M at #29 in latest University rankings
The latest U.S. News college rankings. Of note, Cal was the highest ranked public university at #22, OSU was 56, MSU 79. A bunch of California extension campuses were in the top 100, and something called the Colorado School of Mines made it too.
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/national-un…
August 17th, 2010 at 9:25 AM ^
Better than the Forbes list that was posted last week or so.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:01 AM ^
the Times Higher Education WORLD Rankings:
#19 University in the world
#2 Public University in the world
#13 University in the US
#1 Public University in the US
(These are for 2009. 2010 rankings have not yet been released.)
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/hybrid.asp?typeCode=438
Also, after while reading Ann Arbor's application for Google Fiber, I was pleased to learn that UM is the nations top research university and in the top 3 in the world in terms of funding.
http://www.a2fiber.com/ann-arbor-rfi-application
So, like I've said before, these rankings are more useless than recruiting rankings.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:27 AM ^
I think that Forbes list was derived from polled students and had something to do with their opinion of which colleges were the best deal in regards to tuition. This ranking is more based on the institution as a whole, which in my mind is more important.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:29 AM ^
Damn, fell 2 spots. I really don't think USC, Tufts, or WF are better than Michigan. When our acceptance rates fall because of the common app, we'll move up again.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:41 AM ^
It is so hard to compare schools like UM and Tufts. I actually went to Tufts for a year and then transfered to UM.
They are completely different in almost every aspect, it really comes down to personal preference.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:45 AM ^
Michigan's moving to the common application? This is the first I've heard of this.
Do you know how soon this goes into effect?
August 17th, 2010 at 12:54 PM ^
My brother is applying now on the common app. It's for this year.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:28 AM ^
How many magazines/publications rank universities? Seems like there is a new list every month.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:30 AM ^
Tons. US News is usually regarded as the best though.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:48 AM ^
i wouldn't say it is regarded as the best. it is the most commonly cited. their methodology is kind of bogus, however.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:38 AM ^
True, but it's methodology is way better than Forbes', Business Week, and everything else I've seen.
August 17th, 2010 at 6:27 PM ^
August 17th, 2010 at 9:29 AM ^
It's a very large and public university. Once you break down specific department ranks (business, engineering, etc) we dominate...Go Blue.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:30 AM ^
Colorado School of Mines is a very prestigious school for the energy sector.
Of note, UM is #3 for undergrad finance and #4 overall undergrad business.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:33 AM ^
With the Colorado School of Mimes
August 17th, 2010 at 10:45 AM ^
Must be infuriating.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:39 AM ^
if they're off duty.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:32 AM ^
Colorado School of Mines is an engineering college that, while small, is VERY good at what they do. That said, our engineering department blows them out of the water.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:39 AM ^
It's the College of Engineering with its own departments. You have to meet criteria to transfer in to it from LSA, unlike switching departments. Not getting elitist, just clarifying.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:47 AM ^
I was about to say the same thing...except I was going to get elitist while doing it.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:33 AM ^
I hope no one makes the mistake of thinking that U-M is "getting worse."
What's happening is that USNews keeps tweaking its formulas, and more schools are doing little things to game the system.
U-M is consistent and honest--and in the end it wouldn't surprise me to see us slide out of the top 30 for it. We're still as good as we've ever been--and in the recent financial climate, I'd say we've been able to move forward where our peers have stood still or weakened.
Interesting that high school guidance counselors put us at #22.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:33 AM ^
That sounds more fair. But these lists are generally meaningless. The major Ivies are always going to dominate the top five on reputation alone and similar well-endowed . . . ahem . . . private institutions usually dominate the top twenty. Where I think the list runs into questions is when schools like USC, UCLA, and UVA are listed above UM. They're all fine institutions, but shouldn't be ranked that high. Also, I'm not sure if the list specifies it or not, but this should be for only undergraduate education. When you look at UM as a graduate institution it surpasses most in the top thirty.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:36 AM ^
The M would definitely be higher on the list if it decreased the number of students it accepted. Per the rankings, Michigan admits 50% of applicants and has a higher total enrollment than each of the schools ranked ahead of it in the rankings.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:44 AM ^
That's true.
One reason our acceptance rate is so high is that unlike the other top publics, we take a LOT of nonresidents. Few top publics have as many non-resident undergrads as we do, and that really affects our admits. That's because attending U-M (or any large public) at non-resident rates can be a harder sell, so we don't yield as many of them. If you want to enroll ten residents, you don't have to admit very many Michiganders to fill those seats. But to fill ten seats with non-residents, that's a lot more admit letters that need sending.
Our paltry non-resident aid doesn't help matters, either.
It's a trade-off, of course. We get a lot of good from having a geographically diverse student body, so it's worth the hit we get on acceptance rate. What you hope USNews readers realize is that we have a pretty good applicant pool. Taking 50% doesn't mean you're dipping into your marginal apps, if your apps tend to be strong.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:54 AM ^
i think it is the other way around. out of state applicants are accepted at lower rates than in-state applicants, so they lower the overall acceptance rate.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:17 AM ^
Well, in a weird kind of way, both are true.
Thankfully, we have enough out-of-state applicants that it's a deep pool and there remain a lot of people who DON'T get admitted. BUT--do to lower yield rates among that group, we have to admit a lot more students overall than we would have to if we were aiming for a class that was, say, 85% resident.
I ran through some numbers in my response to Wichitan, below.
August 17th, 2010 at 9:56 AM ^
It sounds like you're saying because out-of-state tuition is so expensive, the U knows they can send a ton of acceptance letters to out-of-state kids, knowing that only a small portion will enroll (due to high tuition), thus driving up the acceptance rate.
On the other hand, if an in-state applicant receives their acceptance they're much more likely to enroll since the gap in cost between UM and the other schools in the state is much smaller (and UM is obviously the best school in the state), which can keep the acceptance rate low?
I had never thought of it that way, but it makes a ton of sense.
Thanks, Feat of Clay. That's the Michigan Difference.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:15 AM ^
Yeah, let me throw some math out there, so you can see what I mean, and how ish's point is right as well. These are FAKE numbers, obviously.
Let's say residents (who rightfully see U-M as a huge bargain (and get 100% of their need met if they need aid) have a 90% yield. Admit 10, nine will enroll.
And let's say non-residents (who acknowledge U-M as awesome BUT have to pay a lot more to go there than their own homestate flagship, and might get worse aid than they would other private options) have a 50% yield rate. U-M is just not as feasible or attractive, relatively speaking, for some of those families. So when you admit 10, five will enroll.
Say you have 3000 applicants (1000 resident, 2000 non-resident) and want your freshman class to be 1000 students. If you wanted an 80-20 split, you'd have to admit 888 residents and 400 nonresidents. That's an overall admit rate of 43% (1288/3000).
Now say you decide you want to have a 50-50 split. Then you admit 555 residents and 1000 non-residents to get there. Your admit rate becomes 52% (1555/3000).
It's still true, as ish points out, that your admit rate for non-residents is smaller than for residents, and improves your overall average (you're admitting just half of them in the second example, while admitting 56% of your residents). BUT your larger target for non-residents has really cranked up the number of students you have to admit.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:40 AM ^
I remember seeing somewhere within the last year that the in-state acceptance rate was about 60%.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:14 AM ^
So this is really a trade-off, right? The school can lean toward having a resident-heavy class and thus lower acceptance rates (higher prestige), or flip it and have a non-resident heavy class and "hurt" the school in the rankings while raking in more dough due to the egregious OOS tuition?
This leads to my next question: I heard awhile ago that the school must maintain a student population of X% (67, maybe?) residents in order to maintain eligibility for state funding. I remember reading in the Daily a few years ago that this is NOT true whatsoever, and that the school simply tries to maintain a balance on its own. I know you work for the U so can you tell me which is really true, and also estimate what the res/non-res split is at UM?
August 17th, 2010 at 1:27 PM ^
There was a time when legislators managed to put an absolute limit in the appropriations bill, but that got taken out and we haven't seen something like that in at least a decade, I think. There is no relationship between our funding and a limit on non-residents. We used to characterize it as a "gentleman's agreement" that the state wouldn't formally limit us, but we would observe an approximate 2/3 resident balance in the undergrads.
It's a little dicier now that we have term limits. Every few years someone new gets all fired up about the nonresidents U-M has and makes a bunch of noise about penalizing us for it and then it goes nowhere. U-M's stature and policies bring a TON of money and prestige in to the State of Michigan, and the wiser folks in Lansing know it's better to not to meddle too deep in U-M affairs. And honestly, no other public institution in MI would welcome such a limit, because if U-M increases its in-state population, it hurts them. We would skim right off the top of their student bodies.
Undergrad, we're about 65-66% resident.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:05 AM ^
The drop in rankings sucks. Fortunately, our grad schools, particularly in Engineering, Medicine, Law and Business excel and their excellence is recognized.
We are also a backup school for many super candidates who go to Ivy league schools and use Michigan as their safe school.
Does US News use costs of attendance as part of their process? l If so, we definitely get dinged as I believe Michigan to be the most expensive public university in the country for OOS students, a sore point for many of us with OOS addresses.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:40 AM ^
Doesn't use cost IIRC, which is evident by the predominance of all the Ivies, which run around $50k/year for tuition, room & board.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:13 AM ^
I only did a quick glance to see where Vandy was this year and then decided to see how the other Big Ten schools were ranked. Did I read it correctly that State is the lowest ranked Big Ten school? Wow!
August 17th, 2010 at 10:21 AM ^
August 17th, 2010 at 10:18 AM ^
I can't open this at work for some reason. Can someone let me know where they have M ranked vs. the other Public Universities? I'm more interested in hearing about the comparison between Michigan and other public universities as that seems a little more fair. When I first went to Michigan back in 1998, I'm pretty sure Cal was the highest ranked public school and in the top 10. M and UCLA were tied for 4th (or maybe 5th) and in the top 25. It sounds like the changes they've made to their methodologies over the years have really hurt large public institutions as M isn't the only one to consistently fall...
August 17th, 2010 at 10:37 AM ^
1. Berkley
2. UCLA/UVA (tie)
4. Michigan
5. UNC
6. William and Mary (i didn't know that is public)
7. Ga. Tech/UCSD (tie)
9. UCSB/UC Irvine (tie)
frankly, i don't know anyone who considers UCLA a better school than michigan.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:03 AM ^
Thanks. Michigan definitely has a better reputation than UCLA and there's no doubt that UVA does, as well. Now that I look at it, I think most people would probably consider UNC a better school, too. This whole methodology seems screwy to me.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:55 AM ^
All in the top 50, then Big Ten schools
12. Northwestern
22. UC-Berkeley
25. UCLA, UVA
29. Michigan
30. UNC
35. Ga Tech, UC-San Diego
39. UC-Davis, UC-Santa Barbara
41. UC-Irvine, U of Washington
45. UT-Austin, Wisconsin
47. Penn State, Illinois
56. Ohio State, Purdue
64. Minnesota
72. Iowa
75. Indiana
79. Michigan State
104. Nebraska
August 17th, 2010 at 11:01 AM ^
Well Northwestern isn't a public school, but they are of course in the Big Ten, which is probably why you added them.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:48 AM ^
http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/how-much-longer-can-u-m-remain-elite-instit…
Some of you sure pitched a lot of lies in here, like "it's getting harder to get into U-M, not easier". Acceptance rate was at 42%, now its at 50%, with increased class sizes.
August 17th, 2010 at 1:30 PM ^
Well, acceptance rate isn't necessarily a straightforward measure. For one thing, it can be harder to get in to Michigan if the application quality goes up. And the acceptance rate may say more about the residency mix than how much U-M is scraping the bottle of the proverbial barrel.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:52 AM ^
Goood for reference but to be taken on their word. When factors such as financial aid and graduation rates factor into the ranking then you can't say US News truly ranks academic quality of the school. Some schools (ahem, Brown and a bunch of others) are incredibly easy academic, have huge grade inflation and they just give a degree to whoever goes there after they get in.
Same thing with MBA rankings, a lot of things that don't make sense in those very often.
August 17th, 2010 at 10:51 AM ^
Does anyone know where to find the true academic rankings?
August 17th, 2010 at 10:57 AM ^
I usually dismiss U.S. rankings and put more stock into world rankings.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:12 AM ^
It's right by the Coors factory and when the wind is just right the campus is treated to the wonderful aroma of brewing beer.
August 17th, 2010 at 3:10 PM ^
As always, one category - "Alumni Giving Rate" - drops us like a stone, as it does for all public universities.
August 17th, 2010 at 8:39 PM ^
Just and FYI, not trying to be a jerk, but the various U. California schools are not "extension campuses." UCLA and the others are nothing like UM-Flint (not that there's anything wrong with UM-Flint).
August 17th, 2010 at 11:52 PM ^
A lot of Michigan's strength is its graduate schools. We're a great undergrad but our grad schools are top notch.