Michigan is still worth plenty compared to many of the football schools.